Antonia Castro-Graham

Assistant to the City Manager; Energy and Sustainability Manager
City of Huntington Beach, California

Antonia has 18 years of experience working for local government.  Currently she is the Assistant to the City Manager for the City of Huntington Beach where she oversees a variety of administrative programs including leading the City’s Citizen Academy, Intergovernmental Relations, and all environmental and sustainability related programs.  Ms. Graham also leads regional efforts and leads the award winning Orange County Recycling Market Development Zone, which is an economic development program aimed at creating an innovative circular economy.

Ms. Graham has successfully secured millions of dollars in grant funds for the City of Huntington Beach and recently partnered with the University of California, Irvine and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to create an advanced energy community in a disadvantaged part of the City. 

Additionally, Ms. Graham oversees the City’s Smart City program one of the only programs of its kind in the County.  After leading the acquisition of 11,000 streetlights from Southern California Edison, she led the effort to work with telecommunications carriers to embark on deploying smart city solutions that will improve city services and connectivity for residents.  This includes the deployment of 200 Smart Fusion Poles, a first-of-its-kind smart pole that will be deployed in the City – the 1^st in the nation.

She holds a BA in Political Science and American Studies, an MPA with a concentration in Public Finance, and a Master’s degree in Sustainability from Arizona State University.  Ms. Graham also teaches courses focused on sustainability at California State University Fullerton and Irvine Valley College.  Ms. Graham recently had a case study published in the book, Sustainable World: Approaches to Analyzing & Resolving Wicked Problems and was selected as the Arizona State University School of Sustainability Alumni of the Year (2018).