Notification that Ian Lockwood was Awarded a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University

(The events in this post occurred in April 2011)

I felt good about the interviews but really had no clue about how I faired compared with the other 18 finalists.  Being nominated was cool and making the finals was very cool.  I definitely had my fingers crossed, but there was nothing much else for me to do but wait patiently for the decision.  It came surprisingly quickly.  Sally’s e-mail arrived on April 6^th only 10 days after my last interview, at exactly 19 minutes after midnight and well after my bed-time.  Oblivious to the life-altering news that was waiting in my in-box, I slept peacefully.  I woke up at the usual time and went through my normal “in-town” morning routine.  Upon arriving at the office, I said, “Good morning” to Barbara, our friendly multi-tasking receptionist, got my usual glass of water, and went to my desk.  I exchanged the usual pleasantries with Danni and Fabian, who always arrived to the office before me, sat in my chair, hooked up my lap top, and checked my e-mail as per normal.  In my mind, everything was fairly routine until I saw the e-mail from Sally, with the subject line saying, “Congratulations!  You are a Loeb Fellow.”  Bang!  Right in the subject line.

My eyes welled up with tears.  I was happy beyond words.  Five months earlier, Joanne encouraged me to take a shot.  Ben pulled the trigger.  Tim, Dan, and Andrew wrote letters.  I’d submitted my application and was interviewed.  AECOM, my colleagues, and my family were supportive in so many ways and at so many levels the entire time.  And the shot hit the bull’s eye.  We had done it!  I was a Loeb Fellow.  This was no longer a normal day.

Silently, I rose from my chair and walked slowly to a spot about half way between Danni’s and Fabian’s desks and, seemingly, about six inches off the floor.  Danni was highly focused on her computer but Fabian noticed me approach and looked up to address me.  As soon as he saw my face, he smiled and said, “You got the Loeb Fellowship, didn’t you?”  Wow, I thought, this guy does have ESP and I replied, “Why do say that?”  He said, “I know you.  I can tell.”  So I fessed up and said, “Yes, I just heard, just now.”  Danni chimed in with a voice about an octave higher than her normal voice and at about twice her normally fast speaking pace,“Yeh!-You-got-it-Congratulations!-I’m-so-proud-of-you!-That’s-so-great.”

I had to tell my wife.  I returned to my chair.  The call went something like this.  Joanne answers her phone, “Hello”.  Short pause. Ian says, “I got it.”   Joanne screams… 

For the next several days, I wanted to spread the word from the roof tops.  However, I couldn’t.  Sally asked me to not spread the news widely because the results had not reached the unsuccessful finalists.  Every successful finalist had to officially accept their offer with an acceptance letter, prior to Sally informing the unsuccessful finalists.  This was necessary in case any of the successful finalists could not accept the Fellowship for whatever reason.  Then Sally could make the offer to the next candidate(s) on her list.  My acceptance letter was written, scanned, and e-mailed within an hour of learning about this requirement.

I did as Sally requested and only told my references, Tim, Dan, and Andrew, as well as Ben and my family.  I also sent an internal office e-mail to my colleagues so that they would get the correct information all at the same time.  After that, and after the acceptances were complete, the news of my Fellowship spread and the reaction was like after my nomination but times five.  I had no idea how fast news travels and how many people would be excited about this opportunity.  E-mails and calls came from diverse geographies, clients, friends, colleagues, and even people whom I’d never met. 

After that, Sally and Jim sent several letters and e-mails about preparing.  They covered everything from health care, to key dates, to finances, to housing, to, “Are you bringing your family?”  The Loeb Fellowship program is so cool that Harvard offered to house my whole family, if that was our desire.  Sally would even help find schools for our children.  Unbelievable!  The opportunities seemed endless.  This was new territory in my circles so my office, Joanne, and I had lots of questions, all of which would hopefully be answered in an upcoming multi-day, on-site, orientation.  Harvard planned to fly the whole Class of 2012, from wherever we were around the world, to Cambridge from May 5^th to 8^th.

Interviews by the Loeb Fellowship Curator and Coordinator, Harvard Faculty, and a Loeb Alumni/ae

(The events in this post occurred in March 2011)

Throughout January and February, I remained content with being nominated and the direction that I had set for myself through my application.  Then, in early March, while I was sitting at my desk, another e-mail arrived from Sally.  Momentarily, nothing else mattered except for the need to open that e-mail.  It began with, “Congratulations, you’ve been selected as a finalist for the Loeb Fellowship!”  A broad and indelible smile appeared on my face.  I read the balance of the letter which provided information for three upcoming interviews, after which the final selection would be made.  I was extremely happy that my message had been received favorably.  I was one of 19 finalists and nine would be awarded Fellowships.  Now, it was time to deliver in person.

The first interview would be with Sally and Jim; the second with Professor Mark Mulligan, with Harvard’s Graduate School of Design; and the third with Camilla Ween, a Fellow from the Class of 2008 and a high level transportation and land use planner with Transport for London, England.  I had an inkling that these people would conduct very good interviews.

The first two interviews could be conducted either by Skype or in person.  The third would be conducted by Skype. I chose Skype for all three interviews due to the cost of travel and ease of scheduling.  Despite the scheduling flexibility, finding mutually convenient times was tricky; these folks were busy.  A little wrinkle was that the firm did not permit Skype to be used on any of its computers due to a small but real concern about security.  Also, I did not know how to Skype.  Consequently, I had to get Skype at home, learn it, and do all the interviews from there.

