AICP CM 1.5 | ASLA 1.5 PDH | AIA 1.5 LU-HSW

Through case studies and best practices, this panel discussion will highlight real-world examples of successful and poor transportation connectivity within communities. Economic, land use, safety and policy choices will be examined to identify opportunities to improve transportation connections to foster a better economy, better serve the area's population, and improve access to employment and services. Panelists will address the reduction of transportation-related fatalities through effective use of data, education, enforcement and engineering; performance of connections within mixed-use districts; critical land use policies to enhance and create connections; the changing nature of bus transport; and best practices for bicycle and pedestrian connections.

Cody T. Christensen, STV Incorporated

Cody T. Christensen, AICP is a Senior Transportation Planner with STV Incorporated. He has over 15 years of transportation planning experience with expertise conducting transit, corridor, traffic impact, and bicycle and pedestrian circulation studies. Cody is adept at ridership forecasting, route and service planning, and transit feasibility assessments for light rail, commuter rail, streetcars, bus rapid transit (BRT), and bus operation for both urban and rural areas. He has a Bachelor of Science in Geography from Utah State University and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners. At STV, he has worked with agencies including Virginia Railway Express, the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA), DDOT, the City of Alexandria and others to advance major transportation investment projects and initiatives in the region including the City of Alexandria’s MetroWay BRT project, which includes a 0.9-mile dedicated BRT guideway, the Maryland Area Regional Commuter (MARC) Growth & Investment Plan Update for MTA and the Purple Line light rail project in Montgomery County.

Veronica O. Davis, Nspiregreen, LLC

Veronica O. Davis, PE is transportation nerd who uses her knowledge to spark progressive social change in the community. Currently, She is a co-owner and Principal Planning Manager at Nspiregreen LLC. In July 2012, the White House recognized her as a Champion of Change and Transportation Innovator for her professional accomplishments and community advocacy in the District of Columbia. Veronica is one of the co-founders of Black Women Bike (BWB), an organization and movement that encourages African American women to use biking for health and wellness as well as an alternative form of transportation for commuting. She holds a dual Masters Degrees (Engineering Management and Regional Planning) from Cornell University and a B.S in civil engineering from the University of Maryland. She is a registered professional engineer in the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia.

Grace E. Fielder, G.E. Fielder & Associates

Ms. Fielder is the founder and President of G. E. Fielder & Associates, Chartered established in 1991. Ms. Fielder has 46 years of experience is a qualified expert witness in planning, landscape architecture and parks and recreation. Ms. Fielder is responsible for the development of written and oral testimony for special exceptions, zoning map amendments, comprehensive design plans, master plans and urban renewal plans and feasibility studies. Ms. Fielder's projects have included town centers, industrial centers, office complexes, residential including lsingle-family, town homes, multi-plexes, apartments, back-to-back units. Experience also includes stream valley parks and trail, regional parks, ADA compliance and citywide tree plans.

Anita Morrison, Partners for Economic Solutions

With 38 years in development consulting, including the last seven years as Founding Principal of Partners for Economic Solutions, Anita Morrison has specialized in public/private partnerships, real estate advisory services, market analysis and redevelopment strategies. She applies her understanding of real estate economic fundamentals to questions of development, redevelopment and smart growth. Anita has worked extensively throughout the Washington and Baltimore regions, testing potentials for transit-oriented development, preparing strategies for affordable housing development, and providing market and financial inputs to small area plans. She recently prepared an in-depth analysis of the office market in Montgomery County and the metro area. She earned a Masters of Public Policy degree from the University of Michigan.

Karina Ricks, Nelson-Nygaard Consulting Associates

Karina likes to put things together. Her professional career has spanned issues of international democracy and women's economic empowerment to national environmental policy to municipal land use and transportation planning. Karina works to plan and implement infrastructure investments and transportation system approaches that advance local values around strong, sustainable and inclusive communities. After nearly two decades in public service, Karina applies her experience working with governments, campuses, corporations and innovators throughout the nation and internationally. She is a graduate of Michigan State and Cornell Universities and lives in Washington, DC with her husband and two young children.

AICP CM 1.5 | ASLA 1.5 PDH | AIA 1.5 LU-HSW

Employment centers and affordable housing have shifted from downtown to suburban locations, presenting access challenges for residents trying to reach jobs, educational institutions and health care. Some metropolitan areas are approaching this problem through strategic transit network designs. This session highlights a case study of such a transit plan in the Baltimore region, tracing its development and examining some of the data analysis used to identify opportunities and gaps. Speakers will also focus on bridging the gap between people and opportunity in the region, while also discussing the future of Title VI in the Baltimore transportation context.

