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Members' 25-Year Reminiscences Allan A. Hodges, FAICP Senior Professional Associate Allan Hodges wrote the following narrative for inclusion in a book that was not published. Planning in the Private Sector My story provides a perspective based on experience largely in the private sector. I have practiced planning in private consulting firms for over 25 years, in national associations for over five years, and on the front line with city, regional and federal planning agencies for eight years. I have weaved lessons learned from this experience into this chapter as examples for young planners contemplating the rest of their career. Based on this exposure to both sectors, I also have identified pros and cons to practicing planning in each "side" at the end of the chapter. For my own career, I never contemplated such a varied journey that took place. I backed into planning. In school, I wanted to be an architect. That all changed in 1956 when I enrolled at Ohio State's School of Architecture. There I met Israel Stollman and Laurence Gerckens, who were initiating a master's degree program in City and Regional Planning. I took a course from them, History of City Planning, which began to broaden my orientation to the built environment. At OSU, the School was in the College of Engineering, which required other courses that I did not have the aptitude for, like physics (!). While I still have a strong appreciation for good architecture, I realized that I was looking for something broader. I transferred to the College of Commerce within OSU and majored in Community Analysis — a mix of urban sociology and geography as well as accounting and economics. While fundamental and interesting, something was still missing. I wanted to learn how decisions were made regarding community planning and how to move issues to resolution. I learned about the Community Development Institute at Southern Illinois University (SIU) in Carbondale. I transferred and earned a B. Sc. Degree in Community Development in 1962. This subject also was a blend of specialties that included group dynamics and applied anthropology aimed at helping community decision-making. I learned new techniques that served me well through the years. Listen. Show "them" how to make a decision and they will own it. Upon graduation, it was time to find a job. I wanted to make some money. After taking six years to earn an undergraduate degree because of my three changes in majors, the last thing I wanted to do was to go on to graduate school. I referred to the reliable Jobs in Planning published by the then American Society of Planning Officials (ASPO). I became a "City Planner" with the Columbus, Ohio City Planning Commission (CPC). My first assignment was the master plan for the OSU district. So, "Hello Columbus" it was; back from whence I came. Making a plan for an expanding university in an urban neighborhood revealed the famous town-gown tensions evident in many college towns. OSU won in this case. It grew; the neighborhood caved. The other major event I remember was that the very moment the City Planning Commission was to approve "my" district plan in November 1963, word came up that President John F. Kennedy had been shot. Suddenly, my first planning project became irrelevant. I learned about the importance of timing and unanticipated events over which you have no control. While at the Columbus CPC, I attended a short two-week course in urban planning at Georgia Tech thinking that it would be a quick fix. It was a good overview, but it wasn't a credential. It became clearer to me that I needed a planning degree if I were to grow and develop in this field. I accepted an assistantship from Michigan State University (MSU) School of Urban Planning in 1965, where I enrolled and received the Masters Degree in Urban Planning in 1967. Also, during this period, I interned at the National Capital Planning Commission in Washington, DC, a city in which I would later live for 11 years. The MSU program gave me a strong background in the comprehensive planning process, which has proved to be a basic approach to problem solving with many applications. During this period, I met my wife to be and she had no idea of the odyssey ahead that we would plough through together for the next 38 years. Neither did I. With a full education foundation, I embarked on what became a 13-year sojourn in six different types of planning jobs beginning at the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) in 1967 as Chief Planning Officer. This two and a half year stint was an eye opener regarding big city politics and how planning is done in such a climate. The combination of a strong willed BRA Administrator (Ed Logue), excellent staff, and two dominant and supportive Mayors (John Collins and Kevin White) got things accomplished. They turned Boston's decline around…forever. In the late 1960s, 25 percent of the land area of the city was under Urban Renewal. Boston received more Federal Urban Renewal funds than any other city on a per capita basis for planning and redevelopment. However, the way urban renewal was accomplished built eternal resentment in the affected neighborhoods, and I was to experience this resentment first hand. Yet, those were heady times and I had one of my early successes. After Logue left in 1967, Hale Champion was appointed by Mayor White as the new BRA Administrator. Champion, used to more comprehensive planning in California, was open to my recommendation to refocus the BRA's