Speakers

Alex Montero is a Local Conversation lead at Strong Towns Chicago. He is a supply chain consultant by day and urbanist nerd by night who loves walkable neighborhoods and public transit. Alex is also a performer in Chicago’s vibrant comedy scene. Find him online at linktr.ee/urbanistcomic. Find Strong Towns Chicago at strongtownschicago.org.

Alkarim Devani is the CEO and Co-Founder of mddl, a North American city building company specializing in middle housing delivery. Prior to mddl, he co-founded RNDSQR, where he successfully delivered over 300 middle housing units across Canadian cities. Over the past decade he has worked across more than a dozen Canadian and American cities, including active work in Kalamazoo, Calgary, Kelowna, and Edmonton, helping municipalities turn zoning reform into built homes. He recently launched mddlU, the first university-certified middle housing education program in Canada, and piloted the curriculum at UCLA through a block week intensive, with full program plans launching in 2026. Alkarim is a doctoral candidate at the University of Calgary, defending his thesis this June on how to scale middle housing delivery across North America.

Alli Thurmond Quinlan is an architect, landscape architect, and small infill developer. She founded and runs Flintlock Ltd Co (a multi-disciplinary design practice) and Flintlock Development (an urban infill real estate development company) in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She also served on the Fayetteville Planning Commission and the Construction Board of Appeals, as well as being known to occasionally teach urban design with a focus on advanced grading and stormwater in the Landscape Architecture Department of the Fay Jones School of Design at the University of Arkansas.

Alli grew up on a large working cattle ranch in western Oklahoma and believes strongly in being hands-on in your farm. She believes that small developers have the potential to be advocates for their neighborhoods, leading the redevelopment of communities in a way that protects and includes long time residents while welcoming new, diverse neighbors. As part of this approach, she recently completed a tactical urbanism project to make walking to the community center easier for neighborhood kids, located nearby to Flintlock Development’s South St Cottages.

Working in a range of roles (architect, land planner, owner, developer, and city administrator) over a wide variety of development projects has taught Alli to cut through the voodoo of proformas and zoning / building code to create beautiful, lovable, walkable projects that make sense for communities and make money for investors. Her work solo and with the University of Arkansas Community Design Center has been honored with national and international awards from the Congress for New Urbanism, the American Society of Landscape Architects, theAmerican Institute of Architects, Architizer, and the American Planning Association.

Ariane’s work focuses on sociotechnical systems, diffusion of innovation, decision-making, and the gap between technological solutions and adoption in the context of the energy transition. She is currently the board chair for the Texas Solar Energy Society. Previously, she was a research fellow in the Energy Systems Transformation Research Group (EST) at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. She studied how interactions between the underlying social, behavioral, economic, and technological components of the energy system impact the diffusion of residential clean energy technologies and how information channels can accelerate the diffusion process. Ariane has managed nearly $30 million in DOE projects throughout her career. She has spent nearly two decades studying novel and innovative technologies, first as a semiconductor device engineer, then through smart grid demonstration and research management, and currently through a policy and innovation diffusion lens. Ariane has over 60 peer-reviewed papers and conference proceedings and formerly served as the Assistant Department Chair for the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at The University of Texas at Austin. She received her PhD, MS, and BS in Electrical Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin, with a research focus on optoelectronics and wide-bandgap semiconductors.

Bernice Radle is a dreamer and a doer. Her entire life work has been dedicated to bringing vacant buildings back to life in Buffalo, NY. She is the President of Neighborhood Evolution LLC, a consulting firm that helps places build their small development ecosystem by coaching, training, and one on one project development assistance. Bernice is the Executive Director at Preservation Buffalo Niagara where they use non profit tools to renovate historic buildings that are demolition candidates. She is the Founder of Buffalove Development LLC where since 2012, she has focused on renovating vacant historic buildings in her neighborhood. Bernice recently left the Zoning Board of Appeals after serving for 9 years and was a leader in Buffalo to overhaul the zoning code to the current Buffalo Green Code. She is a member of Strong Towns and has a cat named Jane Jacobs!

