Laurance J. Freed - President, Joseph Freed and Associates, LLC, Palatine, Illinois

Karin O'Connor, CFA - Founder, Perimeter Advisors, Chicago, Illinois

Paul Slade - Chairman of the Board, President and CEO of Old Plank Trail Community Bank, New Lennox, IL

THE NCI COLLABORATIVE: TEAM MEMBERS

[ Please note that with the expansion of the NCI Collaborative, we have likewise expanded the scope of services that we offer. View details >> ]

Judith Anne Aiello has had over 32 years of municipal experience during which time she was the Assistant City Manager for the City of Evanston and responsible for the daily operations of the City’s departments of Community & Economic Development, Public Works, Health & Human Services, Library, Youth Initiative and Public Information. The City’s economic development activities focused upon four major areas: abandoned and/or underutilized industrial facilities; downtown and neighborhood commercial revitalization including the Northwestern University/Evanston Research Park; mixed used development and residential developments. Ms. Aiello directed the City’s role in land acquisition, commerical and residential relocation, remediation, site preparation, infrastructure imrovement and property management.

Ms. Aiello initiated and fostered partnerships with the private sector utilizing a wide range of economic development tools. A major effort was unertaken to create a positive developmnet environment with revisions to the City’s development process, zoning ordinance and new development plans for the downtown and neighborhood commercial districts.

Ms. Aiello received a B.S. from the University of Kansas, a Master’s of Urban Policy and Planning from the University of Illinois-Chicago and a Master’s of Public Administration from the University of Southern California. She attended the Kennedy School of Government Executive Development Program and particpated in a State and Local Government Fellowship with the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development in Washington D.C. Ms. Aiello is a member of the Urban Land Institute, Lambda Alpha and the American Planning Association. She has been a speaker at conferences for the Government Finance Officers Association, American Planning Association, Urban Land Institute and the International Council of Shopping Centers.

Rhonda Hardy is a seasoned professional with more than 30 years experience working and volunteering in communities, the business industry and educational institutions. As a Community and Economic Development specialist, Rhonda provides training and technical assistance in capacity building, economic empowerment, strategic planning, leadership and small business development. Rhonda has a proven ability to lead the implementation of major initiatives that address the diverse opportunities and challenges in urban communities.

Rhonda is a consummate believer in the power of partnerships as demonstrated by her ongoing work with public, private and non-profit organizations. Most recently she spearheaded a community-driven business assessment survey for the 87th and Cottage Grove Business TIF District. Rhonda has partnered with Education-to-Careers Program through the Chicago Public Schools, the Chicago Housing Authority, Small Business Development Centers, Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP), and the Business & Economic Revitalization Association. Rhonda currently serves on the Black Metropolis National Heritage Area Advisory Commission, Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce Workforce Education Committee, 17th Senatorial District Economic Development Consortium and the Christian Woman’s Outreach Ministries Board. Rhonda has served on the Special Allocations Committee for United Way, and the City of Chicago Special Task Force for Organic Living.

Rhonda has developed several innovative curricula on leadership, facilitation skills, financial literacy, entrepreneurship, strategic planning and career development. She is highly skilled in program development and has won several awards for projects, such as the Chicago Housing Authority Senior Technology Initiative; Chicago Fresh: Entrepreneurship for Urban Agriculture; and All My Money: Financial Literacy for Limited Resource Audiences.

Rhonda is president of Hardy, Inc. Community Development Consultants, an educator with University of Illinois Extension and is co-owner of Urban Comforts, Inc., a family-owned internet retail business. Her prior experience is as an instructor at The Academy of Technology and Design, a Product Research Specialist for Sears, Family Financial Counselor for Metropolitan Family Services and a Community Outreach Representative for Central Illinois Utilities. Rhonda earned her M.S. and B.S. Degrees from Southern Illinois University (School of Environmental Design); is certified in Volunteer Management and NXLevel Business Management; and is pursuing certification as an Economic Developer through the International Economic Development Council.

Former four-term Mayor of Indianapolis and Congressman, author, public speaker, TV commentator, think tank fellow, elected official, and clergyman, Bill Hudnut is a Senior Fellow Emeritus at The Urban Land Institute (ULI) in Washington, DC, managing partner of his own consulting firm, Bill Hudnut Consultants, LLC, and an associate with SGBlocks LLC.

