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As a member of NALCAB’s executive leadership team, Levar Martin serves as Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer, responsible for overseeing and integrating NALCAB’s national grantmaking, technical assistance and capacity-building work in the program areas of Equitable Neighborhood Development, Small Business Investment, Family Financial Capability and CDFI/Lending. He also leads NALCAB’s national Rural Capacity Building (RCB) program and rural Revolving Loan Fund, as well as the annual National Training Institute and Leadership Development initiatives, including the Pete Garcia Fellowship program.

In addition, Levar oversees NALCAB’s contractual and fee for service work for providing technical assistance to government entities related to fair housing, federal entitlement programs, community engagement, analyzing and anticipating neighborhood change and housing policy.

Levar began his career with NALCAB as a Program Assistant, tracking the job creation and economic impact of a $137 million Neighborhood Stabilization Program and has since held multiple positions throughout the organization. Prior to leading NALCAB’s programmatic work, Levar grew the organization’s Equitable Neighborhood Development program by utilizing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to develop a methodology for analyzing and anticipating neighborhood change, including identifying vulnerability and gentrification.

Before joining NALCAB, Levar worked as a manager for a small business and intern with the City of San Antonio’s Department of Planning and Community Development, focusing on GIS. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology with a concentration in Urban Studies from Trinity University and a Master of Science in Urban and Regional Planning from the College of Architecture, Construction and Planning at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA).

Levar currently serves on Truist Bank’s Texas Advisory Committee, RAISE Texas’ Board of Directors and on the Small Business Displacement Advisory Board of the University of Maryland, College Park’s, National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education. He is the 2018 recipient of the Rising Star Award for Urban and Regional Planning from UTSA for his outstanding professional progression in the discipline of urban planning, and in 2019 completed the NeighborWorks America Achieving Excellence, Executive Education program, at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Areas of Expertise: Affordable Housing, Equitable Neighborhood Development, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) & Data Analysis, Leadership Development, Organizational Culture & DEI