Austin Maitland
Austin Maitland has been a contributor to Strong Towns since 2017. A native of Rochester, New York, Austin graduated from Rutgers University with a Master of City and Regional Planning degree in 2018. He now works as an urban planner in New Jersey. He is particularly interested in observing how land-use regulations and the built environment impact the social and economic performance of urban neighborhoods. Austin enjoys traveling around the northeast experiencing cities and towns of all shapes and sizes.
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Johnny Sanphillippo
Johnny Sanphillippo has been a regular contributor for Strong Towns since 2014. He is an amateur architecture buff with a passionate interest in where and how we all live and occupy the landscape, from small rural towns to skyscrapers and everything in between. He travels often, conducts interviews with people of interest, and gathers photos and video of places worth talking about (which he often shares on Strong Towns). Johnny writes for Strong Towns, and his blog, Granola Shotgun.
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M. Nolan Gray
M. Nolan Gray is the research director for California YIMBY and an expert in urban land-use regulation. He is the author of Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How To Fix It. Gray previously worked as a planner in New York City, where he worked on the front lines of zoning. He is a widely published author, with work appearing in outlets such as The Atlantic, Bloomberg CityLab, and The Guardian. He lives in Los Angeles, California, and is originally from Lexington, Kentucky. You can connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.
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Jacob Moses
Jacob Moses is the Executive Director of the Denton Affordable Housing Corporation. Prior to that, he served as Community Builder for Strong Towns, where he hosted a weekly podcast called It’s the Little Things and managed the Strong Towns Community Site.
Have a question about joining the Strong Towns movement or how to get involved in our work? Please email Jacob.
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Robert Sulaski
Robert Sulaski is an intern with Strong Towns and the geoanalytics firm, Urban3, for the summer of 2019. Rob is pursuing an undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) in Media and Journalism, concentrating in Interactive Multimedia, with a minor in City Planning and Urban Studies. Growing up in the Asheville area has given him a love for the outdoors, southern hospitality and good beer.
Rob is a storyteller at heart with a passion for exciting, walkable communities. With previous digital communications experience, he is excited to use these skills in the context of planning. Prior to joining Strong Towns and Urban3, he studied in Pamplona, Spain where he found an even deeper appreciation for urbanism and also produced a study abroad/travel podcast, sharpening his storytelling skills. He will be writing about Urban3’s work throughout summer 2019 before returning to UNC for his senior year.
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Alexander Dukes
Alexander Dukes (Twitter | LinkedIn) has been a regular contributor for Strong Towns since 2016, and works as a Community Planner for the US Air Force in California. He is a graduate of Tuskegee University and Auburn University, with a Bachelor’s in Political Science and Master’s degrees in Community Planning and Public Administration. With this background, Alexander focuses his planning work on public policy and urban design for both military and civilian applications. Alexander's goal is to build sustainable human environments that provide all citizens with access to cohesive communities, affordable housing, meaningful employment, and beautiful places.
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Rachel Quednau
Rachel Quednau serves as Program Director at Strong Towns. Trained in dialogue facilitation and mediation, she is devoted to building understanding across lines of difference. Previously, Rachel worked for several organizations fighting to end homelessness and promote safe, affordable housing at the federal and local levels. Rachel also served as Content Manager for Strong Towns from 2015-2018. A native Minnesotan and honorary Wisconsinite, Rachel received a Masters in Religion, Ethics, and Politics from Harvard Divinity School and a Certificate in Conflict Transformation from the Boston Theological Interreligious Consortium, both in 2020. She currently lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with her husband and young son. One of her favorite ways to get to know a new city is by going for a walk in it.
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Spencer Gardner
Spencer Gardner has been writing for Strong Towns since 2016. He is a transportation planner based in Spokane, WA, who spends his spare time chasing his children, riding bikes, and doing hobbyist computer programming. He's also getting started on his own missing middle development project in Spokane's West Central neighborhood.
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Sara Joy Proppe
Sara Joy Proppe has been a regular contributor for Strong Towns since 2016. She works by day as a Project Manager in real estate development in the Twin Cities where she oversees a variety of mixed-use and multifamily historic and urban infill projects. In her free time, she is developing Proximity Project to educate and activate churches to be stewards of the built environment. She loves to write and speak on the connections between theology and our design and use of physical space.
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Nate Hood
Nathaniel Hood has been a regular contributor for Strong Towns since 2011 and was the first person to ever donate money to Strong Towns. He is a founding member of Streets.MN and lives in St. Paul. Nate can be found online at Thoughts on the Urban Environment and Streets.MN. Nate also runs a weekly newsletter that includes two short, smart, witty paragraphs, and one local Twin Cities recommendation. You can sign up here.