Sandy Davis, Foursquare ITP

Sandy Davis is a Senior Transportation Planner at Foursquare Integrated Transportation Planning (Foursquare ITP) with four years of experience in in regional transportation operations, research and policy development with a specific focus on geographic information systems (GIS), community outreach, and qualitative and quantitative research design. Her previous work has focused on local and commuter fixed-route bus service, transportation demand management, and local and federal policy compliance. Sandy holds a Master of Community Planning degree from the University of Maryland, College Park and a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Brian O'Malley, Central Maryland Transportation Alliance

Brian O’Malley began his career in urban planning in Chicago with a non-profit, industrial economic development organization called NORBIC. He also served on the Board of Directors of the Neighborhood Capital Budget Group, a watchdog organization focused on winning capital infrastructure improvements for Chicago neighborhoods. In 2003 Brian relocated to Maryland and joined the Planning Department of Carroll County. He served for two years as a Comprehensive Planner working on local comprehensive plan updates, a hazard mitigation plan for the County, and acting as a liaison planner to the towns of Hampstead and Manchester. In 2006 Brian was promoted to Concurrency Manager, overseeing Carroll County’s adequate public facilities program. He currently serves as the President and CEO with the Central Maryland Transportation Alliance. Brian is a member of the American Planning Association and the Urban Land Institute. He holds a B.A. in Spanish from Duke University and a Masters in Urban Planning from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Brian was born in Red Bank, New Jersey and raised in Bellevue, Washington.

Ajmel Ahsen Quereshi, NAACP Legal Defense Fund

Ajmel Quereshi is Assistant Counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, where he litigates a wide variety of civil rights cases. His writings have appeared in several legal journals and newspapers and his cases have been featured by the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Guardian newspaper. In 2010, the Maryland Daily Record named him one of the top legal and business leaders in Maryland under the age of 40. He is a past recipient of the Skadden Fellowship and has clerked for federal judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland.

Adam Recchia, Foursquare ITP

Adam Recchia is a Senior Transportation Planner with experience in transportation planning, transit service planning, land use planning, travel demand modeling and geographic information systems (GIS). He has worked at the state and regional levels on transit, bicycle and pedestrian, land use and corridor planning projects. Adam started his career working in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. He has been a lead on several multi-modal corridor studies in Massachusetts, as well as several transit development plans and transit service studies in the greater Washington, DC area, West Virginia, and Charlotte, NC.

AICP CM 1.5 | ASLA 1.5 PDH | AIA 1.5 LU-HSW

A public housing authority’s ability to provide affordable housing in the suburbs will be examined through its organizational structure and programs. Topics of discussion include converting public housing to local ownership; financing through government and private funds; educational programs in partnership with a local college; and providing residents services and support to maintain units. Housing commissioners on the panel will share how they are repositioning their portfolio of existing properties and looking for new opportunities to supply affordable, mixed-income housing in the suburbs.

Kayrine V. Brown, Housing Opportunities Commission

Kayrine V. Brown, Chief Investment and Real Estate Officer, has been employed with the Housing Opportunities Commission of Montgomery County (HOC) since 1998. She served as Director of Mortgage Finance for six years during which she managed HOC’s Multifamily and Single Family Bond programs. In addition to her management of the Mortgage Finance functions, Ms. Brown is also responsible for the acquisition and development activities of the Real Estate Division at HOC, which currently has nearly $1 billion of active real estate development transactions in the pipeline. Prior to joining HOC, Ms. Brown worked as a Financial Analyst in the Real Estate Asset Management Division of Archon Group, LP, an affiliate of Goldman Sachs, and as a Senior Financial Analyst in the Affordable Housing Finance Division of Ocwen Financial. Ms. Brown has over 20 years experience in the area of real estate finance that includes the structuring of complex transactions with multiple funding sources. Ms. Brown holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Baruch College, City University of New York and a Master of Business Administration, with concentration in Finance, from the University of Florida.

Zachary Marks, Housing Opportunities Commission

Zachary Marks, is the Director of New Development at the Housing Opportunities Commission (HOC). Mr. Marks is directly responsible for the execution of the acquisition and development activities of the Real Estate Division at HOC, which currently has nearly $1 billion of active real estate development transactions in the pipeline. He has over ten years experience in real estate acquisition and ground-up development preserving and delivering a combination of market rate, mixed-income, and affordable housing in more than a dozen major markets throughout the United States. Mr. Marks has seasoned expertise with multiple financial instruments and structures including tax-exempt bonds (both publically sold and privately placed), 4% and 9% Low Income Housing Tax Credits, Payment in Lieu of Taxes, Tax Increment Financing, HOME funds, Total Return Swaps, hedges, conventional private equity and debt, mezzanine financing, and many other sources of soft funding. Mr. Marks received his MBA from UNC Chapel Hill with a concentration in Real Estate. He also holds a master’s degree in Education from Johns Hopkins University and an undergraduate degree in Journalism from the University of Richmond.

