Carol Coletta

Carol Coletta is president and CEO of CEOs for Cities and host and producer of the nationally syndicated public radio show Smart City.

Previously, she served as president of Coletta & Company in Memphis. In addition, she served as executive director of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design, a partnership of the National Endowment for the Arts, U.S. Conference of Mayors and American Architectural Foundation.

Carol was a Knight Fellow in Community Building for 2003 at the University of Miami School of Architecture and completed coursework toward a Master of Design Methods at the Institute of Design at IIT and at the University of Houston in Future Studies. She is a highly sought after speaker on the success formula for cities and creative communities and is frequently interviewed as an expert on urban issues by national media.

In 2008 she was named one of the world’s 50 most important urban experts by a leading European think tank.

Howard S. Decker

Mr. Decker continues to consult on urban design and transit matters for Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn, while he also travels and completes research for a book he is preparing entitled "The Next City: Shaping a Useable Future."

As Project Director in the Washington, D.C. office of Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn (EE&K), Mr. Decker has overseen plans to redevelop nearly 20,000,000 square feet of mixed use development in Arlington County, Virginia, led the team creating a $500,000,000 intermodal transit facility in Houston, Texas, and successfully completed the Great Streets streetscape framework plan for DDOT, the DC Department of Transportation. He has also been a member of an EE&K team that has designed a 180-acre mixed use development, with over 2,300 units of housing and 300,000 square feet of retail in Gaithersburg, Maryland. This project was awarded the AIA’s National Honor Award in Urban Design in 2007.

Prior to joining EE&K, he was a consultant in urban design and architecture. In that role he led a team, in association with Michael Baker Corporation, which created standards and guidelines for streetscape and transportation architecture for DDOT. These standards, enthusiastically endorsed by federal and municipal agencies, will be applied in their originally targeted zone of the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative redevelopment area, and city-wide as well. In 2005, this project was given an Outstanding Project Award by the National Capitol Area Chapter of the APA.

Prior to establishing his consultancy, Mr. Decker was the Chief Curator of the National Building Museum. In that role he led the curatorial staff, and the Museum, in defining that institution’s intellectual direction. Mr. Decker directed a team of over thirty curators and guest curators in developing themes and content for temporary exhibitions examining an array of issues related to America's built environment. During Mr. Decker's tenure as Chief Curator, the Museum produced over 45 exhibitions, and six major publications.

Prior to his appointment as Chief Curator, Mr. Decker served for nearly fifteen years in Chicago as a founding principal at DLK Architecture, Inc., which had nearly 80 employees at Mr. Decker's departure. In that capacity, Mr. Decker offered his leadership and expertise in creating dozens of award-winning projects. These works ranged from large-scale urban infrastructure and transportation assignments, to urban design and master planning projects at many scales, and also included numerous projects in historic preservation.

Simultaneously Mr. Decker has been involved in civic affairs in Chicago and beyond. He has served as Chairman of the Board of the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois (now Landmarks Illinois). He served on the boards of the American Institute of Architects Regional and Urban Design Committee, the Art Institute of Chicago's Architecture and Design Society, the Ely Chapter of Lambda Alpha, an international honorary economics and land use society, and the Latrobe (Washington, DC) Chapter of the Society of Architectural Historians. He was a contributing editor of one of the nation's oldest architectural publications, Inland Architect, and produced a regular column for that publication for eight years. He has taught, written, and lectured extensively on subjects involving civic architecture, urban design, architecture, construction, urban history, design education, and historic preservation.

Mr. Decker has broad experience in television, film, and radio. Among his experiences (working with Perspectives Films and Videos, Chicago), Mr. Decker completed a five-part television series entitled Skyline: Chicago, describing Chicago's growth and development. The series has won nearly 20 national film awards, and has been aired extensively on PBS stations across the nation. In addition, Mr. Decker has also completed a number of television programs for the History Channel and other networks, including CNN. Recently he has participated in the creation of a four-hour special for the History Channel on the skyscraper, and he is currently involved, with the Archimedia Workshop, in the creation of a national PBS series on the life and work of Chicago architect Daniel Burnham.

Mr. Decker has won many awards for his professional achievements. In 1988, the American Institute of Architects Chicago Chapter named Mr. Decker “Outstanding Young Architect of the Year”. His firm was awarded the American Institute of Architects Chicago Firm of the Year Award in 1991, and in 1997, he was advanced by his professional peers to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects in recognition of his design and civic contributions. Mr. Decker's architectural drawings have been exhibited internationally, are a part of the permanent collection of The Art Institute of Chicago, and have been published in many local, national, and international architecture journals and publications.

Helen Davis Johnson

Helen Davis Johnson is Co-Founder and Creative Strategist for CreateHere, an innovative non-profit based in Chattanooga, TN. Focused on arts, economic and cultural development, CreateHere works to animate and inspire Chattanooga's people by promoting "big picture" vision.