Beth is the President and CEO of Smart Growth America. Before being appointed to this role, she served as Vice President of Transportation and Thriving Communities, where she led Smart Growth America’s transportation program, including as Director of Transportation for America.

During her time at Smart Growth America, Beth’s experiences have translated into significant wins for Smart Growth America, including the inclusion of transit-oriented development and a dedicated rail title in the FAST Act; identifying and rallying support for transit funding during the COVID pandemic; her clarion call for no new money for the federal surface transportation program until programs and states are held accountable to the taxpayer for delivering on their the stated goals of safety, fixing crumbling infrastructure, and better connecting people to jobs and essential services; and helping redefine what community reconnection projects look like through the Reconnecting Communities Institute, and Smart Growth America’s Community Connectors program, which supports small and mid-sized communities nationwide.

Beth previously served at the U.S. Department of Transportation as Acting Assistant Secretary and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy, beginning in 2009. There, she managed the TIGER Discretionary Grant program (now known as BUILD), led the Secretary’s livability initiative, shaped the Obama administration’s surface transportation authorization proposal, and oversaw implementation of the 2012 surface transportation law.

Earlier in her career, Beth worked for Sen. Tom Carper (DE) as an advisor on transportation, trade, and labor policy, served as policy director for Smart Growth America, and was legislative director for environmental policy at the Southern Governors’ Association. She began her career in the House of Representatives as a legislative assistant for Rep. Ron Klink (PA) and legislative director for Rep. Brian Baird (WA-03).

Carlee Alm-LaBar is the Chief of Staff for Strong Towns. Carlee has become a champion for strong communities and civic engagement through her work in Lafayette, Louisiana. She has held senior leadership roles in local government and nonprofit organizations. When she’s not with her husband Will or dog Jozy, she spends her spare time volunteering with a variety of local organizations that build connections between people and empower local residents. Carlee graduated Magna Cum Laude from Northwestern University and holds a master’s degree in Public Administration from Louisiana State University.

Charles Marohn (known as “Chuck” to friends and colleagues) is the founder and president of Strong Towns and the bestselling author of “Escaping the Housing Trap: The Strong Towns Response to the Housing Crisis.” With decades of experience as a land use planner and civil engineer, Marohn is on a mission to help cities and towns become stronger and more prosperous. He spreads the Strong Towns message through in-person presentations, the Strong Towns Podcast, and his books and articles. In recognition of his efforts and impact, Planetizen named him one of the 15 Most Influential Urbanists of all time in 2017 and 2023.

Curtis Rogers is an Associate Project Manager with the City of Austin, overseeing a team that manages community parking programs, including parking benefit districts. Austin parking districts incorporated a hybrid permit system, allowing the public to pay-to-park in areas typically designated as "resident only". This innovative tool helped gain buy-in from residents and merchants, addressing the parking priorities of both groups. This newest parking district generated over $1,000,000 in revenue its first year, and continues to exceed financial goals, while also making curb space more available. Curtis previously helped launch Parkade, an innovative parking solution for condo and apartment buildings, and was an early employee at Lyft. Before working for the City, Curtis helped advocate for parking reform, helping Austin become the largest city in the US to no longer mandate parking in 2023. Curtis' mobility work has been written up in publications like Bloomberg and The New York Times.

Dr. Sukh Kaur has served on San Antonio’s City Council since June 2023, representing District 1 with a mission to improve the quality of life for all residents. As the first South Asian council member, she works toward making San Antonio more equitable. Her role as council member comes after earning her Doctorate in K-12 Educational Leadership from Vanderbilt University, MBA from the Rice Educational Entrepreneurship Program, and BA in Policy Studies from Rice University. She is also an alumna of the Latina Leadership Institute Program and Leadership San Antonio.

Councilwoman Kaur’s community-oriented mindset is shaped by her passions of education and economic development. Her work is guided by five key priorities: infrastructure, public safety, parks and community centers, small businesses, and affordable housing. Now in her second term on council, Kaur continues to focus on the safety, accessibility, and vibrancy on District 1 by advocating for stronger infrastructure, larger green spaces, the success of small businesses, and additional affordable housing options. The councilwoman believes this is possible through data-driven solutions and community support, which then creates long-term stability and economic mobility. Dr. Kaur is committed to ensuring District 1 thrives through meaningful engagement and collaboration.