AICP CM 1.5 | ASLA 1.5 PDH | AIA 1.5 LU-HSW

An increasing number of Americans are taking a do-it-yourself, proactive approach to their golden years by choosing housing with a built-in social support system. This session will discuss this aging-in-community approach through case studies of citizen-led housing and community building. Panelists will explain how this collaborative development can improve design of the physical environment, lower healthcare costs and enhance social relationships among residents. They will show how senior cohousing can foster healthy aging outcomes through improved socialization and increased access to health care and shared programs, such as exercise classes and community meals.

Janice M. Blanchard, Aging Better Together

Janice Blanchard, MSPH, is passionate about creating livable communities for all ages and abilities. She is President of the collaboratory, Aging Better, Together, and editor of the recently published book, Aging in Community (2013). For 20+ years Blanchard has worked in academic, government & non-profit organizations to promote a positive culture of aging. She is the chief social architect for numerous projects, such as the Age Matters Initiative for City and County of Denver and Silverprint Colorado for the State of Colorado. Her scholarship and leadership in the grassroots aging in community movement has been noted, quoted and published in such publications as the New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, Today’s Geriatric Medicine, and Generations. When not burning the midnight oil to research, write and connect the dots in trends in aging, Janice can often be found curled up in her steampunk library with a glass of merlot, her little dog Coco, and a Rick Steve’s guidebook, plotting her next travel adventure.

Wendy Willbanks Wiesner, Partnerships For Affordable Cohousing

After a career as a technology executive, Wendy pursued a graduate degree in Economics and discovered the beauty of employee-owned firms and cooperatives. Wendy was also heavily involved in the community, and it was clear to her that housing was not well-positioned to weather the economic, social and environmental challenges ahead. Wendy thought that just as employee-owned firms and cooperatives had proven themselves to be more profitable and resilient than bureaucratically managed firms, cooperatively-managed and owned housing could more effectively and affordably meet ever-evolving human needs. This kind of housing is not new; cohousing came from Scandinavia to the U. S. over 30 years ago, and this import built upon the near 100 year-old legacy of the housing cooperative. Yet, the costs and benefits must be more well understood for cohousing to become available to those who need it the most. Thus Partnerships for Affordable Cohousing (PFAC), a national non-profit organization, where Wendy is the ED. Bringing together the cohousing sector, affordable housing industry, non-profits, foundations, developers, financial intermediaries and policy makers to support and create cohousing--the work.

Ann Zabaldo, Mid-Atlantic Cohousing

Ann is a passionate promoter of cohousing. She is the past president of The Cohousing Association of the United States; co-founded and currently serves on the Board of Directors for Mid Atlantic Cohousing; served on the development team for both Eastern Village Cohousing in Silver Spring, MD and Takoma Village Cohousing in Washington, DC, where she lives with 65 adult neighbors, 20 children, 9 dogs and too many cats. Her for-profit development company, Cohousing Collaborative, in Falls Church, Virginia, develops cohousing in the DC area. Because of the extraordinarily deep social capital found in cohousing communities Ann believes cohousing is a key player in providing long term living arrangements for aging in community. Sometimes called "The Modern Village" the people who come together to create these cohousing communities are strangers to each other when they begin the process and deeply connected before they turn the key in the door. Cohousing: communities as if people mattered.

AICP CM 1.5 | ASLA 1.5 PDH | AIA 1.5 LU-HSW

Suburban office parks suffer from high vacancy rates, single-use settings and inefficient buildings. This session will examine the challenges of these auto-oriented locations and discuss ways of reviving them through enhancing connectivity and amenities, improving sustainability and diversifying uses. Local case studies of office parks will be presented to highlight planning strategies and policies. A session presentation on suburban federal campuses will explore how government enclaves are being reshaped to meet current office and security needs, and offer opportunities for community and economic development.

Deborah Kerson Bilek, ULI Washington

Deborah Kerson Bilek is the Director of Community Outreach at ULI Washington, a district council of the Urban Land Institute, where she manages a host of programs in service if ULI’s mission, which is to provide leadership in the responsible use of land and in creating sustaining, thriving communities worldwide. As part of her responsibilities, she directs ULI Washington’s Technical Assistance Panel (TAP) program. TAPs provide expert, multidisciplinary advice to public agencies facing complex land use and real estate issues in the Metropolitan Washington Region. Prior to joining ULI, Ms. Bilek worked as a planner with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. Ms. Bilek began her career as a Presidential Management Fellow with the Federal Transit Administration, where she also had the opportunity to serve a professional rotation with the US House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations. She earned her Masters degree in Public Administration from New York University, and her undergraduate degree in Anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis. Ms. Bilek resides in Silver Spring with her husband and two young kids.

Andrea Gilles, Montgomery Planning Department

Andrea Gilles is a Planner Coordinator with the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC). She is currently leading the Rock Spring Master Plan process in North Bethesda, MD. Ms. Gilles has been a planner for 10 years, working in both the non-profit and public sectors. Prior to joining M-NCPPC in 2013, Ms. Gilles was a neighborhood planner engaging communities along the South Texas-Mexico border and with the City of San Antonio, Texas.