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Gracen Johnson
Gracen creates educational tools and experiences that help regular people build places and livelihoods that fill them with pride. She is a co-founder and the content director of the Incremental Development Alliance, a non-profit that trains locals to construct or repair the essentials of a strong neighbourhood. Before that, Gracen designed and managed the Summer Institute, an entrepreneurship accelerator for place-based businesses. Her dream is to live on a street filled with family, friends, music, gardening, and her big brother’s cooking.
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Shina Shayesteh
Shina Shayesteh serves as the Editor-in-Chief for Strong Towns. She self-identifies as a jack of all trades, with a master’s degree in history and a background in education, linguistics, research, and digital art. A native Houstonian, she loves to travel both in and outside of the United States. When not working, she enjoys needlework, picking up new crafts, playing tabletop RPGs, studying other languages, and coercing her friends into eating weird foods.
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R. Moses
Wondering why your local government is claiming it needs to widen a street to make it "safer"? Trying to make sense of the outdated zoning codes in your city? R. Moses has the answer. From the Strong Towns membership, we've assembled a panel of licensed engineers to answer your questions under the collective pseudonym R. Moses. In doing this, we hope to give licensed professionals a chance to speak to important issues without fear of reprisal from their peers or employers. Submit your engineering question anonymously and R. Moses will do his best to answer it in a future post.
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Bo Wright
Bo Wright is the former Development Director for Strong Towns. Previously, he was a research analyst at Calvin Edwards & Company, where he provided consulting services to support the giving decisions of major donors. Prior to that he was a research fellow at the Georgia Center for Opportunity, a state-based public policy think-tank dedicated to increasing opportunity and improving the quality of life for all Georgians. In 2013, Bo was a fellow at the John Jay Institute.
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Aubrey Byron
Aubrey Byron serves as Membership Coordinator and Staff Writer for Strong Towns. She's a writer based in St. Louis, Missouri. Aubrey began engaging with public space as a cyclist and spends much of her free time trying to inspire more people to be comfortable on bikes through the advocacy of a local nonprofit, The Monthly Cycle. She is also passionate about outdoor adventure and reading.
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Ivy Vann
Ivy Vann serves as Strong Towns' Gathering Coordinator. She has been fascinated by streets, buildings and communities her entire life. She has been a member of Strong Towns since 2015, when she invited Chuck Marohn to be the keynote speaker for a new planning and development conference she created in New Hampshire. She is certified as a charrette planner by the National Charrette Institute; as an urban planner by the Congress for the New Urbanism; and as a Form-Based Code practitioner by the Form-Based Code Institute. Ivy is committed to making better, healthier, more financially solvent places for everyone by paying attention to historic development patterns and the necessity for beauty in our everyday lives — a commitment which she shares through her own town planning firm, Ivy Vann Town Planning and Urban Design. Ivy is on Twitter at @ivyvann.
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Missy Trees
Missy Trees serves as Strong Towns' Office Assistant. She holds degrees in business management and has previously worked in marketing and fine dining. She prides herself on excellent customer care. She lives with her kids and husband in Pequot Lakes, MN. She also dabbles in essential oils in her free time and leads a very active lifestyle doing everything from rollerblading to yoga.
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Connor Nielsen
Connor Nielsen is an intern with Strong Towns and the geoanalytics firm, Urban3, for the summer of 2018. He studies Economic Development and Dramatic Art at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is passionate about storytelling and urbanism, and he seeks to unite these fields by advocating for urban design in new and compelling ways. He also enjoys acting, producing theater, hiking, and traveling.
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Quint Studer
Quint Studer is author of Building a Vibrant Community: How Citizen-Powered Change Is Reshaping America and Wall Street Journal bestseller The Busy Leader’s Handbook: How to Lead People and Places That Thrive. He is founder of Pensacola’s Studer Community Institute, a nonprofit organization focused on improving the community’s quality of life, and Vibrant Community Partners, which coaches communities in building out a blueprint for achieving growth and excellence. Quint speaks and works with communities across the country, helping them execute on their strategic plans, create a better quality of life, and attract and retain talent and investment. He is a businessman, a visionary, an entrepreneur, and a mentor to many. He currently serves as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the University of West Florida, Executive-in-Residence at George Washington University, and Lecturer at Cornell University.
For more information, please visit www.thebusyleadershandbook.com, www.vibrantcommunityblueprint.com, and www.studeri.org.
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Christa Theilen
Christa Theilen is the Office Assistant for Strong Towns. She’s a former teacher who recently moved back to her hometown after almost 20 years. She’s very happy to be a member of the Strong Towns team, where supporting her teammates and crossing things off her to-do list give her great satisfaction.
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