Dylan serves as an Activism Associate at the Institute for Justice where his research and organizing efforts are dedicated to empowering the plans and purposes of ordinary Americans. He graduated from Hampden-Sydney College in 2014, earned his PhD in Economics at George Mason University in 2019, and subsequently taught economics at the D.C. Jail through the Georgetown University Prison Scholars Program. In addition to his academic career, Dylan worked at award-winning bars and restaurants in Washington, D.C. before coming to IJ. He currently resides in D.C.’s historic Trinidad neighborhood.

Edward Erfurt is the Chief Technical Advisor at Strong Towns. He is a trained architect and passionate urban designer with over 20 years of public- and private-sector experience focused on the management, design, and successful implementation of development and placemaking projects that enrich the tapestry of place. He believes in community-focused processes that are founded on diverse viewpoints, a concern for equity, and guided through time-tested, traditional town-planning principles and development patterns that result in sustainable growth with the community character embraced by the communities which he serves.

Harper Haverkamp is Local Conversation Leader at Strong Towns PDX in Portland, Oregon. She is an organizer, both professionally as the political and legislative director of a labor union and outside of work with Strong Towns. She has pulled members together for themed educational bike rides, tactical urbanism with partners, and goal-oriented meetings to build capacity. Harper holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering and truly loves trains.

Hope Henchey is a mom of five who likes to tell stories from sidewalks about how people live and what makes life meaningful. In the past couple years she's traveled all over the US by train, visiting dozens of cities and having hundreds of meaningful interactions with locals while observing on foot, bike, and public transit what factors contribute to human flourishing. She's a writer, speaker, and content creator who aims to highlight our culture's need for authenticity, human connection, interdependence, and joy.

Jon Jon is an avid urbanist who enjoys decoding what makes a space great. Across his two TikTok channels, his videos discussing urbanism and Chattanooga have garnered more than 3.2 million likes and 325k followers. He recently returned from spending seven months abroad, exploring cities and documenting what makes spaces great. He is excited to bring those ideas back to Chattanooga in tactical ways.

Jordon McConnell is the Communications Chair at Strong Towns ABQ. He works in global public health and has also worked in homelessness services and education. Outside of advocating for Southwestern urbanism, he gravel bikes, writes, and explores the connections between place, policy, and everyday life in Albuquerque.

Joseph Minicozzi, AICP is the principal of Urban3. Prior to creating Urban3, he served as the Executive Director for the Asheville Downtown Association. Joe is an urban planner imagining new ways to think about and visualize land use, urban design and economics. Joe founded Urban3 to explain and visualize market dynamics created by tax and land use policies.

Joe holds a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Miami and a Master of Architecture and Urban Design from Harvard University. In 2017, Joe was recognized as one of the 100 Most Influential Urbanists of all time. Before moving to Asheville, he was the primary administrator of the Form-Based Code for downtown West Palm Beach, Florida. Joe’s cross-training in city planning in the public and private sectors, as well as private sector real estate finance, has allowed him to develop award-winning analytic tools that have garnered national attention in Planetizen, The Wall Street Journal,Planning,New Urban News,Realtor,Atlantic Cities and the Center for Clean Air Policy’s Growing Wealthier report. Joe is a sought-after lecturer on city planning issues. His work has been featured at the Congress for New Urbanism, the American Planning Association, the International Association of Assessing Officers, and New Partners for SmartGrowth conferences as a paradigm shift for thinking about development patterns. Joe is a founding member of the Asheville Design Center, a non-profit community design center dedicated to creating livable communities across all of Western North Carolina.

Joshua Vincent is the Executive Director of the Center for the Study of Economics. Since 1994, Vincent has computerized local property tax control and review procedures with consistent methods to ensure quality and objective outcomes. Nationally recognized for his leadership in land value taxation implementation and restructuring local tax structures, Vincent has worked in over 75 municipalities, numerous countries, NGOs, and national governments. He lectures at universities, professional conclaves, and state legislatures on LVT.