David B. Levy, City of Rockville

Mr. Levy serves as Chief of Long Range Planning and Redevelopment with the City of Rockville, Maryland. Mr. Levy’s division manages comprehensive, neighborhood and topic-specific master planning, among other responsibilities. Previously, Mr. Levy was a key facilitator for the development and launching of Rockville Town Square, a mixed-use public-private transit-oriented project in downtown Rockville. In prior positions, Mr. Levy has been an Assistant Commissioner in Baltimore City’s Department of Housing and Community Development; Brownfields Project Coordinator for the City of Baltimore; and Special Assistant to the Mayor of Quito, Ecuador. He has also been a consultant to government agencies on strategies for community and economic development, including interactions with transportation and environmental policy, in a wide range of domestic and international settings. For the past year, Mr. Levy has served as Chair of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments Planning Directors Technical Advisory Committee. Mr. Levy has a BA in History from the University of Pennsylvania and a Master’s Degree in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School.

Jennifer R. Mahony, Office of the Director of National Intelligence

As the Director of Facilities for the Mission Support Division at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), Ms. Mahony leads a diverse group of program, facility, resource and strategic planning professionals that manage close to two million SF of real property across the WMA and provide executive oversight to almost half a billion dollar’s worth of facility property and programs. She manages a core group of officers that are responsible for all facets of facility and property management, as well as guides the execution of strategic plans for capital construction and maintenance and repair requirements for ODNI facilities. Ms. Mahony reviews projects from conception through construction, ensuring they align with congressional appropriations and environmental initiatives and formulates strategies to resolve technical deviations, execution methods and other trade-off decisions to ensure cost and schedules are maintained. She leads the development and effective communication of ODNI facilities requirements in interactions with external agencies, host military installations, design firms and private industry contractors regarding large-scope, multi-million dollar projects.

Mina Wright, U.S. General Services Administration

Mina Wright is the founding Director of the Office of Planning & Design Quality at the National Capital Region of the General Services Administration. A new office created in 2010 to improve the design of GSA's Washington real estate holdings, OPDQ is staffed by architects, engineers, urban and regional planners, interior designers, historic preservationists, fine arts specialists and environmental compliance experts whose work touches nearly all of NCR’s 100-million sf portfolio. Prior to joining GSA in 2009, Ms. Wright was Director of Programs at the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Director of the Design Arts Program at the National Endowment for the Arts, Curator of Exhibitions & Design at the National Building Museum, and Director of the Preservation Office at the White House. She currently serves as the GSA representative on the National Capital Planning Commission.

AICP CM 1.5 | ASLA 1.5 PDH | AIA 1.5 LU-HSW

Computer software and online platforms are helping to broaden citizen engagement in the community planning process. This session will explain how social media, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogs, can be used to build community and advocacy in the suburbs, and attract more people to get involved in local planning issues. New ways of starting the public conversation about affordable housing and mixed-use development will be explored in a presentation about community workshops using three-dimensional virtual modeling exercises. The speakers will explain how this “gamification” of the public process brings new voices to the table and illustrates development tradeoffs in a tangible, visual way.

Adam Lubinsky, WXY architecture + urban design

Adam is a Principal at WXY, with more than 12 years of experience working with a range of clients, including all levels of local, county, and national governments in the US and the UK, community development corporations, cultural institutions, and private developers. Adam’s particular strengths are in developing urban design frameworks, social infrastructure assessments, and leading community engagement and participatory design processes. Key projects include the East River Blueway, a master plan for Manhattan’s waterfront, a novel development impact assessment for New Rochelle, the creation of a new school assignment policy for the Boston Public School system, and the implementation of an engagement platform that integrates visual simulation with immediate quantitative feedback. Adam also led planning efforts for the Brooklyn-Queens Waterfront, in collaboration with the NYC Mayor’s Office and Economic Development Corporation during the Special Initiative for Rebuilding and Resiliency after Hurricane Sandy. Adam is currently on a faculty member at Cornell University and The New School and a Board member of New Partners for Community Revitalization.

Dan Reed, Just Up The Pike

Dan Reed is an urban designer at Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates, a transportation planning firm. For ten years, he's written about planning and design issues in Montgomery County for his own blog, Just Up The Pike (www.justupthepike.com), and Greater Greater Washington (www.ggwash.org). His writing has also appeared in publications including the New York Times, Washingtonian Magazine, and the Atlantic CityLab. He lives in downtown Silver Spring.

Justine Shapiro-Kline, WXY architecture + urban design

Justine is a Senior Planner & Urban Designer at WXY, an architecture and planning firm based in New York City. Her projects range from community-oriented architecture and urban design, to planning and design for resilient communities, to developing engagement software that combines 3D visualization with continuous, data-based feedback. Justine came to WXY with a diverse background in both the public and private sectors, including work at Rogers Marvel Architects, the New York City Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, and the New York City Department of City Planning. Justine received both an M.Arch. and M.S. in Urban Planning from Columbia University and her A.B. from Harvard College.

