9Th Annual New Partners for Smart Growth

9th Annual New Partners for Smart Growth:

Building Safe, Healthy and Livable Communities Conference

February 4 - 6, 2010 – Seattle, WA

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

Please note: the LGC has made every attempt to collect a brief biography from each speaker participating in the conference. However, as of January 28th, there are still a few bios missing from this document.

Adrianna Abariotes

Joining LISC in 1999, Ms. Abariotes, Executive Director, Twin Cities Local Initiatives Support Corporation (TC LISC), leads one of its most creative and robust local offices, focused on shifting toward more collaborative approaches, growing diverse leadership, and strengthening regional community development capacity. With nearly 20 years of experience, she holds a B.A. from Macalester College and M.A. from University of Minnesota.

Norman Abbot

Norman Abbot has been with the Puget Sound Regional Council for 17 years. He manages a team responsible for the Council’s Growth Management Program and also serves as the agency’s Environment Officer. Norman has worked as both a city planner and a regional planner. Prior to the Council, he was Community Development Director in Fort Wayne, Indiana and the City Planning Director in Portland Oregon. Norman has a BS in Geography, a Masters Degree in City and Regional Planning, and a Doctorate in Urban Design and Planning.

Seema Agnani

Seema Agnani, Executive Director, was one of the initial founders of Chhaya CDC - a community-based organization in Queens, New York, working primarily with new immigrants. She has over 15 years of experience in housing, community development and immigrant rights advocacy in the nonprofit and public sectors.

Julie Early-Alberts

Julie Early-Alberts is Program Manager of the Health Assessment and Consultation Services, Oregon Office of Environmental Public Health. She oversees Oregon's Health Impact Assessment Program as well as other programs making connections between environment and health.

Erin Aleman

Erin Aleman, senior planner with the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning, has been leading CMAP’s public engagement activities for the GO TO 2040 plan. Erin is a graduate of the University of Michigan and the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs at Cleveland State University.

Bob Allen

Bob Allen is the director of the Transportation and Housing Program at

Urban, a regional environmental justice organization that works in partnership with low-income communities and communities of color to advance social, economic, and environmental justice in the Bay Area region and beyond.Mr. Allen received both his BA in Political Science and History as well as his MPA from Rutgers University.

Clark Anderson

Clark directs the Sonoran Institute’s Western Colorado Legacy Program, bringing to the job a decade of experience working with communities to align land use planning, community design and resource conservation. Clark holds a bachelor’s in biology from the University of Colorado and a master’s in geography from the University of California, Davis.

Stephen Antupit Stephen Antupit is a Senior Associate with MITHUN. He has 20 years of urban design and neighborhood redevelopment experience in creating vibrant, walkable communities that are resource-smart, climate-intelligent, and transit-focused. As a public servant and professional consultant, he frames policy, program and physical design responses that promote ecological, social, and economic resilience. As a citizen and collaborator, he seeks, identifies, and translates design opportunities and responses to stimulate invention and leverage durable connections among diverse stakeholders who comprise urban communities.

Geoff Appel

Geoff Appel, AICP, LEED AP is a Certified Planner and LEED® Accredited Professional with the planning and engineering firm Reid Middleton in Everett, Washington. Mr. Appel specializes in sustainable site planning, master planning, infrastructure planning, and land use and in-water permitting for public and private sector clients.

Danielle Arigoni

Danielle Arigoni, AICP, is a Senior Policy Analyst in EPA’s Smart Growth office. Her work there focuses on the affordability and environmental benefits of more compact, green housing and redevelopment. Ms. Arigoni represents EPA on the Affordability subgroup of the HUD-DOT-EPA Partnership for Sustainable Communities, and is the principal author of “Affordable Housing and Smart Growth: Making the Connection” and co-author of “Getting to Smart Growth: 100 Policies for Implementation” and “Smart Growth for Coastal and Waterfront Communities.”

Alan Arthur

Alan Arthur has served as the president/CEO of Aeon since 1988. Alan oversees the organization’s 1,705 units of affordable homes in the Twin Cities metropolitan area and brings nearly 40 years of experience in housing and real estate development, including construction, project development, lending, code enforcement and city planning. He earned a BA in political science from Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. Alan teaches affordable housing development, financing and organizational governance issues to a variety of organizations, and serves on numerous local housing boards and task forces.

