Meet a local planner (continued from previous page) connections I made by talking to people. A friend saying he had some consulting work spurred my move to northern California. The Tejon Ranch opportunity came through my contacts from my first planning job in Irvine. Planning is such a diverse field with so many sub-specialties. Don’t focus down too early, because opportunities to do something different come around all the time. Though I’ve spent most of my career based in the North Bay area, my planning assignments have stretched up and down California. They have included all sorts of interesting topics — that’s really the best thing about planning. With every new assignment, you learn about another industry or land use or species or, well, it could be just about anything, because they all affect the way we plan for our resources. Just like the definition of my degree, what we as planners do, is plan for man’s interaction with his environment. Interviewer Siân Llewellyn, AICP, has been with AECOM for more than 14 years. She is a vice president in the design + planning practice, and lives in San Francisco. n
CORRECTION The names of two tour participants were misidentified in the group photo on page 18 of the July-August issue. Susie (Suzanne) Lampert was incorrectly identified as Suzie Lampert, and Yoshi Kurihara was incorrectly identified as Yoshi During. Ms. Kurihara is the spouse of Stu During, also shown in the photo.
“Reflecting of a need to stabilize neighborhoods.” “Faced with waves of seniors and other vulnerable residents being evicted [from] their apartment buildings, San Francisco [will] start paying so some people can stay in their homes.” A recently rolled out pilot program, “apparently the first in the country, will provide city loans to groups like housing nonprofits from an initial pool of $3 million to buy smaller, low-income apartment buildings. The money is contingent upon keeping the units affordable and allowing the existing tenants to remain.” —John Coté, http://bit.ly/1oEo3SN
Northern News
6
September 2014