Pete Tan, Silver Spring Inc.

A marketing monkey with a penchant for exaggeration and the absurd, Pete Tan emerged from the Potomac in 1980 when a drop of Titan blood hit the Washington's river's waters. Taming a flock of morning pigeons, Pete led a migration to Silver Spring in 2008, enthused by the diversity, strong sense of community, and wonderful non-Bethesdaness. The continuing wave of development, while helping grow the area, threatened characteristic, small businesses that called Silver Spring home. Upon seeing a vision of David Caradine in the sweet, cream-filled center of a Twinky left over from 1987, Pete was called to create Silver Spring Inc, a branding and marketing agency specializing in small and medium sized businesses with a focus on Silver Spring. Since founding Silver Spring Inc in 2014, Pete has drawn upon over a decade of digital marketing experience, the goodwill of the indomitable neighbors of Silver Spring, and the Silver Sword of Pericles, a sacred, enchanted sword which he pulled from a stone at Acorn Park. Imbued with expertise, resources, and a Don Quixote-like self-delusion, Pete has hailed himself a champion of Silver Spring businesses.

AICP CM 1.5 | ASLA 1.5 PDH | AIA 1.5 LU-HSW

Measuring the impact of traffic is important for determining the viability of land use and transportation goals. This session will look at new metrics that challenge conventional means of analyzing automobile travel and provide a more complete understanding of multi-modal transportation performance. These methods include determining the traffic impacts of mixed-use infill and transit-oriented developments, and the inherent linkages between land use and transportation. The presentation will include findings from research on trends related to changes in per-capita travel and a demonstration of a tool that composes scenarios for these trends and their effects on future vehicle miles traveled.

Anjuli Bakhru, Fehr & Peers DC

Anjuli has four years of experience in regional and local planning, as well as transportation engineering. Anjuli is a native of Silver Spring, MD and graduated from the University of Maryland’s Civil Engineering program.

Eric Stephen Graye, Montgomery County Planning Department

Eric Graye is a certified professional transportation planner at the Planning Department of Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission with more than 30 years of experience in land use/transportation planning with a focus on long-range travel demand forecasting and transportation policy.

Alex Rixey, Fehr & Peers DC

Alex Rixey, AICP has diverse, multimodal transportation and land use planning experience ranging from single development sites to regional plans. He has managed or led technical efforts including travel demand modeling; transportation and parking studies; master plan, transit neighborhood plan, and mobility element development; and data analysis and visualization, emphasizing analysis of the effects of built environment and demographic characteristics on demand for all modes of travel. Alex has led several local- and regional-scale bikesharing studies and developed a model to forecast station-level bikesharing ridership; his research is published by the Transportation Research Board. Alex has also helped clients develop and adopt multimodal transportation performance measures that incorporate land use, transportation, and accessibility factors for auto, transit, bicycle, and pedestrian modes as alternatives to the conventional, auto-oriented Level of Service metric. Alex recently led Fehr & Peers’ evaluation of Montgomery County, MD’s transportation analysis tools and is managing the firm’s development of a bicycle parking demand model for San Diego County, CA.

AICP CM 1.0 | ASLA 1 PDH | AIA 1.0 LU/HSW

Autonomous, self-driving vehicles will become a reality within the next few decades, potentially transforming the infrastructure needs of cities and suburbs. Attendees at this lunchtime session will learn about these changes and the implications of driverless vehicles on land use planning, real estate, car ownership, parking, roads, community patterns and development. Discussion on this topic will include ways to plan and prepare for a future with autonomous vehicles.

Adam F. Ducker, RCLCO

Adam Ducker joined RCLCO in the mid-1990s as an associate directly after graduate school, and learned the trade with the firm. He is a recognized expert in economic development, market and financial analysis; positioning, repositioning, and marketing of real estate assets; consumer research; and corporate strategy development. He has particular depth of expertise in high-density housing, retail/entertainment, and hotel development. He also focused on the interrelation of transit and land use, and transit-oriented development opportunities. Adam currently heads RCLCO’s Urban Real Estate Advisory Group. The Urban Real Estate Advisory Group is distinguished by sophistication in forecasting housing, retail/commercial, and hospitality demand in revitalizing cities, suburbs and development corridors. The Group’s unique value add is an understanding of the unique set of circumstances that create vibrant mixed-use environments including transit-oriented development, and in the financing mechanisms and public-private partnerships that are relied upon to achieve them.

Wes Guckert, The Traffic Group, Inc.

