Since 1999 Schuchat has served as executive director of the Federation of Conservation Voter Leagues, a national association of state environmental political action committees, based in Oakland; on the board of directors of the California League of Conservation Voters, and as president of its Education Fund from 1986 to 1998; and as vice president of the California Fish and Game Commission. From 1989 to 1990, he was development director, then deputy director of the Sacramento AIDS Foundation.

Schuchat is a graduate of Williams College in Massachusetts, and holds a master’s degree in public administration from San Francisco State University. As a fundraising consultant, he has assisted the Mexican-American Alcoholism Program, Youth and Family Services, United Way, Legal Services of California, and other nonprofit organizations.

He currently serves on the board of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Security and the Environment, and on the Commission on Building for the 21st Century.

During the three-year tenure of Bill Ahern as executive officer, the Conservancy underwent enormous change and expansion. Its budget grew from $22 million for fiscal year 1998–99 to over $250 million for 2000–01. The number of Conservancy projects up and down the coast and on San Francisco Bay increased correspondingly.

The seven-member Conservancy is comprised of four public members—two appointed by the Governor, one by the Speaker of the Assembly and one by the President pro tem of the Senate—and three members who serve by virtue of their office: the Secretary for Resources, Director of the Department of Finance, and the Chair of the Coastal Commission. The last three may designate representatives to vote in their absence.