attention to planning in the rest of the city, which largely had been ignored during the past seven (i.e., the Logue) years. Called the District Planning Program, its aim was to provide comprehensive planning at the neighborhood level and to provide citywide functional planning. I asked for and was given a substantial budget. We expanded our planning staff to 18. We started in Dorchester and then moved to East Boston, and began to experience the residual citizen resentment from the renewal activities and surprising resistance from other city departments who feared/envied BRA. The District Planning Program survived for a while, but essentially morphed into Interim Plan Overlay Districts for zoning changes and short term planning analyses to put out fires. This experience showed me that well-intentioned programs initiated from the top of government will not survive long unless there is buy in from the necessary stakeholders who will make them happen. In 1969, my wife and I moved to Washington, DC, where I entered the private sector for the first time. At Gladstone Associates, Inc., a real estate economics consulting firm, I prepared market analyses, development programs and financial feasibility analyses for land development schemes all along the Eastern seaboard, from Florida to Massachusetts. While I learned how real estate development decisions were made, the front-end analyses became rather routine. I returned to the public sector in 1971, as Director of Regional Planning at the Northern Virginia Planning District Commission (NVPDC). Here the geography did not change, but finding something meaningful to do was a challenge. The NVPDC was part of a statewide planning system that was functionally redundant in Northern Virginia because the NVPDC member jurisdictions were also members of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, a well-staffed conduit for federal funding for regional planning. It wasn't until I helped NVPDC obtain $450,000 from the then Urban Mass Transit Administration to do Metro station impact studies around the 18 planned stations in Northern Virginia, that I began to have an impact. When the money became available, the five affected local jurisdictions began to participate in the station area planning effort. Money talks. Remember that. In 1974, a paradigm shift happened to me. I left the public sector for good and joined the association world, a Washington, DC cottage industry, which is as invigorating as it is isolating from the front line of planning. However, if you are in Washington, you should do what Washingtonians do…you lobby. I became assistant director of legislative services for the Mortgage Bankers Association of America (MBAA). MBAA is a well-heeled and influential trade organization of about 2,800 real estate financing companies. My assignment was "to raise the consciousness" of its members regarding land use, environmental and energy legislation, and regulations as they affected the land development and mortgage lending industries. This was no easy task. I wrote many articles on these subjects for The Mortgage Banker magazine and established an Environmental Subcommittee of its Income Properties Committee. The most surprising effect I had was gaining MBAA support for the Morris Udall National Land Use Planning Bill. Because of MBAA's lead, all other real estate trade groups supported it except the National Association of Home Builders. Some members, however, became upset that the MBAA supported the Udall Bill because they feared "national planning." Another surprise was that the Washington Post reprinted an article I wrote for the magazine, which generated a lot of stir because a "mortgage banker" supported land use planning. I traveled the country a lot with the MBAA and met many financiers, most of who were only mildly interested in what I was trying to do. In all, I think I raised the consciousness about these issues of about ten of its members! Nevertheless, this brush with a powerful lobbying group provided me a fascinating glimpse of how decisions are actually made in the Nation's Capital. In 1976, John Hirten, newly appointed Executive Director of the American Institute of Planners (AIP), hired me as Assistant Executive Director. At AIP, I managed services to the chapters and the divisions as well as edited Practicing Planner magazine. John had seen a book I produced in 1976 entitled Washington on Foot, a City Planners Guide to the Nation's Capital, thus his interest in me to take over the magazine. I stayed on another year when AIP consolidated with ASPO to form the American Planning Association (APA) with Is Stollman as Executive Director. My time with the association world taught me two things: you get to see what is going on nationally, but at the same time you easily lose touch with the front line of planning. During this time, I accepted a temporary special assignment at the New Communities Development Corporation (NCDC) of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), editing the Management of New Towns in the USSR and US report. This was a product of a Bilateral Agreement between the two countries. I focused on the USSR report, which was either written in poor Russian or badly translated in English. This was a first hand glimpse at how important communication is to foster cooperation and understanding between supposed opposites. At NCDC I also helped restructure the failing federally sponsored new town of Maumelle, Arkansas (near Little Rock). It was failing at that time because the concept of the new town