Wes Guckert founded The Traffic Group in 1985. He is an expert in traffic engineering and transportation planning – a technical adviser in traffic analysis, traffic signal design, traffic circulation, access studies, automated and robotic parking systems, and transit planning. Since founding TTG, Wes has played a major role in more than 7,000 projects; directing the design and implementation of traffic access systems throughout the United States and internationally, from Canada, Mexico, and the Bahamas, to Indonesia, Dubai, South Africa, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and China. He often serves as an expert witness, testifying before County and Municipal Boards, Local and Federal District Courts, and Planning Commissions on traffic engineering and transportation planning issues. Wes currently serves as Chairman for Urban Land Institute’s (ULI) Public Development Infrastructure Council (PDIC). He is also frequently asked to speak, judge, or provide commentary at top industry conferences, award programs, talk radio, and in trade journals.

AICP CM 1.5 | ASLA 1.5 PDH | AIA 1.5 LU-HSW

Transportation network companies such as Uber or Lyft offer alternatives to traditional taxi and transit service in many cities. This session will look at the impact of these on-demand systems on mass transit ridership and the regulatory environment, and how planners can integrate services like Uber into multi-modal transportation networks. Case studies of flexible suburban transit services, such as dial-a-ride and ride-share, will be discussed, along with the pros and cons of publicly and privately provided systems, and ways of equitably planning these systems across service areas.

Lora Byala, Foursquare ITP

Lora Byala is the Founder, President, and CEO of Foursquare Integrated Transportation Planning. She has worked in both the public and private sectors over her 20 year career, primarily on public transit planning of all types. As the president of Foursquare ITP Lora is involved in some capacity in most of the projects conducted by the firm, which include transit development plans, bus operations plans, transportation demand management plans, and regional transit and vision plans. She focuses on providing strategic direction related to analysis, innovative planning techniques, and coordination with public sector clients and their stakeholders. Lora previously worked for WMATA in the long range planning office where she managed the regional planning section. Lora is an active member of the TRB committee on bus transit systems and is a member of the Women’s Transportation Seminar, where she was named Woman of the Year in 2011 and Foursquare ITP was named company of the year in 2015. She received bachelors’ degrees in transportation engineering and urban studies from the University of Pennsylvania and a Master’s degree in Transportation from MIT.

Peter Hadley, Foursquare ITP

Peter Hadley is a Transportation Planner with Foursquare Integrated Transportation Planning. His diverse set of past experience helps to inform his current work in transportation planning. This includes experience in both the public and private sectors, as well as project management, urban redevelopment, and real estate consulting. His current work at Foursquare includes assisting with projects such as transit development plans, fleet management plans, transit data analysis, and map-making. Peter previously worked for Jones Lang LaSalle, providing real estate consulting services to the firm’s public sector clients. Prior to attending graduate school, Peter worked for the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority, helping the City to strategically sell blighted and abandoned properties. He also has internship experience with the Maryland Transit Administration and the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission. Peter received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame, and a Master’s degree in Community Planning from the University of Maryland.

Charles Hostovsky, Catholic University of America

Dr. Charles Hostovsky is a professor of City & Regional Planning at the Catholic University of America and a full member of the Canadian Institute of Planners. His areas of research include Sustainable Infrastructure, Environmental Planning, New Urbanism/Smart Growth, Transit-Oriented Development, Travel Demand Management, Sprawl and the Obesity Epidemic, Public Engagement, and planning for Aboriginal communities. His most recent research grants involve environmental planning in India and sustainable water resource management in Cambodia. Previously he was on faculty at the University of Toronto for 15 years.

Sharada A. Strasmore, Catholic University of America

Sharada Strasmore is currently working towards her Master's degree in City and Regional Planning from The Catholic University of America. Her interest in intracity transportation has led to her research in how new technologies are transforming transportation. While pursuing her Masters at Catholic University, she has been working at Goldman Sachs. Previously, Sharada worked at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a think-tank located in Washington, DC. Sharada graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Public Policy from Wheaton College in Norton, Ma.

AICP CM 1.5 | ASLA 1.5 PDH | AIA 1.5 LU-HSW

Growth policy for suburban areas must consider the impact of new development on the costs and capacity of public schools to accommodate increasing numbers of students. This session will discuss measuring the effects of suburban development through data-driven techniques to accurately forecast the need for additional school infrastructure. Lessons from suburban areas outside two major cities will be presented to convey the different approaches to policies governing suburban growth and school impacts associated with new transit-oriented, multi-family housing development. The session will also provide an overview of Montgomery County's subdivision staging policy – the mechanism through which the county ensures adequate school infrastructure before approving new development.

Bruce Crispell, Montgomery County Public Schools

Bruce is director of the Division of Long-Range Planning for Montgomery County Public Schools. He has been with the schools system since 1984, during a period of rapid enrollment growth and changing demographics. Bruce’s responsibilities include demographic analyses and enrollment forecasting, facility planning, capital programming, and community involvement. As part of these activities Bruce represents school system interests in county land use planning and growth management.