Hudnut is probably best known for his sixteen-year tenure as Mayor of Indianapolis, 1976-1991. He managed a work force of some 4500 persons, with a budget over $450 million. A past president of the National League of Cities and the Indiana Association of Cities and Towns, Hudnut helped Indianapolis record spectacular growth during his sixteen years in office and sustain its Aaa bond rating throughout his tenure. His stated goal was to build a "cooperative, compassionate and competitive" city. He established "a national reputation for revitalizing his Midwestern city," (The Washington Post) and came to be regarded as "an entrepreneurial leader willing to take prudent risks" (The Toledo Blade). He spearheaded the formation of a public-private sector partnership that led to Indianapolis's emergence during the 1980s as a major American city. He was actively involved in private sector developments such as the $300 million Circle Centre downtown retail/entertainment complex, the negotiations to bring the Baltimore Colts to Indianapolis, the construction of the 36-story American United Life building in the center of the city, and $157 million worth of sports venues.

During his time at ULI, Hudnut chaired or participated in 15 Advisory Services Panels (charettes) from Sacramento to Ft. Lauderdale, from Dubai to Waukeegan, chaired one charette for the Mayor’s Institute of City Design, and organized and chaired 27 Mayors forums that brought together public officials, architects, developers, academics and other experts, to discuss the revitalization of cities, ranging from the impact arts and culture and parks and open space have on property values and a city’s quality of life, to affordable housing and urban design.

SGBlocks LLC is a company that converts empty shipping containers into building blocks for construction. The blocks are sturdy, energy efficient, affordable, green, quick to assemble, sustainable and customizable. The Company does business in many places, supplying hurricane- and earthquake-resistant building blocks for single- and multi-family housing, campus dormitories, military installations, six to eight story condos, senior residences, commercial buildings, and housing for electrical apparatus.

Hudnut sponsored seventeen bills that became public law as a Congressman. He has recently stepped down as Mayor of Chevy Chase, MD and as a twenty year member of the Board of the National League of Cities. He was a member of the Millennial Housing Commission appointed by Congress during 2001-2002. Prior to his entry into public life, as a clergyman he served churches in Buffalo, NY, Annapolis, MD, and Indianapolis, IN. After leaving the Mayor’s office, Hudnut held posts at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, the Hudson Institute in Indianapolis, and the Civic Federation in Chicago, before assuming his position with ULI in 1996.

A much sought-after speaker, "spirited...with high energy eloquence," (The Toledo Blade) Hudnut "gives life to the word charismatic" (The Cincinnati Enquirer). He is the author of Minister Mayor (1987), a book reflecting on his experience in politics and religion; The Hudnut Years in Indianapolis, 1976-1991 (1995), a case study in urban management and leadership; Cities on the Rebound (1998), an analysis of clues to the successful city of the future; Halfway to Everywhere (2003), a portrait of America’s first tier suburbs; and Changing Metropolitan America: Planning for a More Sustainable Future (2008), an analysis of such issues as decaying infrastructure, affordable housing, sustainable development, regional planning, urban retail, transportation and land use, and climate change. [Available through the ULI Bookstore: www.uli.org/Books.aspx] Through his writings and the programs he has organized, his work at ULI has concentrated on promoting responsible leadership in the use of the land and in building vital, sustainable metropolitan areas. Under his leadership, public sector membership in ULI doubled from approximately 2400 to 4700.

Hudnut is the recipient of many awards, including Princeton University's highest alumni honor, the Woodrow Wilson Award for public service (1986); City and State magazine's "Nation's Most Valuable Public Official"(1988); the Rosa Parks Award from the American Association for Affirmative Action (1992); and the Distinguished Public Service Award from the Indiana Association of Cities and Towns (1985).

Hudnut graduated from Princeton University with high honors and election into Phi Beta Kappa. He graduated summa cum laude from Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He has received honorary degrees from thirteen colleges and universities.

Learn about William H. Hudnut's upcoming book, Changing Metropolitan America: Planning for a Sustainable Future (.pdf) >>

Peter Kindel Peter J. Kindel AIA ASLA is an architect and city planner specializing in the design of cities and communities and their complementary relationship to environmental and transportation systems. In his twenty-year career, his projects have included mixed-use master plans, municipal plans, new communities, corridor plans, resort design, environmental planning, and the design of greenways and park systems. Currently the Director of Urban Design for Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture LLP (AS+GG), Mr. Kindel was formerly president of Topografis PC and an Associate Partner with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP in Chicago.