was based on social equity reasons promoted by HUD, rather than being based equally on market supports. Each of these assignments offered completely different exposures to real estate development, regional planning, environmental regulations, trade associations, the federal government and varied client types. I was fortunate that my planning education prepared me for these different applications, which broadened my outlook even further. I don't regret the hopping around for a minute. Little did I know that I was about to "settle down" and focus. My wife and I moved back to Boston in 1980, where I accepted the position of Director of Planning with a transportation planning and engineering firm, Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade and Douglas, Inc. (PB). I chose an engineering firm because I wanted to see my planning work result in something built. I have stayed with the same firm for over 22 years. The firm has grown from 900 employees to over 9,000 worldwide in that period, and so have the opportunities. I made a good decision because I saw my planning work result in constructed infrastructure projects…a satisfying feeling. At PB, I have primarily prepared environmental documents for transportation infrastructure and water resource projects throughout the country, but mainly in New England. I learned that seemingly good and needed projects would cause controversy, regardless, with affected publics and regulatory agencies. In many cases, these good projects became better because of public comment rather than from regulators' dictates. Getting to yes in the environmental process is not for the weak at heart. During the 1986-1996 decade, I was environmental documentation manager for the largest pubic works project in the U.S., the $14.6 Billion Central Artery/Tunnel Project in Boston. This project required three supplemental environmental impact statements/reports meeting federal and Massachusetts regulations, and over three dozen smaller environmental filings because of design changes and hundreds of permits. The seven-mile long highway project, mainly a tunnel in the center of Boston, has been opening in stages since 1995 and is completing construction in 2003. Being a part of the "Big Dig," the project nickname coined by the media, has been the most satisfying sojourn in my career. Amidst many frustrations and high stress moments, there were many triumphs. It was heartening to see planning and environmental issues slowly emerge to influence the highest policy decision-making level in this huge project. This new consciousness among the engineers proved to be the reason we achieved a 100 percent approval record in getting environmental approvals from regulators. While federal law requires EISs for federal financial assistance for projects, my opinion is that EISs have become over regulated, too costly and require more information than necessary to make an informed decision, which is really the point. Also, they quickly lose their appeal to the preparer and cause professional "burnout" due to the length of the time to prepare them and the also lengthy and often contentious approval process. Environmental streamlining, a Federal government move in the right direction is, alas, still a concept in 2003. Since leaving the Big Dig, I have purposely expanded beyond environmental documentation to land use planning. While land use is regulated, there are more opportunities to be creative. I have managed planning studies for regional planning agencies regarding the land use and transportation nexus on the South Shore of Boston and in Portland, Maine, and for the military updating of the 1998 General Plan for the 900-acre Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts. I also managed the preparation of the master plan for a 3,000-acre sea/air port and industrial park in Rhode Island. The land use plan was based on a market analysis and was adopted by the State's economic development commission in 2001. But it wasn't easy to get adopted, because the State's proposal for a container seaport at the site was firmly denounced by local communities and environmental interest groups. It was adopted because the Governor put his support behind it and the plan was necessary to improve the State's economic prospects. Nevertheless, the public process was the most challenging aspect, because the port dominated the discussion, not the industrial park — which was the plan's focus. Also, in 2002 I completed an innovative study of secondary land use impacts for the EIS for the widening of a major interstate highway in New Hampshire. (This was refreshing because you can develop your own approach to the issue since secondary impacts are neither strongly regulated nor defined.) For this study, we used an expert panel to allocate population and employment in 2020 with and without the project in a 29-town study area in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. These forecasts were then converted into the land area needed to support such growth. The locations of these land areas were estimated using the towns' master plans, to the extent we could, since many of the master plans did not contain future land use plans. These potential locations for new growth were then compared with the locations of critical natural resources based on maps prepared by the University of New Hampshire Geographic Information System. We found that while there would be some impacts in some towns that are nearing buildout anyway, there is still plenty of upland land outside these resources to