Laurel Donaldson, WXY architecture + urban design

Laurel Donaldson is a Senior Urban Planner and Project Manager at WXY architecture + urban design with specialties in strategic planning, fiscal impact analysis, real estate development strategy and social infrastructure planning. Her work focuses on generating creative urban policy and development strategies for public sector and non-profit clients. Key projects include the North Brooklyn Brownfield Opportunity Area Study, an industrial Food Innovation District plan for Detroit Eastern Market, and a novel public school capacity impact study for the City of New Rochelle. Prior to WXY, Laurel served as a Policy Innovation Fellow in the Boston Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics, where she managed the Mayor’s initiative to engage young public school women in STEM and led product development for civic-sector mobile applications. Prior to this, Laurel worked in research management for the Eurasia Group, an international political risk consulting firm that advises U.S. companies on geopolitical risks to business operations abroad. Laurel holds a M.A. in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.A. in Political Science from Duke University.

Pamela Dunn, Montgomery County Planning Department

Pamela Dunn is currently the Chief of Functional Planning & Policy for the Montgomery Planning Department. She has worked at the Planning Department since 2006. She began her tenure as a Planning Researcher in the Research and Technology Division where she worked extensively on the Transferable Development Rights, and Building Lot Termination programs. She has coordinated and drafted several editions of the Subdivision Staging Policy, while also maintaining current information on school adequacy and infrastructure. For the past few years Ms. Dunn led the rewrite of the County’s zoning ordinance. Prior to joining the Planning Department, Ms. Dunn worked on land use and agricultural policy for the Economic Research Service, the University of Maryland, and Mathematica Policy Research. Ms. Dunn received both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of Maryland, College Park.

George M. Janes, George M. Janes & Associates

George Janes is a planner with 22 years of experience developing and implementing demographic, land use and socioeconomic forecasting models for the public, not-for-profit and private sectors. A frequent collaborator with WXY, Mr. Janes has been in private practice for the past eight years and has developed projection models for dozens of municipalities including Boston, Houston, New York City, Detroit, New Rochelle, as well as many suburban and rural communities. For school enrollment planning, Mr. Janes applies techniques that merge traditional school enrollment methods with data that are more commonly used in transportation planning and socio-economic forecasting to produce small area school enrollment projections that inform both facility planning and the students’ journey to school. Mr. Janes obtained his BA from the University of Michigan and his MUP from Wayne State University in Detroit.

Adam Lubinsky, WXY architecture + urban design

Adam is a Principal at WXY, with more than 12 years of experience working with a range of clients, including all levels of local, county, and national governments in the US and the UK, community development corporations, cultural institutions, and private developers. Adam’s particular strengths are in developing urban design frameworks, social infrastructure assessments, and leading community engagement and participatory design processes. Key projects include the East River Blueway, a master plan for Manhattan’s waterfront, a novel development impact assessment for New Rochelle, the creation of a new school assignment policy for the Boston Public School system, and the implementation of an engagement platform that integrates visual simulation with immediate quantitative feedback. Adam also led planning efforts for the Brooklyn-Queens Waterfront, in collaboration with the NYC Mayor’s Office and Economic Development Corporation during the Special Initiative for Rebuilding and Resiliency after Hurricane Sandy. Adam is currently on a faculty member at Cornell University and The New School and a Board member of New Partners for Community Revitalization.

AICP CM 1.5 | ASLA 1.5 PDH | AIA 1.5 LU-HSW

How can we balance competing interests in terms of mixed-use redevelopment in suburban business districts? Can we achieve positive results? Attendees at this session will learn of two highly successful mixed-use, suburban projects involving close collaboration among the county planning agency, community residents and developers in addressing building designs, traffic management and other issues. Discussion will focus on how and why these collaborations were successful, pointing to tools and strategies that could be applied to similar projects in other communities.

Melodie Bahan, Artspace

Melodie Bahan joined Artspace as Vice President of Communications in January 2012. She has since led the creation of a new website, developed consistent branding, managed press relations and increased social media presence for the organization and its projects in development. Prior to joining Artspace, she served as the Director of Communications at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, overseeing all media relations, publications and the Guthrie website. During her 10 years at the Guthrie, she supervised press relations for all aspects of the Theater, including the work on the stage and the opening of the new Jean Nouvel-designed theater complex on the banks of the Mississippi River. Before moving to Minnesota, Melodie spent 10 years in New York, serving as the president of the NY chapter of the National Organization for Women. She worked in community relations for the New York City Comptroller as well as on several political campaigns. Melodie has worked as a freelance journalist and a columnist in the Twin Cities. She has served on the Minnesota News Council and the advisory board of Pillsbury House Theatre, and is currently on the board of the Film Society of Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Jonathan Carr, Grosvenor Americas Development

Jonathan E. Carr is Senior Vice President of Development and focuses on new acquisition and development opportunities in the Washington metropolitan region as well as ongoing development projects in the Capitol Riverfront neighborhood and Silver Spring, MD. Jonathan returned to Grosvenor in 2014 after working with the company’s Washington, DC and San Francisco development teams from 2007 through early 2013. An active member of the Urban Land Institute, Jon holds a B.A. degree from Middlebury College and an MBA in Real Estate Finance and Development from the University of North Carolina.