AS+GG has developed a significant record of providing clients with the most innovative architectural and sustainable concepts in the world. In addition to the design of Masdar Headquarters in Abu Dhabi, AS+GG was commissioned to complete a sustainable retrofit of Chicago’s Willis (formerly Sears) Tower. Recently, the firm developed the groundbreaking and comprehensive Chicago Decarbonization Plan to increase energy efficiency, reduce carbon emissions and improve the quality of life in the Chicago Loop.

Mr. Kindel specializes in large-scale, mixed-use development projects for public-sector, private-sector, institutional and professional-services clients. Mr. Kindel has addressed urban design and site planning issues in a variety of scales, from a National Plan for the Kingdom of Bahrain to design guidelines for American communities.

Mr. Kindel’s work is best represented by the concept of sustainable urbanism, and his projects seek to blend natural systems, infrastructure and architecture into compelling development solutions. Projects on which Mr. Kindel has worked have been honored with eight national design awards from the American Institute of Architects, the Urban Land Institute, and the Congress for New Urbanism among others. He has consulted on a variety of international projects with clients that include the American Planning Association, The Openlands Project and Chicago’s Field Museum.

With a degree in landscape architecture, Mr. Kindel strongly emphasizes environmental systems in his projects. He approaches all efforts with an appreciation for landscape forms and processes, and is dedicated to incorporating sustainable concepts in practice. His sustainable work was recently recognized with a first-place entry in the James River Green Building Council’s national competition for a brownfield redevelopment in Richmond, Virginia.

Mr. Kindel is active in Chicago’s civic affairs, serving on the boards of the Congress for New Urbanism, Illinois Chapter; Chicago’s Friends of Downtown; and IIT’s Center for Sustainable New Cities. He serves on the Mayor’s Landscape and Open Space Committee and the Greater North Michigan Avenue Association’s 21st Century Planning Committee. He has devoted significant hours to civic planning initiatives, most recently the Friends of the Park’s Last Four Miles project to complete Chicago’s public lakefront. Mr. Kindel also promotes sensible and sustainable land use decisions through writing and speaking, most recently with position papers in Crain’s Chicago Business and AIA Chicago Architect.

Jeff McVann serves as NCI’s “friendly drill sergeant,” making sure that we keep client projects on track and also providing needed office support. Although new to the field of planning and development, he’s been part of and reflecting on communities for much of his career and brings a thoughtful enthusiasm to our team. And, as he says about project management: “Nothing hones those skills like trying to get a daily paper out, with ever-changing content, priorities, contributors.”

Jeff spent 15 years as a newspaper editor, working for the Palm Beach Post, the Tampa Tribune, and the (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, where he rose to the position of Assistant News Editor. In that post he guided the planning and production of the daily coverage and long-term special projects for the national, local news and features sections, coordinating all aspects of the newsroom. He was often the designated Page One editor, responsible the content and accuracy of the entire newspaper on any given day. He has a degree in Journalism from Kent State University, where he was the editor of the daily campus newspaper, which won a William Randolph Hearst for its editorial writing during his tenure.

It was in the newspaper business that Jeff found his ideal work situation: group projects accomplished by people with widely varying skills that demanded intense attention to detail. The interaction in a newspaper office between writers, editors, photographers, graphic designers and pressmen – all bringing their diverse backgrounds, specialties and opinions to the table – was invigorating, made all the more so by the need to get it right, from the facts of the stories and making sure all the angles were covered to creating accurate maps and illustrations, all while facing a non-negotiable deadline. Working on stories ranging from breaking news to long-term projects – some as long as a year – kept things different and stimulating every day.

In Chicago, Jeff spent two years at a major financial institution where he helped transition nearly 7,000 commercial clients into the entity’s commercial banking system. One highlight of that project was developing a tracking document that helped error rates drop from nearly 12% to less than 1%.

Jeff is also an actor who has performed with various theaters in Chicago and Cleveland. He has also made two short films and had a role in a radio play produced for the BBC. Acting was another place where Jeff was able to take part in group projects, with actors, singers, dancers, directors, costumers, lighting/sound specialists and others using their diverse skills to the benefit of a larger project. He also makes – and has had published nationally – crossword puzzles – oddly, a very solitary pursuit. Perhaps that provides a little balance.

Lisa Thomas has gained experience as an architect and urban designer in many diverse contexts. Her professional work has included healthcare facilities, commercial offices and retail stores, to urban parks and neighborhood plans. She has sought out work at a wide range of scales, from building signage to entire neighborhoods and cities. Her academic experience has included design studios in Canada, the U.S., Thailand, Italy, Venezuela and Japan.

