Water and Planning Network

Co-Chairs

Bill Cesanek, AICP, is Co-Leader of the APA Water + Planning Network. He is a Vice President and a Practice Leader for urban infrastructure planning at CDM Smith, with over 30 years of experience in water resource planning and management, land use planning, and GIS and information technology. He has also served as an adjunct professor in the Rutgers Bloustein Graduate School of Planning and Policy since 2012, teaching Infrastructure Planning.

Mary Ann Dickinson is the Co-Leader of the APA Water and Planning Network. She was the founder and President/CEO for 15 years of the Alliance for Water Efficiency, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the efficient and sustainable use of water in the United States and Canada. Headquartered in Chicago, the Alliance works with over 520 water utilities, water conservation professionals in business and industry, planners, regulators, and consumers. In 2014 the Alliance won the U.S. Water Prize in the non-profit category for its work. She now heads up a consulting firm as the CEO of Dickinson Associates.

Committee Members

Danielle Gallet is Founding Principal of Waterwell, LLC a planning and strategy firm in the water sector. She is a water resource strategist, urban planner, and educator who combines her expertise in the water, planning, business, and arts industries to equitably and holistically address today's complex water challenges. Danielle is also an Adjunct Instructor at the University of Illinois at Chicago where she teaches a planning course titled Water and the Built Environment. She is the former Director of Water Resources for the Metropolitan Planning Council in Chicago. As an original member of APA's National Water Working Group, she happily joined the Water and Planning Network as a Steering Committee member in 2021. Danielle has a BA in Business Management and an MA in Urban Planning and Policy.

Brett Gracely, PE, D.WRE is the Practice Leader for Water Resources Planning and Management and Business Unit Leader for Environmental Resource Management at LRE Water. His broad, 30-year experience base includes integrated resource and infrastructure planning, natural resource
management, and sustainable environmental stewardship with the understanding that it is all connected. He has been a member of the APA Water + Planning Network since 2018.

Claire Jubb, AICP, CFM is the Assistant County Administrator for Charlotte County, Florida, a coastal and riverine community on the southwest coast of Florida. Claire has been a leader in community development, floodplain management and water quality management for 13 years. She is the Legislative Director and Treasurer for the Florida Floodplain Managers Association and is part of the steering committee creating the South West Florida Regional Resiliency Compact. Claire is the team lead for the County's One Charlotte One Water program — the county's water quality initiative and sits on the Management Committee for the Coastland and Heartland National Estuary Program.

Kevin Kluge is the Water Conservation Manager at Austin Water, overseeing water conservation incentive and compliance programs. Prior to his position with Austin Water, he spent over 20 years with the Texas Water Development Board, culminating in the role of Director of Conservation and Innovative Water Technologies. Kevin holds a master of science in natural resource utilization and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners.

Teal Harrison is a Climate Resilience Specialist for Adaptation International working in flood adaptation, community engagement, and coastal science. An advocate for equitable climate change adaptation, she currently works with municipalities and community members in the Gulf Coast Region to assess climate risk and proactively plan for future storms, floods, and coastal hazards. In past roles, Teal has worked in advocacy, outreach, and research capacities on regional flood planning, nature-based solutions to flooding, equitable disaster recovery, nonpoint source pollution, water quality stewardship, and food justice in the Gulf Coast and Great Lakes Regions. Trained in both social and natural sciences, Teal holds a B.A. in Behavioral Biology from Johns Hopkins University and a M.S. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Michigan.

Kyle Mucha, AICP is a planning consultant with McKenna, a planning and design firm located in Michigan. He works with Village's, Township's and larger municipalities updating master plans, parks & recreation plans, zoning ordinances and other planning related activities. Kyle has experience working both in the public and private sectors as it relates to community development, utilities, and recreation. He holds a Master's in Geography (Regional Planning) from Western Michigan University.

Kim O'Cain is President of O'Cain Consulting, a water conservation consulting firm in Santa Monica, CA with over twenty years of experience developing and implementing water conservation and efficiency programs, policies, and outreach for public agencies and businesses. Before starting her consulting firm in 2017, she managed the City of Santa Monica's water conservation unit including the adoption and enforcement of green building and water neutrality ordinances and drought management. Kim is also an Adjunct Professor at Santa Monica College teaching Sustainable Systems and Technology courses.