Kat Vellos is the author of We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships and the creator of the Better Conversations Calendar and BFF Builder. A former UX designer for major tech companies, she now helps people foster meaningful friendship and community in environments not built for connection—which is most of them. This is why Kat advocates for urban design that supports and strengthens social cohesion. Kat’s writing is read in over 100 countries, and she’s been featured by The New York Times, NPR, Communication Arts, and The Good Life Project.

Kelsey Huse is an activist known as “Memphis Bicycle Girl”. Her experiences range from fighting the 22-lane freeway expansion and protecting bike lanes in Austin, TX, to advocating for clean air and transportation options and safety in Memphis TN. She is a fierce believer in the power of social media to influence public opinion on housing and transportation and has found success under her Instagram account @memphisurbanism (@buttercreamgang on TikTok). She is a May 2026 graduate from the Masters of City & Regional Planning program at the University of Memphis.

Lars Doucet is a mass appraisal researcher and open source software developer from central Texas. He is the co-founder of the Center for Land Economics, and author of the book "Land is A Big Deal," which has become a cornerstone text on the topic of land value tax.

MK Lindsey has spent 15 years structuring over $1.4B in complex real estate deals. She's sourced over $130M in creative gap financing and closed more than $500M in deals across eight states and 10 asset classes, with a specialty in walkable, mixed-use districts and historic renovations.

A community-focused rebel of a gal, MK left a VP role at a $3B regional firm to start Winter Wheat because she believes the same financial rigor that makes big deals work should be accessible to the people actually trying to fix their neighborhoods, not just the developers trying to extract value from them.

Mary Kate Norton is the Mobilization Coordinator and Trainer at Strong Towns, where she supports local advocates in building powerful, durable movements for change. She brings years of experience in grassroots organizing, leadership development, and coalition building across diverse communities. Her passion for supporting and training everyday people as they organize for change has led her to facilitate local, national, and international trainings in community organizing. When she’s not building relationships with her neighbors, you can find her knitting socks, reading, and hiking in her local woods.

McKenzie Ortiz is a non-driver and pedestrian advocate whose work combines grassroots organizing, civic leadership, and digital storytelling to shift how cities prioritize people who do not drive. She created Pedestrian Pride, a social media project that uses storytelling and online content to highlight pedestrian experiences, transportation equity, and general urbanist propaganda. McKenzie works as Advocacy Director at Local Motion and serves as a Planning and Zoning Commissioner for the City of Columbia, Missouri. She is also a member of the Strong Towns Cohort.

Michel Durand-Wood lives in the Winnipeg neighborhood of Elmwood with his wife and three children. He writes at DearWinnipeg.com, a really fun blog about infrastructure and municipal finance. He has no formal training or education in city planning, municipal finance, infrastructure maintenance, or anything else he talks about. He's just a guy, in love with a city, asking it to make better use of his tax dollars.

Mike Keen, PhD, LEED-AP, Broker is Managing Partner of Hometowne Development LLC, President of The Bakery Group LLC, and Managing Partner at Neighborhood Evolution. He received his PhD in Sociology from the University of Notre Dame and spent 30 years as a professor at Indiana University South Bend. In 2008, Mike founded the IU South Bend Center for a Sustainable Future and led the development of the first B.A. in Sustainability Studies in Indiana.  In 2016, he was awarded a Sagamore of the Wabash in 2016, the highest recognition that can be awarded to a resident of Indiana.  As Managing Partner of Hometowne Development Mike has taken the lead role in an incremental neighborhood revitalization project located in South Bend, Indiana’s Near Northwest Neighborhood. As President of The Bakery Group he is leading the effort to renovate a 56,000 s.f. abandoned the former bakery in the NNN and turned it into a “collaborative village” of retailers, professionals, artists, makers, and food entrepreneurs.  He is also the organizer of the South Town Makers, a network of small scale developers, design professionals, finance officers, real estate agents, property managers, contractors, neighbors, and municipal officials dedicated to helping create wealth in neighborhoods for neighborhoods.

