Discovering Sustainability in Existing Plans

Bio: Julia is the founding Coordinator and Weaver for the Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN), a private professional network of 115 North American municipal government sustainability professionals. USDN enables members to easily exchange information and collaborate to advance their practice. The result is that members are able to more quickly develop and share solutions that improve the natural and built environment, infrastructure, economy, health, and resilience of local communities. Julia’s career in public service and sustainability has spanned public, private, publishing and non-profit sectors, including a strong mix of strategy and implementation. For the first 16 years of her career, Julia Parzen was a foundation program officer for conservation and employment (The Joyce Foundation); a triple bottom line entrepreneur (co-founder and Chief Executive Officer, Working Assets Money Fund); and a leader in state government energy financing (Deputy Director of Office of Policy, Planning, and Research, Department of Business and Economic Development, State of California) and federal government design of financing programs (Acting Branch Chief of Industrial Analysis, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency). She has taught courses and design studios on development finance, industrial policy, and financial innovation at UC Berkeley and was an adjunct faculty member at the UIC Center for Urban Economic Development while writing her book Credit Where It is Due: Development Banking for Communities (Temple University Press, 1990). She also co-edited Enterprising Women with Sara Gould (OECD, 1990) and co-authored Financing Transit Oriented Development with Abby Siegel, a chapter in The New Transit Town: Best Practices in Transit-Oriented Development, edited by Hank Dittmar and Gloria Ohland (Island Press, 2004). Since 1994, Julia has provided strategic research, program design, learning design and facilitation to governments, foundations and nonprofit organizations pursuing sustainable development. Julia was the chief advisor to the City of Chicago on the development of its Climate Action Plan. She has coordinated USDN for 4 years. Julia Parzen has been chair of the board at Working Assets Investment Company, Muir Investment Trust, Center for Neighborhood Technology, I-GO Car Sharing, Akiba-Schechter Jewish Day School, and Newberger Hillel Center at the University of Chicago. She currently serves on the board of Delta Institute.

Education: MBA, University of Chicago BA in Chinese Economics, University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana

Key Publications: Credit Where It is Due: Development Banking for Communities (Temple University Press, 1990) Enterprising Women with Sara Gould (OECD, 1990) Financing Transit Oriented Development with Abby Siegel, a chapter in The New Transit Town: Best Practices in Transit-Oriented Development, edited by Hank Dittmar and Gloria Ohland (Island Press, 2004)

Other Publications: Lessons Learned: Creating the Chicago Climate Action Plan Chicago's Guide to Creating an Energy Efficiency and Conservation Strategy Chicago's Quick Guide to Adaptation

Bio: Sustainability Associate at the City of Ann Arbor Key projects: Developing a sustainability action plan, creating a community-scale energy efficiency strategy for rental housing units, and coordinating the Michigan Green Communities network

Education: Masters of Urban Planning, University of Michigan; Bachelors of Sociology, Brown University

Past Assignments: 2011 Michigan Green Communities Conference; 2012 Michigan Green Communities Leadership Academy; 2012 Forwarding Adaptation in the Great Lakes Region Workshop; 2012 National League of Cities Conference

Bio: Matthew Naud is the Environmental Coordinator and an Assistant Emergency Manager with the City of Ann Arbor Systems Planning Unit. The Environmental Coordinator makes recommendations to the City Administrator, Mayor, and City Council on a broad range of environmental issues and staffs the City’s Environmental Commission. Recent projects include: • Developed state legislation enabling Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) programs (enacted December 2010) with the city Energy Programs Manager and developing the Ann Arbor PACE program and A2Energy.org site • Founding member of the Michigan Green Communities Network - partnership with MML and recent MDEQ P2 grant recipient to support sustainability across Michigan Communities • Developing a Sustainability Framework and Action Plan with a grant from the Home Depot Foundation. Progress to date includes reviewing 26 plans and 226 goals; one-page summaries of each plan and core goals; joint meeting with Energy, Environmental, Planning, and Parks commissions; and Sustainability Forums scheduled for January, February, March and April in partnership with the public library. • Partner with Washtenaw County on a $3 million HUD Sustainable Communities grant – focus on greening rental housing in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti in partnership with UM and EMU.

Education: MPP (Public Policy), University of Michigan 1990 MS (Biology), University of Michigan 1985 AB (Psychology), Boston College 1983

Bio: Chair of the City of Ann Arbor Planning Commission. Principal of Westphal Associates LLC, a downtown research and video production company located in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Education: MUP, University of Michigan; BSE, University of Pennsylvania

Other Publications: Creator of the documentary "Insights into a Lively Downtown"—one of the most widely-viewed urban planning videos online—as well as "The Great Street Toolkit."

Bio: Wendy Rampson, AICP, is the Planning Manager for the City of Ann Arbor, Michigan. In her 28 years with the City, she has managed projects in comprehensive planning, community development, transportation planning, development review and zoning administration. Currently, Rampson oversees the city’s planning, historic preservation and development review functions and is part of a team creating an action plan for the city’s newly adopted sustainability framework. Rampson has served as adjunct faculty to the University of Michigan's Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning.

Education: Rampson holds B.A. in urban studies and a M.U.P in urban and regional planning from the University of Michigan.

Past Assignments: In 2012, Rampson traveled to Indonesia with a U.S. delegation as part of the ICMA's Climate Change Fellowship to share strategies for addressing climate change in both countries.