Upfront Planning Podcast

Maggie Soffel from Arizona State University talks about Rio Reimagined.  A multi-jurisdictional river project spanning 55 miles along the Rio Salado and Gila Rivers in Arizona, traversing 6 cities and 2 Native American communities.  Hear the background of how this project came to be back in 1966, the push for it by former Senator John McCain, and why it was reignited in 2018.  Hear...

Tom Bilsten tells us the importance of being agile and faster than a dog with some amusing stories in public outreach.  Tom is a well respected community outreach expert and a lifelong community builder who sat with us to tell all the crazy stories of how he gets his job done so well and how he approaches obstacles in his job.  He has some unbelievable stories with dogs at large, ungodly...

Jackie Guthrie, AICP,  one of the first professional planners Jessica met in her career reminisces about the fun and crazy projects she worked on over the long career as a land planner working on private sector projects large and small as well as who she hired and worked with as a young planner herself.  Hear all the crazy stories of projects you may not normally hear about and how she a...

Culdesac is an innovative carless community in Tempe, AZ.  Tempe Development Director Ryan Levesque, AICP talks about how it came to be and what the City needed to do to make it a reality for the entitlements and thinking differently about their site planning and design requirements.   Hear what he says the project made them look into their code again and see what really is needed. 

Laney Corey and Lucas Jensen join the podcast to talk about building their planning careers and making connections in planning.  Hear where their careers have led them and how they have been so successful at growing their planning career.

Hannah Whitwer from The Society of St. Vincent de Paul and Joe Cable, PE from Bowman Consulting and an active church member within the Church of Latter-Day Saints joins us to talk about the ways nonprofits are trying to help address the housing and homelessness issues in Arizona.  This enormous topic is more than just a single fix, but engagement with the community and volunteers across many...

Jen Ruby and Jamie Blakeman join Upfront Planning to talk about their experience working through the development process.  From working through municipal staff comments to dealing with neighbors and being accused of murder.  What they feel are the best practices and how we can all create better projects through collaboration.

Former American Planning Association president Kurt Christiansen, FAICP joins the podcast to talk about what its like being on the National APA Board, what life is like after retirement for him, how he decided to be a part of the National Board and what he hops for the future of the planning profession. 

Carolyn Oberholzer of Bergin, Frakes, Smalley & Oberholtzer and Lindsay Schube of Gammage and Burnham join the podcast to talk about what its like to be a zoning attorney and what even is a zoning attorney.  Learn what makes land attorneys so cool and why they need to be so different then what you may think an attorney is. Listen in as we hear about all their crazy stories as these two fr...

Dorn Policy Group's Lucas Atencio explains a few new bills taking affects in January 2026 such as: HB2721, HB 2720, HB 2297 and more.  Listen in to what they means for the jurisdictions in Arizona.  Hear what he thinks will be the effect of this bill and how he has seen various agencies responding to them as well as the upcoming elections including the Governor's race which will be heati...

Board Chairman Thomas Galvin talks about the role, challenges and the fun parts of being a Maricopa County Board Supervisor.  Hear how he is able to manage this difficult position with important cases, difficult decisions, challenging opposition and passionate speakers to keep the County on track and moving efficiently with the 4th largest county in the US which is larger than 26 states by po...

Alexandra Gino, Senior Designer at Gensler talks about her journey from London to Arizona and how she gets to work on all her favorite projects and drive her passion for architecture while staying so involved in the development community, finding new connections for fun and exciting projects.

Cheryl Lombard talks about being back in AZ and what she did while in Washington D.C. Hear about the new excitement in NAIOP with Cheryl at the helm and what they are doing to change the development discussion.

Happy Halloween Everyone

Shade Shutters from ASU talks about the ASU Decision Theater and how he is creating tools to help determine communities to get the right information to make the best of their workforce and know what to prepare for in the future for jobs we haven't even imagined yet. Listen in on this interesting and thought provoking discussion. 

Hear the "Hot Takes" Session led by Ryan Wozniak, Eileen Baden, Lucas Atencio and myself at the 2025 AZ State Planning Conference as we get real and talk about the real issues that planner's need addressed and how we can support each other.

Jenn Daniels from Horizon Stategies and former Mayor of the Town of Gilbert joins us to talk about a great new class for municipaliity leaders called "Civic Craft" to give them a year long course to give them a leg up on running thier communities.

Architects Ben Ayers and Hannah Hackathorn from Mancini Duffy design firm talk about their entry into the Arizona market and the new ways to approach design projects and collaborate with teams which can create better projects and talk a bit about the the unique new “bundle and save” package for rural municipalities and tribes to ensure smaller communities have quality companies bidding for their p...

Sculptor Arthur H. Norby joins the podcast to talk about what he did before becoming a sculptor and what drives him to create these amazing pieces, how they get picked for public art installations and what he sees need to be done to put more art in our communities.

Angie Grendahl, the Director of Development for The Athens Group which develops destination locations including luxury resorts, golf courses, luxury communities and recreational destinations talks about how she got into working on these amazing projects as well as what goes into a project of this scale from working on The Phoenician to the newly announced Legacy project in Mesa.    

Jessica's annual anticipated Fast and Funny session and all the hilarious answers from lessons learned as a planner in the field!

Massimo Sommacampagna of Bolzano Contruction and Trinity Development Partners talks about the current market in Arizona and how his companies are working in the Infill and Townhome market helping to advoocate and push for more housing supply and affodability.

Jessica interviews over 25 attendees to hear about what they took away and liked from the 2025 Conference in Scottsdale. Listen in for some old favorites like Tempe Mayor Corey Woods and Mesa Mayor Mark Feeman and also good friends such as: Maricopa Mayor Nancy Smith, Chander Mayor and League President Kevin Hartke and Phoenix Councilwoman Debra Stark with lots of others from around Arizona.

Eric Trevan of aLocal Solutions and Amber Sommer talk to us about the recent rural Policy forum in Thatcher, Arizona and what was shared nad learned for the Rural and Tribal communities.  Hear about the way to empower your commuities and ways that small comunities are gaining a foothold in the econmic development market and ways that are anabling them with less to be more competitive in the m...

Chandler Unified School District Superintendent Frank Narducci joins the podcast to talk about how they work hard to maintain a quality education while balancing the challenges of the district.  More and more housing for teachers as well as housing for incoming students has become harder and harder to find, directly impacting the ability of the district to bring in new students and maintain q...