Mike Orndorff has been married for 12 years to Dr. Alex Marshall and is the father to Boden 7 and Ila 5. After serving 4 years in the Air Force he graduated from Western Kentucky University in 2006 with a degree in Finance and UALR in 2009 with a degree in Liberal Arts. Mike became a contractor building homes in 2009 and commercial spaces in 2021. He’s also a dump truck driver and machine operator who enjoys running, hiking, basketball and going on adventures with his family.

Monte Anderson is managing partner at Neighborhood Evolution, and President of Options Real Estate Investments Inc, a multi-service real estate firm specializing in developing sustainable neighborhoods in Southern Dallas and Northern Ellis counties. He is both an advocate and practitioner of incremental development and is often found speaking and teaching across the country on the Cultivating of Local Neighborhoods. Monte and Options have been recognized by the Dallas Chapter of AIA, North Texas Council of Governments, the American Planning Association, Preservation Dallas, Preservation Texas, and the Greater Dallas Planning Council for their work. Award winning projects have included Main Station Duncanville, DeSoto Market Place, Tyler Station, the Texas Theatre, Belmont Hotel in Dallas, and MidTowne Midlothian. Monte previously served on the Duncanville, Texas City Council. He is the founding President of the North Texas Chapter of Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) and was a co-founder of the Incremental Development Alliance. In his spare time Monte enjoys playing with his grandchildren, his cats, and listening to rap music.

Norm Van Eeden Petersman is the Director of Movement Building at Strong Towns. He is a skilled communicator of the Strong Towns message and a community builder. He leads DelPOP, a land use reform and housing advocacy group in Delta, British Columbia, and is a leader of the Strong Towns Toastmasters Club.

Norm has a Master of Divinity and a Bachelor in Political Studies. He spent 10 years pastoring churches in Canada as a preacher, teacher, and leader. He worked in communications for the second-largest city in British Columbia and carried out infrastructure-related stakeholder outreach for Canada's Minister of Health and Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario in Ottawa, ON.

Norm has published articles on housing, transportation, faith, and culture and his writing appears regularly on the Strong Towns site. You can connect with him on Twitter at @normvep or on LinkedIn.

Rebekah Kik graduated from Andrews University (2003) with a Master of Architecture and the University of Notre Dame with a Post Graduate degree in Architecture & Urban Design (2007). Rebekah’s current position is with the City of Kalamazoo, Michigan as the deputy city manager. Her experience includes eleven years of growing capacity and process changes throughout the city leading to the implementation of two-way street conversions, pilot protected bike lanes, zoning changes to unlock development potential, pre-approved plan sets, and the creation of housing development fund for gap financing.

Ryan Short is the co-founder of Civic Brand, a place branding consultancy that helps cities, towns, and regions become more vibrant, equitable, and loveable places. Since 2008, he has led Civic Brand’s work across the United States, guiding communities through engagement-driven strategies that connect place branding, placemaking, and destination development.

Ryan is the author of The Civic Brand: The Power & Responsibility of Place, with a foreword by Strong Towns founder Chuck Marohn. In the book, he argues that place branding is not simply marketing, but a strategic framework that helps communities align identity, investment, and decision-making around the places people call home.

Passionate about the profound role place plays in shaping our health, happiness, and prosperity, Ryan advocates for a people-first approach to branding and placemaking that strengthens both local economies and community identity.

Sam Balto has taught Physical Education for over a decade in Washington, DC, Boston, and Portland, Oregon. For the past 12 years, he has championed active transportation to school as a powerful way to boost student physical activity and strengthen school communities. After leading walking school buses for 9 years, Sam launched his first bike bus at Alameda Elementary in Spring 2022 and the rest is history. His weekly bike bus has gained international attention, even bringing the conversation about children’s active transportation to The White House. The ride has drawn notable guests, including Justin Timberlake, who joined in and told Sam, “You’re bringing joy to a lot of people out here.” Building on this momentum, Sam founded Bike Bus World, a nonprofit dedicated to inspiring and supporting communities everywhere to start their own bike buses.