accommodate such new growth. Mitigation for secondary impacts is still a controversial subject with state highway agencies and the Federal Highway Administration because such secondary impacts may not happen or may happen farther in the future. In this case, the State highway agency has agreed to acquire certain sensitive areas and to assist land use planning in New Hampshire. Nevertheless, environmental interests are not satisfied and want the State to acquire more sensitive areas to protect them. My feeling is that most of the money should be used to support better state and local planning rather than buying land, as the multiplier effects would be more effective in the long run in curbing unwanted suburban sprawl, which is the issue. I like land use planning because it is the process that can make the built environment fit better into the natural environment. If done right, the process properly allows for both economic development and environmental protection and enhancement. I don't believe in the development versus environment sentiment. Moreover, in vogue planning concepts such as transit-oriented development, context sensitive solutions, new urbanism and suburban sprawl "management" all have the same basis, land use planning. Lessons Learned So after well over three decades of planning practice, in both the public and private sectors, what lessons have I learned from this varied experience that may be of some worth to pass along to younger planners? Do you still want to be a planner? Do you want a career in the private sector or in public service? The following observations may be helpful in guiding your career. One of the most important lessons a planner can learn is to remain objective when dealing with the public, elected and appointed officials, clients of all types and when writing reports, and making presentations, both oral and PowerPoint. Keep your preconceived notions out of the process. Be unbiased. You will find that the results of your objective analyses will yield a reasonable conclusion. But don't relax. Clients, third parties, agency staff, and other stakeholders may not buy it. Prepare your defense, sensitively. The issue for you becomes difficult, when you know what the best result is, but others disagree, particularly clients over whom you have no control. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't present your conclusions, but do so purposely and insist that you get to complete your presentation. If you sense that you can't win, step back a bit and reassess where this issue is going. Don't personalize your conclusion. Hear the others out. If you really believe that the client is making a huge mistake, be careful how you transmit that message. Here are some actions to consider.
It's all right to lose. Officials have their own reasons for voting a certain way; sometimes these reasons are not objective, but they are relevant and real nonetheless. Remain pleased that you did your job right. My first project management assignment at PB is an example of how remaining objective helps to get a controversial project approved. In the early 1980s, I was to prepare an environmental impact report (EIR) for a proposed water treatment plant at the Sudbury Reservoir, in Southborough, MA. The client was the Metropolitan District Commission, which wanted to build the plant to divert clean drinking water to its Boston area users from a defunct reservoir. The project was controversial because local activists and environmental interests were afraid that the diversion would lower the water level downstream in the Sudbury and Assabet Rivers and, therefore, may have adverse impacts. They also questioned the equity of diverting water to Boston from a watershed they could not access for drinking water. Being neither an ecologist nor a hydraulics engineer, I did not possess the skills necessary to make an objective decision in this case. I relied on other professionals who had those skills to come up with the answer. We tested minimum flow scenarios using the HEC 2 hydraulics model and ecological constraints data to determine impacts downstream. We then used these constraints to back into the design size of the plant, which was lower in millions of gallons a day diverted than what the MDC wanted, but was acceptable to the environmental interests. Needless to say, there were heated public advisory committee meetings and "discussions" between clearly opposing forces. But the facts provided that objectivity needed to move this proposed project forward. Compromise between warring interests resulted in a project that could be implemented, which it was not before this effort. This effort also earned an APA outstanding planning award. Don't have blinders on. The solutions are not always in a book of standards. Adapt. Be conscious of the surroundings. Ask, does it fit? Also, go to the top for a decision, if you can. An early incident in my career provides an example. My first assignment at the Boston Redevelopment Authority was to prepare a recreation plan for the North End, an area that was not a designated Urban Renewal Area. I had no background in urban recreation planning for a neighborhood with 19,000 people in one square mile. So, I checked out national recreation standards…to see what I "should do." The standards didn't apply to dense urban neighborhoods, particularly those with no available land supply. The North End was a predominantly Italian and parochial neighborhood, with a distrust of City Hall and the BRA. They didn't know me. So here I am walking into an