Lucia Athens

Lucia Athens, LEED AP, ASLA is the author of the new book, Building an Emerald City: A Guide to Green Building Programs and Policies, published by Island Press. Lucia has over 20 years of experience leading public and private organizations to embrace green building and low impact development practices.

Erick J. Aune

Erick J. Aune is the Director of the La Plata County Planning Department in Colorado and the former Director of Planning for Aztec, New Mexico. He completed his M.S. at Michigan State University with a degree in Natural Resource Development. He has over thirteen years of land use planning experience in the Southwest.

Katherine Baer

Katherine Baer is Senior Director of American River’s Clean Water Program, where she leads federal clean water policy work on reducing sewage and storm water and increasing green infrastructure. Before joining American Rivers she worked as a policy analyst for the legal think tank the Center for Progressive Reform andas Director of Headwaters Conservation for the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper in Georgia. Katherine has an M.S in Conservation Ecology from the University of Georgia, her JD from the University of Maryland, and a BA in Environmental Studies from Stanford University

John Bailey

John Bailey is the policy director for 1000 Friends of Minnesota where his focus is state and metropolitan policy reform that supports smart growth. He has worked at the federal, state and local level on a variety of smart growth initiatives in the Midwest and on the coasts.

Sonali S. Balajee

Sonali Sangeeta Balajee is the Program Manager for the Health Equity Initiative in the Multnomah County Health Department. The Health Equity Initiative’s mission is to eliminate the root causes of social injustices leading to racial and ethnic health inequities.

Sonali moved to Portland in 1999, from Bloomington, Indiana, where she earned a graduate degree in Education and Reform from Indiana University. She also obtained a BA in Business from the same college. She has been working in areas of social justice, community engagement of diverse populations, and policy development in Portland since 2000.

M. Scott Ball

Scott Ball is a Senior Project Manager with Duany Plater-Zyberk Architects and Town Planners (DPZ). Mr. Ball has managed several major post-storm redevelopment efforts along the gulf coast for DPZ. Mr. Ball has been actively engaged in the promotion of the independent living and health of aging citizens, and has authored the “Aging In Place Tool Kit” and “Lifelong Communities: A Regional Guide to Growth and Longevity” for

The Atlanta Regional Commission, as well as co-authored the “Land-use and Public Health Toolkit” for the National Association of Local Boards of Health. Mr. Ball received a BA from Bowdoin College and M. Arch. from Yale University.

Kalila Barnett
Kalila Barnett became ACE’s Executive Director in February 2009. She was previously a Senior Organizer at Community Labor United and served on ACE’s Board of Directors for 5 years. She is a Roxbury native and lifelong resident of Boston. Kalila graduated from Bates College in 2001 with a degree in American Studies and Spanish. She has also worked at Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation and Madison Park Development Corporation, organizing around community development issues and affordable housing in the Roxbury and Jamaica Plain area. Kalila was also the field director for a local city council campaign in 2005.

Laura Barrett

Ms. Barrett has been a community organizer for more than 20 years. She is currently the National Policy Director for the Gamaliel Foundation and the Transportation Equity Network (TEN). She has helped groups to win millions in public transportation funding and helped groups to negotiate community benefits agreements and positive workforce development policies on the state, local and federal level. She holds a Master's in Social Work from Washington University.

Charlie Bartsch

Charlie Bartsch has nearly 30 years experience in economic and community development. Currently he is Senior Fellow for Community Development at ICF International, and serves as ICF’s Brownfield expert. He is a nationally recognized authority of emerging public-private and state and federal Brownfield financing and process initiatives. Prior to joining ICF in 2006, he was Director of Brownfield Studies at the Northeast-Midwest Institute, based in Washington, D.C.

Subrata Basu

Subrata Basu, AIA, AICP has forty years of experience in both public and private sectors directly related to land planning and development. As the Assistant Director for Planning in Miami Dade County Department of Planning and Zoning, he directs and supervises all the Long and Short Term Growth Management initiatives.

Leonard Bauer

Leonard Bauer is Managing Director of Growth Management Services at the Washington State Department of Commerce. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners, and a Certified Park and Recreation Professional.