Most recently, Lisa worked in the urban design studio of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill's Chicago office. While at SOM, her key projects were the masterplan for Chicago State University, the Chicago Central Area Plan, and the Waukegan Lakefront and Downtown Masterplan Design Guidelines. Lisa played a key role in editing and preparing the final draft of the Chicago Central Area Plan, which was adopted by Chicago City Council in 2003 and won an American Institute of Architects Urban Design award in 2004. She was instrumental in drafting the Design Guidelines for the Waukegan Lakefront and Downtown Masterplan. The Guidelines and Masterplan won a Charter Award from the Congress for New Urbanism in 2005.

While Lisa has over ten years of experience in the professional fields of architecture and urban design, she is also actively involved in the academic side of the profession. She has taught in a diverse number of programs, from high school mentorship, to docent at Frank Lloyd Wright's Robie House, to a studio class for Harvard's incoming Master of Urban Planning Students. She has also been a studio guest critic for numerous architecture school reviews.

She earned a Master of Architecture in Urban Design from Harvard's Graduate School of Design. Prior to this, she received a Bachelor of Architecture from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, where she graduated with distinction.

She is a licensed architect and a member of the American Institute of Architects.

Ron Thomas, AICP, has had a career record of place-based planning and public policy leadership aimed at system change and program innovation from the neighborhood to regional scales that distinguishes itself for its effective public engagement and communications. For two decades, while located in Washington, DC, he had a major role in national program development that led to some of today’s models for local planning, such as sustainable development, public/private development partnerships, urban design strategies, context sensitive transportation solutions, Main Street programs and neo-traditional community design.

Examples of these national innovations include award-winning programs such as the 1979 White House Urban Policy Report, the NLC Urban Environmental Design Program, the NEA Arts Edge Program, the USDOT Design for Transportation Program, HUD’s CBDG innovations recognition program, ULI’s cluster development strategy, National Heritage Areas program, Conservation Foundation’s Growth Management program, and The Main Street Program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

This work and a number of local applications contributed to establishing strategic planning as a new approach in the planning field as documented in his 1987 ICMA co-authored publication Taking Charge: How Communities Are Planning Their Futures. This publication was a first to identify the emergence of vision-driven strategic planning as a new planning approach where planning and development practices shifted to action approaches that engaged stakeholders, public and private sector leadership in collaborations for change-oriented results. Examples of this strategic approach are seen in his projects: Roanoke Neighborhood partnership, Savannah Vision 2020, Imagine Houston, Albuquerque Vision 2020, Lexington-Paris Pike Context Sensitive Redesign, and Washington DC Mayor’s Citizens’ Summits.

In 2000 he came to the Chicago Region as the Executive Director of the Northeastern Illinois Planning Commission (NIPC). Here he reinvented the agency, doubled its budget and focused NIPC’s efforts to develop a comprehensive Smart Growth oriented framework plan in partnership with the region’s six counties, 270 municipalities, and countless civic and business leadership organizations. This initiative, Common Ground, produced the Regional 2040 Framework Plan as a national model of community-based regional planning utilizing leading edge computer and communication technology to guide smarter, more sustainable growth and development for this region of 8 million people.

During his tenure at NIPC, the agency has received more than 25 awards, including the 2006 American Planning Association’s Plan of the Year Award for the 2040 Regional Framework Plan and the 2002 APA Plan of the Year Award for the Chicago Wilderness Biodiversity Recovery Plan.

Currently working as a senior advisor and consultant, his projects include Creating Tomorrow Today for the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission; Our Region Our Plan for the Berkeley, Charleston, Dorchester Council of Governments, SC; Great Expectations for Shreveport, Caddo Parish, LA; the Sustainability Plan for Long Island Regional Planning Commission, NY; and organizing a new regional agency, Flint Hill Regional Council, for Geary, Riley and Potowatomie Counties, KS.

He has written and lectured extensively on these topics, including publications for the America Planning Association on using electronic town meetings in planning. Other publications include a chapter contribution to “Urban Sprawl: A Comprehensive Reference” (2005), co-authoring Sustainable Development report on land use and development for the Great Lakes Collaboration, Cities by Design for the National Endowment for the Arts, and Design for Low Income Neighborhoods for the National League of Cities.

Mr. Thomas also serves as an adjunct planning faculty member at the University of Illinois-Chicago and visiting lecturer at the University of Chicago, University of Maryland, University of Minnesota and Cornell University. He writes, lectures, workshops and teaches widely on the subject area of large-scale sustainable planning, community development and public engagement.
Design for Low Income Neighborhoods, Co-author. National League of Cities. 1980