Developing Vibrant Retail in Historic Bronzeville

Bio: Bernita Johnson-Gabriel, former QCDC board member and secretary, became New Communities Program (NCP) Director of Quad Communities Development Corporation in July of 2004 and in January of 2007 was named Executive Director. Prior to her appointment, Ms. Johnson-Gabriel worked for Liberty Mutual Insurance Group, spending most of her career in Human Resources and Sales. She is native of North Carolina and a graduate of Hampton University, Hampton Virginia holding a Bachelor of Science Degree in Marketing. In her capacity of NCP Director, Bernita led an eighteen-month community planning process, engaging over 500 residents, community, business, institutional, and religious leaders, to create the Quad Communities Quality of Life Plan. She engineered partnerships with over forty organizations and institutions who will implement close to seventy projects and programs from the plan. She was a 2006 recipient of the South East Chicago Commission’s Don Randle Community Service Award for Exemplary Service and the 2010 recipient of the Norm Bobins Community Leadership Award.

Education: Bachelor of Science Degree from Hampton University, Hampton, VA

Bio: Founding member of the Bronzeville Alliance and Chair of the Bronzeville Retail Initiative Committee

Education: BA Sociology, MS Cmmunity Mental Health Northern Illinois University Certification in Banking University of Colorado at Boulder

Bio: President, Urban Juncture, Inc.; Former partner, McKinsey & Company, Inc.

Education: PhD Aeronautics and Astronautics, MIT; MBA, MIT

Bio: Marisa joined the Metropolitan Planning Council in 2011. She manages technical assistance and support to communities facing development challenges related to housing, transportation, environment, and economic development. Her work directly assists communities to promote revitalization, housing in job-rich areas, sustainable development and conservation, and interjurisdictional and corridor planning. Prior to MPC, Marisa spent a year in Milan, Italy, completing her master’s degree in urban planning with a focus on international community development. Her studies were informed by years of work on the ground in Chicago, most recently as the senior project manager for Lawndale Christian Development Corporation. There, she directed more than $30 million in affordable rental and for-sale housing development in the North Lawndale neighborhood. She also worked in community development at the Steans Family Foundation and Carole Robertson Center for Learning, where her efforts on a Welfare to Work initiative first sparked her passion for affordable housing as a justice issue.

Education: Marisa has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan in sociology, master’s degree from the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration, certificate in affordable housing finance, development and management from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and master’s in urban planning from the Istituto Politecnico di Milano, where her master’s thesis explored the role that an intermediary could play in advancing the community development field in northern Italy.

Key Publications: http://www.metroplanning.org/news-events/blog-post/6587 http://www.metroplanning.org/news-events/blog-post/6539 http://www.metroplanning.org/news-events/article/6404 http://www.metroplanning.org/news-events/blog-post/6506 http://www.metroplanning.org/news-events/blog-post/6370 http://www.metroplanning.org/news-events/blog-post/6367

Past Assignments: Congress for New Urbanism 2012, presentation on Chicago Union Station, Presentation to the School of the Art Institute on placemaking work in Miller Beach, Multiple lectures to the University of Illinois at Chicago graduate planning program students, Moderator for a Chicago Dept. of Cultural Affairs event on the role of artists in placemaking

Bio: Sef is a planner with the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP), the official regional planning organization for the Chicago metropolitan area. He has over 6 years of experience in the planning field and has led several Land Use, Transportation, and Community Development projects. He also manages the Full Circle Community Mapping and Planning project, a parcel GIS-based Land Information System that supports the collection and analysis of local data to inform planning and development. He is currently managing a number of CMAP's Local Technical Assistance (LTA) projects funded by HUD's Sustanable Communities Regional Planning Grant. He has a particular interest in the application of GIS in planning.

Education: M.A. Public Policy & Administration (current)-Northwestern University. M.A Urban Planning-University of Akron. Bsc. Geomatic Engineering- University of Nairobi

Key Publications: 1.Coming Full Circle; How high-tech tools are helping neighborhood planning efforts in the Chicago area. Planning magazine of the American Planning Association, October 2008. 2. Best Practice Guide to Community Mapping,CMAP, February 2008. 3. Long-Term Technical Assistance to Local Communities in Chicago region. A report for The John D. and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation., CMAP, September 2009

Past Assignments: 2012 APA National Confence, Los Angeles - "Transit as a tool for revitalizing commercial corridors” 2011 APA National Confence, Boston 2008 APA National Confence,Las Vegas- “Community Applications of Parcel Data Systems” 2006 Illinois GIS Association (ILGISA) State Conference