Sam Quinones (pronounced Kin-YOH-Ness) is a Los Angeles-based freelance journalist, a reporter for 37 years, and author of four acclaimed books of narrative nonfiction. He is a veteran reporter on immigration, gangs, drug trafficking, the border. He is formerly a reporter with the L.A. Times, where he worked for 10 years. Before that, he made a living as a freelance writer residing in Mexico for a decade.

His latest book is The Perfect Tuba: Forging Fulfillment from the Bass Horn, Band, and Hard Work (Bloomsbury Press, 2025). The Perfect Tuba grew from Quinones’ desire to write about something different after a dozen years chronicling our national epidemic of drug addiction. He went looking for stories of people forging fulfillment from within – with hard work, focus, and collaboration. He found them in the tuba and in marching band. The Perfect Tuba exalts the love of effort with no promise of wealth or fame. Tuba and marching band “teach the values that sustain community,” Quinones writes. He came to believe that they held lessons for a country in the midst of a drug-addiction epidemic, for how to create lasting value, enduring results, in art, in community, and in business.

His fourth book was released in November, 2021: The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth. In The Least of Us, Quinones chronicles the emergence of a drug-trafficking world producing massive supplies of synthetic drugs (fentanyl and meth) cheaper and deadlier than ever, marketing to the population of addicts created by the nation's opioid epidemic. With The Least of Us, Quinones broke the story of how the methamphetamine now produced in Mexico has covered the U.S. and is creating widespread and rapid-onset symptoms of schizophrenia, becoming in the process a major driver in the country’s homeless problem. In January 2022, The Least of Us was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) award for Best Nonfiction Book of 2021.

The Least of Us follows his landmark Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic (Bloomsbury, 2015), which ignited awareness of the epidemic that has cost the United States hundreds of thousands of lives and become deadliest drug scourge in the nation’s history. Dreamland won a National Book Critics Circle award for the Best Nonfiction Book of 2015. Slate.com selected Dreamland as one of the 50 best nonfiction books of the last 25 years. GQ Magazine selected Dreamland as one of the “50 Best Books of Literary Journalism of the 21 st Century.”

Sarah Rose is the Co-Executive Director of Spokane Reimagined, a Local Conversation in Eastern Washington. She is also an artist who blends her love of ecology and sustainable transportation by painting images of bugs riding bicycles, displaying at local shops and markets where she explores Strong Towns topics with community members. Connect with her online at linktr.ee/SarahRose509

Tony Jordan is a nationally recognized advocate for transforming how communities think about and manage parking. Inspired by reading Donald Shoup’s The High Cost of Free Parking in 2010, Tony drew on his experience as a labor organizer and software developer to spark the Portlanders for Parking Reform movement. Building on that success, he co-founded the Parking Reform Network (PRN) in 2019 to help people everywhere understand the profound influence that parking policies have on transportation, land use, housing, and climate. As president of PRN, Tony leads a dedicated team of staff and volunteers in close collaboration with the organization’s board of directors and advisory board. He regularly speaks about parking reform at public hearings and city council meeting and is a regular presenter or panelist at local, regional, and national conferences, including SXSW, YIMBYtown, the Congress for the New Urbanism, Walk/Bike/Places, the StrongTowns National Gathering, and the National Shared Mobility Summit. Tony lives car-free in Portland, Oregon, with his wife Davida, their two children, and their dog Nova. When he’s not advocating for smarter parking policies, Tony is likely embarking on multi-day bike adventures or enjoying a strategy board game with friends.

Zoe Tishaev is a City Policy Assistant at the Institute for Justice, where she works alongside community activists, small business owners, and municipal leaders to advance economic justice and protect the right to earn an honest living through the Cities Work initiative. Prior to joining IJ, Zoe worked on local campaigns in Montgomery County, Maryland. In college, she wrote for urbanist blog Southern Urbanism while being an advocate for cyclist and pedestrian safety on campus and in the city of Durham, North Carolina.  Zoe graduated from Duke University with distinction with a major in Political Science and minors in Economics and Sociology.