Bill Fulton is the Principal of The Planning Center DC&E. Bill specializes in urban planning, metropolitan growth trends, economic development, TDR and policy projects with a focus on government agencies, land conservation organizations and developers as clients. Leading DC&E's Ventura office, he is well known as the best-selling Author of the Guide to California Planning and the L.A. Times best-seller, The Reluctant Metropolis: The Politics of Urban Growth in Los Angeles. Currently serving as Ventura's Deputy Mayor, Bill is also a Senior Scholar at the School of Policy, Planning, and Development at the University of Southern California. He is also the founding publisher of California Planning & Development Report. Bill holds a Master's Degree in Journalism/Public Affairs from The American University in Washington, D.C., and a Master's Degree in Urban Planning from UCLA.

Rick Pruetz is a planning consultant specializing in open space preservation, particularly through transfer of development rights (TDR). He has prepared TDR studies and/or ordinances for over 23 cities and counties and conducted over 70 TDR workshops and presentations in 26 states. He is the author of numerous articles as well as books such as Saved by Development: Preserving Environmental Areas, Farmland and Historic Landmarks with Transfer of Development Rights, and TDRs and Other Market-Based Land Mechanisms. He has been a professional planner since 1979, serving for over 14 years as the Asst. Community Development Director/City Planner of Burbank, California. Prior to that, he was a historic preservation/downtown revitalization planner with Waukesha, Wisconsin and an environmental planner with Camp Dresser McKee. Rick Pruetz received a Master of Urban Planning degree from the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee in 1979. He also holds a masters degree from Northwestern University and a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin.

Nathan Kelly is Senior Planner for the Horsley Witten Group, Inc. and directs the firm’s Providence Office. Nate has successfully managed projects for over ten years at Horsley Witten, providing professional planning and zoning services to more than 50 New England municipalities. His work has ranged from comprehensive zoning revision projects to developing affordable housing, open space, rural land preservation and economic development studies. Many of Nate’s projects require extensive public outreach in the form of charrettes, public forums and public hearings and he regularly provides technical training on a wide variety of innovative regulatory tools. Some of his most notable local projects include the North Kingstown Transfer of Development Rights program, the Massachusetts Smart Growth/Smart Energy Toolkit, KeepSpace facilitation, and re-writing the permitting process and performance standards for the Quonset Development Corporation. Nate’s project teams have received numerous awards from the Rhode Island Chapter of the American Planning Association and he regularly provides technical support to Grow Smart RI. Nate is a member of the Rhode Island and Massachusetts Chapters of the American Planning Association and received his Masters Degree in Urban and Environmental Policy from Tufts University.

Peter Flinker is a partner with Dodson & Flinker, Inc. He received a Masters in Landscape Architecture from the University of Massachusetts in 1987 and has been with Dodson Associates (now Dodson & Flinker) ever since, becoming a principal in 1999 and named partner in 2012. As both a registered Landscape Architect and member of the American Institute of Certified Planners, the focus of his work has been projects that bridge the gap between site design and planning at the town and regional scale. Peter maintains an active portfolio of work that includes downtown revitalization, watershed protection, greenway planning and sustainable design for new communities. He is a frequent presenter to conservation groups, town boards and professional organizations on the topics of Smart Growth and Sustainable Development. As an author and illustrator, Peter has prepared numerous publications designed to help both professionals and laypeople understand complex planning and design concepts. These projects include The South County Design Manual, winner of a 2002 national honor award from the American Society of Landscape Architects, and the Rhode Island Conservation Development Manual. Another recent publication, the Urban Environmental Design Manual, winner of a 2007 merit award from the Boston Society of Landscape Architects, applies the firm’s unique visual approach to explore how low impact development techniques can be combined with urban revitalization to build more sustainable communities. Each of these publications combine a general introduction to the topic with case studies and detailed instructions for implementing the techniques at the local level. For many of Dodson & Flinker’s municipal clients, Peter has applied these ideas to the development of illustrated design guidelines and form-based zoning codes that help communities move projects from vision to reality. Peter has been a leader in developing approaches to watershed management and regional open space planning that give cultural, historic and recreational resources equal weight with natural resources in setting priorities for greenway planning and open space preservation. Exemplified by the Rhode Island Greenspace program, winner of a 2006 honor award from the Boston Society of Landscape Architects, this approach builds on extensive public participation on the local level to establish priorities for greenways and greenspaces that are then merged into regional plans at a watershed scale. Dodson & Flinker has applied this approach in many other areas, including Massachusett’s Deerfield River Watershed, the bi-state Blackstone River National Heritage Corridor and the Upper Housatonic River Valley in Connecticut. In each of these projects, an understanding of natural, cultural and recreational systems is tied to visionary plans for conservation and development that allow communities to grow and thrive while preserving both ecological health and historic character.