Patricia Beard

Patricia Beard is Redevelopment Manager for the City of National City, California, a San Diego suburb. “She has 20 years of experience in community development, the most recent 10 years being focused on leveraging resources for Brownfield projects. “Pat” is a graduate of Michigan State University.

Constance Beaumont

Constance Beaumont manages Education and Outreach for the Oregon Transportation and Growth Management Program (TGM). Before joining TGM, Ms. Beaumont served as Director for State and Local Policy at the National Trust for Historic Preservation. She has written extensively on land use, transportation, and historic preservation issues. Her publications include: Better Models for Superstores: Alternatives to Big Box Sprawl; Smart States, Better Communities; and Why Johnny Can’t Walk to School.

Gordon Beck

Mr. Beck is the Director of the School Facilities and Organization department for the Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. Gordon has broad state, municipal, and educational administrative background, and specializes in policy planning and development, along with program implementation. Mr. Beck’s previous experience includes K-12 classroom teacher, community college administrator, city and county parks and recreation director, and Washington State Department of Natural Resources administrator.

Judith Bell

Judith Bell oversees policy development, strategic planning, program implementation, and policy campaigns as President of PolicyLink, a research and action institute focused on advancing social and economic equity. She also leads the work of PolicyLink as the Program Directorof the national Convergence Partnership. Bell has extensive experience advancing policy change at the local, state and federal levels.

Lisa Bellefond Lisa Bellefond, Director of Federal Government Relations, The Nature Conservancy, oversees the Conservancy’s federal government affairs and public grants fundraising program in Washington. Her duties include lobbying at the federal level and she brings over ten years of expertise in collaborating with nonprofits, state and federal agency partners to protect and restore habitats for endangered species recovery

Rob Bennett

Rob is the executive director of the Portland Sustainability Institute, a new organization to accelerate the adoption of smart and transformational sustainability practices in the Portland region. Prior to founding PoSI, Rob was the residential and cities policy manager for the Clinton Climate Initiative and worked for the cities of Portland and Vancouver, BC for 8 years leading sustainable development program and policy development.

Autumn Bernstein

Autumn is responsible for overseeing ClimatePlan's activities and managing its day-to-day operations. She is the author of several publications including, most recently, Dangerous Development: Wildfire and Sprawl in the Sierra Nevada. Autumn graduated from UC Davis with a B.S. in Conservation Biology. She is a fourth-generation Californian and recently moved to Sacramento.

Stephanie Bertaina

Stephanie Bertaina is a Policy Analyst with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Smart Growth Program in Washington, D.C. Stephanie received an M.S. in Environmental Policy and Planning from the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment in Ann Arbor, Michigan and Bachelor degrees in Biology and Psychology from Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California.

Tim Bevan

Tim Bevan, P.E., is the Principal Technologist and Project Manager for CH2M HILL’s Transportation Business Group in Bellevue, Washington. He has 30 years of experience in transportation planning and design. He is a national expert in application of sustainability to transportation infrastructure projects, including defining sustainability options for urban streets projects.

Lyle Bicknell

Lyle Bicknell is a senior urban designer with the City of Seattle's Department of Planning and Development. His specific areas of expertise include street and open space design, and creating successful, walkable communities. Before joining the City of Seattle Lyle worked in the private sector as an architect and urban designer. Lyle currently heads Seattle’s neighborhood and station area planning team. He received his architecture degree from the University of Washington College of Architecture and Urban Planning.

Dave Biggs

Dave Biggs has been a pioneer in the use of computer tools to engage stakeholders in discussions about sustainable futures. He is a co-developer of MetroQuest, a Sim-City-type software that has been applied to cities on four continents. Dave is an internationally recognized facilitator and author on sustainability and the role of scenario tools in inspiring positive change.

Douglas Bisson

Mr. Bisson serves as HDR’s Community Planning Manager and has expertise in urban design and redevelopment. He is an expert in bringing together key city leaders, business owners, and residents to stimulate economic development and neighborhood revitalization through the use of environmentally friendly, pedestrian-oriented, mixed-use development practices. He was the Project Manager for several notable initiatives within the region, including the Downtown Omaha Master Plan, Aksarben Village, Destination Midtown, the North Downtown Redevelopment Plan, and the Omaha Streetcar Feasibility Study. In addition, Doug serves on numerous community-based boards.