Year of graduation: 1983

Major: Geography (Transportation)

Minor: History

 

 Employer: Frederick County Government

 Position: Chief of Comprehensive Planning

 

Did you/do you currently go to graduate school?:

 School: University of Maryland at College Park

 Program: Urban Studies & Planning

 Degree: Master of Community Planning

 

Initially I was interested in mapping skills and geographic analytical techniques. Later I focused on Transportation Geography which ultimately led to an internship and my first professional planning position.

 

I began as a transportation planning intern with the District of Columbia Office of Planning (DC-OP) where later I was employed under contract until early 1985. While at DC-OP I prepared “transit access studies” at newly opened and planned Metrorail stations in Washington, DC. I also served as an alternate on the Technical Committee for the Transportation Planning Board at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG), which provided an introduction to regional transportation planning. I worked on my first local comprehensive plan during this period with the District of Columbia.

 

I currently direct long range comprehensive planning for the Frederick County, Maryland Division of Planning & Permitting. Frederick County is the largest county in Maryland in terms of land area (total area of 667 square miles / 1,730 km2) and our population is approximately 249,000 persons. Previously, I was Deputy Director of Infrastructure Planning for the Maryland Department of Planning in Baltimore, MD. 

 

To learn more about Livable Frederick: www.livablefrederick.org

 

 

Seek creative internships, even in non-traditional and non-governmental sectors. Geographic skills are needed in many new businesses, start-ups and in non-traditional industry sectors. People with geographic skills are building apps and platforms daily for transit agencies, tourism, housing and other sectors. Explore these while still in school and find out how your skills might be used in the creative and sharing economy (beyond being an Uber driver).

 

Find ways to renew the places where you live now or plan to live. Use your geographic skills to advance new ideas in the creative economy. If you begin doing this in school it will make the transition to the outside world more seamless after graduation.

 

Be creative in your thinking and how you can use your geographic skills. Also, join local or professional groups and organizations where your skills can be put to use such as organizations in your community. These can be invaluable to long term career advancement because of the contacts that you will meet. If you have an entrepreneurial streak, seek some capital, build a partnership and launch a start-up or build an app that addresses a specific function.

 

Recognize that government and many of the traditional sectors for geographers are changing rapidly. Seek opportunities outside government including work with nonprofits and startup businesses. Recognize that Walk Score, Opportunity Score and other new creative apps and analytical tools were usually created by programmers with geographic skills. These types of tools are needed throughout the country and in sectors that traditional geographers never considered.

 

Seek these creative opportunities out and begin to create these types of tools yourself. These avenues can be much more lucrative than spending time on social media sites and also you can use the range of social media and crowdsourcing sites to promote your new app or concept, which is a much better use than swapping memes with friends.

 

I miss the stimulating speakers and lecturers who broadened my world view and career options while I was an undergraduate in College Park. From Jim Rouse to Margaret Mead to Edwards Deming, my understanding of the world and the complex factors involved in what would become my field in urban and regional planning were expanded considerably from these and unique personalities and other noted experts and speakers that I saw on campus.

 

I also miss the extraordinary basketball games, practice sessions and the great college basketball traditions that I experienced at Cole Field House. I still make several trips a year to watch Men and Women basketball games at the Xfinity Center on what were cow pastures when I was an undergraduate in College Park. I like the enthusiasm of the student section and I appreciate the

opportunity to catch up with other University of Maryland alumni.

 

I am Vice President on the Executive Committee of the Maryland Chapter of the American Planning Association. http://www.apamaryland.org/ I am also a member of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) http://www.trb.org/Main/Home.aspx and the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) https://www.planning.org/aicp/ .

 

I spend much of my non-work hour’s road bicycling (between 3,000 to 5,000 miles a year). I also teach, perform and occasionally record 6 & 8 string acoustic steel guitar (Dobro) which I have played since I was in high school.

 

Please check out our Livable Frederick Vision and Comprehensive Plan effort and feel free to leave your comments and recommendations for future livability and sustainability in hip and historic Frederick County, Maryland: 

 

Thank you David for sharing all your insight. We apprciate your great advice.Good Luck!