Community-Scale Energy Planning

Bio: Mr. Graff manages the Office of Energy and Climate Change Initiatives for the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC), one of the nation’s largest and most respected Metropolitan Planning Organizations. DVRPC is the regional planning forum for the Greater Philadelphia region, with a focus on transportation, land use, the environment and economic growth.</br> In this position, Mr. Graff manages initiatives to reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions in the nine-county Greater Philadelphia region, and to prepare the region for the long-term impacts of a changing climate. A particular focus of this work is reducing energy use in municipal operations, developing tools and guidance for identifying, prioritizing, and implementing cost-effective strategies to reduce energy demand and curb greenhouse gas emissions in municipal operations. DVRPC’s work on climate change and energy issues is coordinated with municipal, county, state, federal, business, and non-profit organizations in the region and nationally. Mr. Graff represents DVRPC on numerous local, regional, and national initiatives, taskforces, and committees related to greenhouse gas, energy, and climate change issues, including two transportation research advisory panels for the National Academy of Sciences cooperative research programs, PECO Energy’s Act 129 Stakeholder Group, which develops energy efficiency programs. He serves by gubernatorial appointment as a member the State of Pennsylvania’s Climate Change Advisory Committee. Prior to joining the Commission in 2007, Mr. Graff served as Senior Project Manager at the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia. Prior to that he was an Associate Scientist in the Business and Sustainability Group at Tellus Institute in Boston, where he managed the creation of the Global Reporting Initiative, now the global standard for corporate sustainability reporting.

Education: Mr. Graff earned a Master of Public Affairs and Urban & Regional Planning degree from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Engineering Sciences modified with Anthropology from Dartmouth College.

Key Publications: Greater Philadelphia Regional Greenhouse Gas and Energy Use Inventory

Bio: Lindy (Belinda) Wordlaw is the Senior Planner at CNT Energy, a division of the Center for Neighborhood Technology. She is a certified planner with more than fifteen years of planning experience. Much of her work at CNT Energy is geared toward integrating the goal of sustainable energy use into mainstream planning processes. Starting in 2004, she led the Kane County Energy Solutions project, which predicted growth in Kane County’s energy demand (based on projected population growth and land use changes) and recommended strategies for mitigation. Recent projects have included a regional energy analysis for the seven-county planning area of the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP); the IL-APA award-winning Decatur Sustainability Plan; an Oak Park River Forest Baseline Metric Study, the Kane County 2040 Energy Plan, several municipal sustainability planning projects, and a project that provided energy and emissions profiles to all 276 municipalities in the Chicago metropolitan region. Formerly a planner for the City of Aurora, Ms. Wordlaw also has extensive experience building interest and convening stakeholders for neighborhood planning efforts. Her meeting facilitation and participatory planning expertise have been essential to CNT projects like TransopolyTM, the Milwaukee Avenue Corridor Development Plan and quality of life plans for Dubuque, Iowa and Joliet, Illinois. Past work with non-profit community development corporations in New York (The Enterprise Foundation), Detroit (SWAN Non Profit Housing Corporation) and Chicago (CNT; Cook County Community & Economic Development Agency) involved non-profit housing rehab, development and social services; and community organizing and outreach efforts around neighborhood and regional issues. Ms. Wordlaw was recently elected as the incoming chairperson of the Environment, Natural Resources and Energy Division.

Education: Bachelor of Arts in History, University of Illinois at Urbana, 1995; Master of Urban Planning, Hunter College of the City University of New York, 1997

Bio: Karen Ann Miller has been a Planner with the Kane County Development Department for over twelve years. She has a wide range of responsibilities from local and regional planning to leading a watershed organization and organizing a variety of County functions. Recent projects include the Kane County 2040 Plan, the Kane County 2040 Energy Plan, the Blackberry Creek Watershed Action Plan, The Kane County Sustainability Plan, the Kane County Green Infrastructure Plan, the update to the Village of Big Rock Comprehensive Land Use Plan and the Kane County Revolving Loan Fund for Energy Efficiency. Karen also provides planning technical assistance and education to local governments and organizations in Kane County. Karen is the past President of the Fox River Ecosystem Partnership and serves on numerous committees within Kane County Government and organizations throughout the region. She is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners, a commissioner for the Brookfield Plan Commission and active in the Brookfield Cool Villages Coalition and Brookfield Historical Society.

Education: Master of Urban Planning and Policy, University of Illinois at Chicago Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, Northern Illinois University

Past Assignments: American Planning Association Chicago Metro Section "Sustainability: Planning Strategies and Implementation Examples" Workshop