About Paul 

Paul is a native Minnesotan transplanted to New York City. Despite his small-town upbringing, he is an urbanist at heart and loves exploring a new city or a new neighborhood on foot. He received his Masters in Urban Planning from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and his Bachelors degree from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota.

Particular areas of interests include urban resilience, housing, transportation, and economic development. He explored the intersection of public transit and housing while in graduate school and remains convinced that they are two of the most critical issues for cities to get right if they are to provide for their residents in the future. Since grad school, Paul has applied his cross-disciplinary view of cities at 100 Resilient Cities, where he worked with a portfolio of municipalities across the U.S. and Canada, and now at James Lima Planning + Development, a leader in urban strategy consulting. In all his work, he has focused on helping local governments, nonprofits, and civic leaders with long-range strategic planning and near-term project implementation. He remains fascinated by both the marked differences and the surprising similarities that each city displays.

Paul is also an Adjunct instructor in the MFA program in Design for Social Innovation at the School of Visual Arts, where he teaches a first-year core class on Understanding Natural and Social Systems, providing theoretical grounding and historical context in concepts of social innovation and contemporary issues in the space.

With a background in both economics and design, Paul is comfortable approaching challenges from either a creative or an analytical perspective, or - ideally - from both. He has worked at the intersection between sales and technology, between municipalities and philanthropy, and is comfortable creating bridges when communication gaps appear. The oldest of four brothers, he has years of experience on that front.

Paul has visited 49 states, 30 national parks, 16 countries, and more New York pizza places than he will admit to his fiancé. He appreciates the fact that his mom and dad have not thrown out the Legos that take up an entire cabinet in their basement.

Resume available here.