extremely dense downtown neighborhood with no credentials (except a MUP Degree that meant zero to them) and representing a disliked agency. Fortunately, a savvy Italian woman staff member accompanied me, and told the assembled neighbors that I was "ok." I now had context. I threw out the books, and asked the residents what they wanted. They didn't hesitate to tell me. I listened. I delivered a plan that they, in essence, created. It included little vest pocket parks, painted play areas in streets and a waterfront park. It also included cost estimates. I advised them they would have to set priorities because the City could not afford to implement all the recommendations. So, they went for the prize…the waterfront park…the most expensive. After they summarily dismissed my constraints, they called me the next day and "ordered" me to meet them in then Governor John Volpe's office. Why, I asked, was that necessary, since it was early in the process and the Governor's approval was unnecessary. My question was dismissed as being naïve. I showed up at the appointed time and was shoved into the grand corner office of the beautiful Bullfinch-designed State House of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Governor looked up as I stumbled into his impressive lair and asked what he could do for us. A voice in the back said "The kid (I was 29!) has a good idea." I explained that the North End residents wanted a waterfront park, as part of the plan we developed together, and that a Federal Open Space Land Grant of $1.6 million would be necessary. The Governor said, "Done." And we left. He supported the application and the park was built. Lesson learned: Go to the top, if you can. The Governor's early endorsement and support was, in fact, essential to speed up the usually slow bureaucratic federal funding process. Sometimes, a client only wants to get through the bureaucratic environmental process quickly and get the project built. If that is the case, there may be no time to be creative and improve a preconceived engineering design. If so, just get it done. There are better clients who want something other than an engineering design done by the books. This is a hard prospect for idealistic planners to stomach. There is a natural tension between engineering by the book and planning by a different book. Remember, you are an agent of change. You are not in charge. On the other hand, if you can show how to mitigate impacts and create a win-win situation for the client and the opposition, go for it. It is worth the risk. This strategy was used dozens of times on the Big Dig project in Boston. In many cases, this giant piece of infrastructure created residual parcels of land not needed for the project that will be redeveloped for 150 acres of parkland, for example. The most creative mitigation measure by the Big Dig project was at Spectacle Island in Boston Harbor, which resulted in three major "wins":
Even with these major benefits as goals, they were not easy to accomplish because of rigid environmental permitting requirements and different objectives of the advisory committee members set up regarding park development. However, the long and difficult process resulted in positive gains for many project stakeholders. Lesson learned: keep the process moving. In this day of constant interruptions, it has become increasingly difficult to keep your mind on your task at hand. You have to learn to brush these interferences aside, and do your work. You have to learn to stay focused. One simple technique I rely on tends to keep me focused. I make a "Things to Do" List. It is in "My Documents" in my computer, and I update it almost weekly. It is a pleasure to push the Delete button on an entry that has been completed. While I don't do this consciously, just scanning the list helps me set priorities. These priorities change due to a number of daily pressures, so to set rigid priorities in advance becomes meaningless during the business week. As a planning consultant, I have multiple "bosses." Each one of my clients is one of them. Many times, I have up to eight active contracts. When the client calls, you deliver. That's the game. Sometimes you have to juggle. Fortunately, projects do work on different and overlapping schedules. When several deliverables are due and workload peak, however, that is the moment when remaining focused helps reduce the stress level. Even when I worked on the Big Dig, there were multiple responsibilities within this "single" project that had to be done. The project required planning, environmental compliance, design, and construction management. The primary goal was to not let the environmental documentation or permitting processes delay a Notice to Proceed on any construction contract. As a result, we produced the documents on schedule, and well in advance of a construction contract. You cannot achieve this, if you do not focus on deliverables and schedule for them. As a colleague reminded me when reviewing this piece, "there are those who do and those who find others to do. Particularly in the private sector, those who do are the busiest people. They are good jugglers who can manage numerous responsibilities and meet deadlines. This additional responsibility comes with stress and when completed as part of a team pulling together, satisfaction. Over time this type of experience creates a confidence to be able to handle virtually any assignment or challenge." Often times you are asked to do assignments that sound interesting and appropriate but you or your team of "experts" really have no actual experience in doing such work. Sometimes it is an opportunity to "learn something new on the job." You are, however, courting trouble. Think twice before you accept the responsibility. The best strategy is to follow one of these actions:
I receive many Requests for Proposals (RFPs) from potential clients; some are from small towns in New England that are looking for a planning consultant to perform a study, often with an overly ambitious scope and insufficient budget to accomplish it. In many cases, I politely decline to prepare the proposal because I know that we would have a huge learning curve to serve the town's needs. This background research would likely use up the small budget, leaving little to do the study. Or, in many instances, the appropriate personnel in my firm would not be available to conduct the work in the time frame required. In one case, the town received no response from any consultant. They called and asked me why we did not respond. I responded that we were unfamiliar with the town, having never worked there, and that other smaller firms would be more appropriate for their needs. In another case, a current client called and asked why we did not respond to another RFP they circulated. I said we looked at the scope carefully, spent time looking at the site, attended the briefing, and concluded that the budget was not adequate to do the job appropriately, at least by the team we had assembled. She was disappointed but understood. The client ended up withdrawing the RFP and canceling the project. Private vs. Public Sector In general, planning in the private sector can be more demanding than in the public sector because of the dual pressures to do good technical work and run a good business. This means doing the work right the first time, being successful and lucky when marketing by winning new work, meeting contract deadlines, remaining billable and earning a profit. To make a profit you have to charge time to work that a client is paying you to do. Profit is included in the overall fee to the consultant. You don't make profit by charging your time to overhead. Private planning is theoretically more financially rewarding because of the additional sources beyond salary, such as bonuses and stock options. Also, the work can be more varied because of the different kinds of assignments in different locations. If you like to travel, then private planning may be for you. With PB, I have worked on projects from Hawaii to New England and from the Midwest to the Mid South, all while being based in Boston. I also worked on land use planning proposals in Colombia, Gaza, Lebanon, and Croatia. A long time planning colleague of mine said the most difficult part of private consulting has been not being able to ensure implementation of his recommendations. Often times you have to leave a project and hope that someone else will take up the task and make it happen. This is most noticeable when he was consulting for his old planning department, and he knew what it took to get something done. I have had the same frustration knowing that I delivered a good plan, but to a client who doesn't know how to make it happen…despite providing an implementation program. Generally, in the public sector there is little or no concern for profit or for consultant's business issues. But there are other pressures due to politics (turnover of elected officials and their staffs, for example), public criticism, and tight budgets. Moreover, public service can be stressful due to irrational and ever changing deadlines in an environment that lacks clear priorities and too many "clients," such as the Mayor, the City Council, the Planning Commission, and the community. All this can become wearing. The work is no less technically demanding than in the private sector, but one can commit to resolving planning issues in a single community over the long run, which is a key difference. When you see this happen, it is very satisfying to know that you had a direct impact in improving your community. In the end, it really doesn't matter if you practice planning in the private or public sector. Each has its advantages and disadvantages when compared to the other. One is not necessarily better than the other. It depends a lot on your own objectives and lifestyle. Either way, planning is a tough field, but enormously gratifying. To conclude, my observations regarding practicing planning in the private sector are summarized in the table below. Pros and Cons of the Private and Public Sector for a Planning Career
Allan A. Hodges, FAICP Allan A. Hodges, FAICP, has practiced planning for well over three decades in both the private and public sectors. He has been Senior Professional Associate with Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade and Douglas, Inc. in Boston, Massachusetts for nearly 24 years. His specialties are environmental documentation, land use planning, and public participation. Previously, Allan has worked with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the American Planning Association, the Mortgage Bankers Association of America, the Northern Virginia Planning District Commission, Gladstone Associates, Inc. and the Columbus, Ohio City Planning Commission. He has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Community Development from Southern Illinois University and a Master in Urban Planning Degree from Michigan State University. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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