Elza Hisel-McCoy, Montgomery County Planning Department

An urban designer and architect by training, Elza is the regulatory supervisor for review of development applications in Montgomery County inside the beltway. He likes cool stuff.

Reemberto Rodriguez, Silver Spring Regional County Services Center

Reemberto is the Silver Spring Regional Area Director for Montgomery County government. In this role he is the 'eyes and ears' of the community for the County - and vice versa. He oversees the work of the Urban District Operations; and the work of three Advisory Groups. The role also requires Reemberto to interact extensively with developers and the community, as well as coordinate community engagement form major and minor infrastructure projects. Before coming to the County 6 years ago, Reemberto worked with NeighborWorks America throughout the country in the Training Department, Field Operations, and Risk Management. He has a Masters Degree in Architecture; and another in Community Development from Georgia Tech and Georgia State, respectively. Reemberto lives with his family in Silver Spring.

Karen Roper, East Silver Spring Citizens Association

Ms. Roper serves as the liaison for the community to developers and the Planning Staff. This work has led to the pioneering of the Micro to Macro© process of community outreach. Her proposal to the Executive Branch on behalf of the community focused attention on the need for artist housing and workspace and led to the Artspace project on Sligo Ave. Ms. Roper is a founder and current President of Fenton Village, Inc. (FVI), a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting and preserving the 200+ independent businesses in Fenton Village. FVI evolved from a community effort to brand Fenton Village through events such as the Taste the World in Fenton Village and Best of Fenton Village. Ms. Roper received a Community Hero Award from the Montgomery County Civic Federation for “….for her defense of the right of residents and small business owners to participate in government decision making which impacts the quality of life in the East Silver Spring /Fenton Village Community.”

AICP CM 1.5 | ASLA 1.5 PDH | AIA 1.5 LU-HSW

The future 16-mile Purple Line will extend from Bethesda in Montgomery County to New Carrollton in Prince George’s County, providing a direct connection to Metrorail, MARC and Amtrak train service, and local bus routes. With twenty-one stations planned and various developments proposed for station areas, will the Purple Line increase access to opportunity or be a threat to existing community stability? This session will debate the potentially positive and adverse changes stemming from the light rail line and how the strategies and action items in the Purple Line Compact will address those changes.

Tom Hucker, Montgomery County Council

Councilmember Tom Hucker was elected to the Montgomery County Council in November of 2014 representing the Council’s 5th District. Tom now serves on the Council’s Transportation, Infrastructure, Energy, and Environment Committee, as well as on the Public Safety Committee. He also serves as the Council’s Lead Member on the Environment. Tom’s entire career has focused on helping people make government more responsive and effective — first as a community organizer and environmental advocate, as founder of Progressive Maryland, for two terms representing District 20 in the Maryland General Assembly from 2006 to 2014. He serves as a board member of the Progressive States Network, and a consultant for the Natural Resources Defense Council. Since 2006, Tom has authored and passed over 40 major bills, including historic living wage laws, employee discrimination protections, environmental reforms, and more. Tom lives in Silver Spring with his wife Amy, a clinical social worker who works on behalf of at-risk children and families, and their two children Sam and Will.

Deni Taveras, Prince George’s County Council

Deni Taveras has represented District 2 on the Prince George’s County Council since December 2014. This year, Deni serves on the Planning, Zoning and Economic Development (PZED) Committee and is the vice chair of the Health, Education and Human Services (HEHS) and Transportation, Housing and the Environment (THE) Committees.

Joel Teitelbaum, Greater Lyttonsville Community Coalition

Born 1940 in St. Louis, MO. My Father's Airforce career meant many family moves. Montgomery County resident since 1956; Montgomery Blair HS graduate. B.A. High Honors/SCL Brown University Fulbright Fellow England/Woodrow Wilson Fellow- M.A. (Econ); NIH post-graduate Fellow - Ph.D. in Social Anthroplogy & Sociology U. of Manchester; Rockefeller Foundation Environmental Science Fellow- M.Sc. Public Heath at U. of N. Carolina; Taught behavioral/Public Health/environmental sciences at U.S. Universities; Sr. Fullbright Fellow North Africa; Regional Planner Morocco/Senegal; Research Planner in Sudan for World Bank/USAID project; Food/Nutrition Health Planner, USDA; Sr. Famiy/Community Researcher- Walter Reed Army Institute of Research - Civilian Meritorious Award; U.S. Census Bureau- 2010 Census in Montgomery County MD. Memberships: Fulbright Association Board Member; member Lyttonsville/Rosemary Hills Community Coalition, Silver Spring Village. Family Resident of Rosemary Hills since 1979; my wife was a local small business owner/operator; we raised 2 children here; our married son is now Sr. Film Editor Discovery Channel living nearby w/his wife & child in Silver Spring, MD, 20910.