That vision starts with the attraction and retention of creative individuals through a relocation incentive now in its fourth year; a fellowship program 30-young people strong; a grants program funding over $450,000 in creative projects; and a progressive gallery that doubles as a workspace and community center. Chattanooga’s history is a testament to the success of “place-making” development initiatives, but CreateHere goes one step further, jumpstarting efforts at “people-making,” and finding ways to celebrate public spaces in the process.

Prior to co-founding CreateHere, Helen spent a dozen years in non-profit and arts administration, building the nationally-ranked 4 Bridges Arts Festival, coordinating innovative museum education programs, as well as designing and launching that same relocation incentive CreateHere now administers.

Helen is a founding member of Take Root, a non-profit that organizes urban tree plantings throughout Chattanooga to double the existing tree canopy. This effort fosters environmental health while inspiring residents to invest in the livelihood of their communities. Additionally, she serves on the board of the Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga. Helen is married and is the mother of two gorgeous young children.

Mary K. Ludgin

Mary Ludgin is Director of Global Investment Research for Heitman. She joined the firm in 1990. Mary is the author of numerous articles and research studies related to real estate market conditions, portfolio diversification, and investment strategy. She is the editor and a principal author of articles in Heitman’s Perspectives series. Mary is a member of Heitman’s Board of Managers. She also sits on the firm’s Investment Committee.

Prior to joining Heitman, Mary was an urban planner and she worked in retail site location. She holds an AB from Vassar College and an MA and Ph.D. from Northwestern University.

Among her professional affiliations, Mary has just completed her term as Chairman of the Board of the Pension Real Estate Association. She is also a past president of the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries. She was made a fellow of the Homer Hoyt Institute for Real Estate Research in 2000 and has been a member of Lambda Alpha, the honorary land economics society, since 1988. Mary is a board member of and docent for the Chicago Architecture Foundation and a board member of the Metropolitan Planning Council of Chicago. She is chair of the Land Use and Economic Development Task Force for the City of Chicago and she is Vice President of the Downtown Oak Park Association.

Wellington Reiter

Wellington Reiter, FAIA, is currently the President of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a post he assumed in the fall of 2008. Previous to that, he was the Dean of the College of Design at Arizona State University from 2003 to 2008. In addition to his academic role at ASU, he was responsible for conceptualizing and creating the University’s new downtown Phoenix campus, which will accommodate some 15,000 students, uniting academic and civic agendas to create a model of progressive and significant urban design. During his time at ASU, Reiter also founded the Phoenix Urban Research Laboratory and a graduate program in Real Estate Development, a transdisciplinary degree with the colleges of Business, Law, Design, and Construction. This program in turn sponsored a Lamda Alpha student chapter of over one hundred members including graduates and undergraduates.

Previous to his appointment at ASU, he was a member of the faculty in the Department of Architecture at MIT from 1990-2003, and the Professional Advisor to the Career Discovery Program at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. He has also been a visiting professor at Harvard and the Rhode Island School of Design. Reiter was trained at Tulane University’s School of Architecture (B.Arch 1981), North London Polytechnic, and Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (M.Arch 1986).

President Reiter’s work ranges from drawings to museum installations and built structures, including the Wright Brothers monument in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, and the entry pavilion to the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln, Massachusetts. His drawings of speculative urban conditions were included in the 2008 Venice Biennale for Architecture, and his work is included in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Boston Athenaeum. Vessels and Fields, a monograph of his drawings, was published by Princeton Architectural Press in 1999.

Through his professional practice, Urban Instruments, Inc., he has been the recipient of significant recognition from the design, art, business, and political communities, including the Arizona Architects Medal from the AIA, multiple AIA Honor Awards for Urban Design, the Kepes Prize for interdisciplinary design from MIT, and four awards from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture.

David Roeder

David Roeder is a business reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times covering real estate development and the financial markets. Besides his daily coverage, he writes columns every Wednesday and Sunday in the Sun-Times. Roeder has been a Chicago writer for nearly 30 years, garnering honors such as a Peter Lisagor Award for excellence in local journalism. His assignments have included covering City Hall during the "Council Wars" era of Mayor Harold Washington. He previously worked for the Daily Southtown, the Daily Herald and served as editor of an urban affairs magazine, Chicago Enterprise. He lives on the city's Far North Side with his wife and two children.

Robert D. Yaro

Robert D. Yaro is the President of Regional Plan Association, America’s oldest independent metropolitan policy, research and advocacy group. Based in Manhattan, RPA promotes plans, policies and investments needed to improve the quality of life and competitiveness of the New York Metropolitan Region, America’s largest urban area.

Since 2001 Mr. Yaro has been Professor of Practice in City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania. He also taught at Harvard University and the University of Massachusetts.

He holds a Masters Degree in City and Regional Planning from Harvard University and a Bachelors Degree in Urban Studies from Wesleyan University.