Manohar "Manny" Patole is the Co-City Fellow and Project Manager in the Co-City project with NYU's Marron Institute and Georgetown's LabGov Initiative. As the Co-City Fellow and Project Manager he collaborates with Co-City principals in applying and adapting the Co-City protocol in Baton Rouge with the East Baton Rouge Redevelopment Authority. He earned his Master of Urban Planning from NYU Wagner. In addition, he graduated as part of the inaugural class of the joint venture between UNESCO's Institute for Water Education and University of Dundee's Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy, specializing in Water Governance and Conflict Resolution and Water Conflict Management.

Rocky Piro, PhD, FAICP, is Executive Director of the Colorado Center for Sustainable Urbanism at the University of Colorado Denver. He also serves as Associate Professor in the College of Architecture and Planning. Previously he was the Manager for Planning and Community Development in Denver and Program Manager for Growth Management at the Puget Sound Regional Council in Seattle. He is a member of the Board of Directors for the International Urban Planning and Environment Association, and past chair for the Regional and Intergovernmental Planning Division of the American Planning Association. Dr. Piro earned a doctorate in Urban Design and Planning at the University of Washington. He is a recipient of the Myer Wolfe Award for Excellence in Planning and was inducted in the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Certified Planners.

Ray Quay, FAICP is a Research Professional with the Decision Center for a Desert City, a unit of the Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University, where he does research and community engagement on planning under conditions of high uncertainty, sustainable water management in the Colorado River Basin, and adaptation to climate change including changes in water resources and urban heat. Previously he was the Assistant Director of Water Services and Assistant Director of Planning for Phoenix Arizona, and Assistant Director of Planning for Arlington and Galveston Texas. He holds a BS from Baylor University, a MS from University of Texas at Austin, and a PhD from Arizona State University.

David Rouse, FAICP, ASLA is a consultant, educator, and author with 40 years of experience in urban and regional planning and design. He previously was the Managing Director of Research and Advisory Services for the American Planning Association in Washington, DC and before that a principal at Wallace Roberts & Todd in Philadelphia. David's areas of expertise include comprehensive planning; parks and open space planning; green infrastructure; and planning for emerging technologies.

Erin Rugland is a research fellow at the Babbitt Center for Land and Water Policy. She has led the Babbitt Center's comprehensive plan evaluation project since its inception and is a co-author of Best Practices for Implementing Water Conservation and Demand Management Through Land Use Planning Efforts: Addendum to 2012 Guidance Document, adopted by the State of Colorado in 2019; and Incorporating Water into Comprehensive Planning: A Manual for Land Use Planners in the Colorado River Basin. She has dual B.S. degrees in Public Policy and Justice Studies from Arizona State University.

Rachelle Sanderson is a changemaker who sees our human capacity to utilize our greatest challenges as opportunities to change our world for the better. Living and doing climate adaptation work in Southeast Louisiana provides her with ample opportunities to transform challenges of rising seas, land loss, more intense storms, and grappling with what it means to be faced with losing your home into opportunities to reimagine a future on our own terms. She believes that by reframing our challenges as opportunities for a more just future, we can utilize the climate crisis as our vehicle to change the world.

Harpreet Sandhu, AICP is the Leader of Watershed Strategy for the City of Calgary, Alberta Canada. Her responsibilities include leading the development of strategic water management plans and policies in the areas of source water protection, waterways protection, drought management and water security. She was previously the Director of Planning and Community Development for Skamania County, Washington, where she was responsible for various land use and watershed planning functions including salmon recovery efforts along the lower Columbia River.

Shannon Spurlock is a senior researcher for public policy & practice uptake at the Pacific Institute. She develops and implements strategies for advancing policies and practices on priority topics for the organization, with a focus on scaling the integration of approaches with multiple benefits into public policy and planning. Additionally, Shannon has extensive community-driven food systems experience and has led policy change at the local and state level.

Scott Turner, PE, AICP is Director of Planning at Environmental Partners in Quincy, Massachusetts. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners as well as a registered professional engineer in 6 states. He is currently a member of the Water and Planning Network Steering Committee, past Chair of APA's Sustainable Communities Division and local host Committee Chair for the 2021 National Planning Conference in Boston. He has a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from Tufts University and a Master's of Science in City Planning from the Georgia Institute of Technology. His work focuses on stormwater planning and design, green infrastructure, and resilience.