I shared the news of the short-listing with my closest colleagues and family.  Everyone was as supportive, or more supportive, now that I had advanced a step.  Most people thought my odds of a favorable outcome were elevated because the finalists were in the interview stage.  The idea was that, being a consultant, interviewing was a normal part of my life.  However, having learned more about the “average Loeb Fellow”, I suspected that all the finalists would be comfortable with interviews.  Furthermore, I’m normally interviewing to help other people; this time, I was interviewing to get help myself but, at the same time, reinforce my potential.  Tim and Ben gave me great advice which I really appreciated.  What I appreciated even more was their enthusiastic encouragement.

Joe Brown
Landscape Architect &
Urban Designer

Tim also mentioned the pursuit to some senior people at AECOM.  As a result, one day, a phone call was arranged between me and Joe Brown.  He wanted to talk to me about the Loeb Fellowship.  This was very cool.  I had heard that Joe was likely the most accomplished landscape architect that I had ever met.  We’d met for about five seconds when we shook hands when he visited our office in early 2010.  Joe had been the head of the firm, EDAW, until joining with AECOM.  Joe is now AECOM’s Chief Innovation Officer.  Over his multi-decade career, Joe’s contributions to landscape architecture and urban design were huge.  When he spoke to our office gathering during his 2010 visit, he was soft-spoken but had conviction.  His passion for people, with roots in any profession, to make positive change to the built and natural environments was contagious.  I thought to myself, this guy is the real deal, no wonder he is able to make a difference.

Prior to the call, I learned that Joe was already very familiar with the Loeb Fellowship, having attended and taught at Harvard.  There was no need for me to describe the Fellowship to him since he likely knew more about it than I did.  I was really looking forward to the call even though I did not know how much time had had budgeted nor what he wanted to cover.  I was ready for anything from a short call with him saying, “Good luck and work hard” to who knows what?  We ended up speaking for over 45 minutes about a variety of topics.  Based on this, my one and only conversation with Joe Brown, it was evident that he had given a great deal of thought to a range of urban design subjects; he easily cut to the chase on every one of them.  What was pleasing to me, was that he was interested in the integration of transportation and land use and the related reforms.  Also pleasing to me, was his excitement for employing and spreading sound urban design principles to help cities all over the world.  That sounded like exactly what I would love to do, but through a Livable Transportation lens.  Mostly, he genuinely wanted to use the call to impart some wisdom to me about getting the most out of my time at Harvard so that I could be a more effective change agent when I was done.  He summarized his key advice in two words: “avoid distractions.”  He didn’t mean the Animal House toga parties or beer drinking sort of thing.  He meant drilling down to what the real issues were.  Get past the rhetoric, the noise, and the insignificant stuff in order to expose the nerve.  I thought, now that was good advice and that is exactly what I am going to do, with only the odd frat party thrown in now and again.

Prior to the interviews, I felt prepared.  Before each one, I reviewed the material, which I had gathered in December, and glanced through my copy of my application.  I knew exactly where everything was in case of a specific question.  I also turned off my mobile phone and asked my wife and kids to please find something to do somewhere away from the house for a couple of hours so that there was close to a zero possibility of background noise, distractions, or interruptions.

Sally and Jim did a great interview.  It was clear that they had a ton of experience speaking with hopeful candidates.  The introduction provided a structure for the interview.  The atmosphere was sincere and comfortable.  I couldn’t actually see Sally because she was outside of their camera’s field-of-view but Jim was prominent.  He didn’t appear to be using any notes but his questions were great.  He honed in on several transportation topics from my application and went two to three questions deeper than most people would.  That was quite impressive and displayed a healthy curiosity about a field that wasn’t necessarily his passion.

When I returned to the office, the two people who sit closest to me, Danni Hirsh and Fabian De La Espriella asked me how the interview went, followed quickly by “Did they let you know?”  However, they really didn’t need to ask the questions; I could tell by the expressions on their faces what they wanted to know.

Danni Hirsh
(from our group's rather fun
bulletin board)

We have an open format office.  Our three desks are aligned and Danni’s desk is between Fabian’s and mine.  Danni and Fabian had, more or less, front row seats to my pursuit of a Fellowship.  Over the months, we had had dozens conversations about it and they’d heard plenty of snippets of related calls and other conversations.  Next to my wife, Danni and Fabian were closest people to the day-to-day goings-on with the Fellowship and were sincerely interested in any news.

Danni is a young, cheerful, enthusiastic, and brilliant transportation engineer.  She is totally comfortable and fluent in the increasingly digital world of transportation engineering but also wants to know the ideas and background behind the interfaces so she can further develop her own judgment; something I find refreshing in young engineers.  She also does not accept ideas at face value; she needs to know “Why?”  I hope she never loses that quality.

Fabian De La Espriella
(from our group's rather fun
bulletin board)

Though Fabian works regularly with the other groups at the office, he has been my right hand guy on most of my projects over the last few years.  He is from Columbia and has an architectural and urban design background but has developed a thorough knowledge of Livable Transportation. I keep forgetting that he has just under a decade of experience because of his dependability, capabilities, and breadth.  He can fulfill practically any role during charrettes, guide the younger staff, and almost as if he has ESP, he knows what design direction makes sense.  He loves the arts, he manages complex projects, he renders, and he undoubtedly has a great career ahead of him.

So, when I returned from my interview, I knew that it would be our first conversation before anything else could get done.  I said that I thought that the interview went well but really had nothing to compare it to.  Sally and Jim provided no indication about what they thought about my odds and rightly so.  They were very polite and professional.  At the same time, they had an empathetic quality to them; they knew what I was going through and made the interview much more comfortable than it could have been.  I also confessed to Danni and Fabian that I had an uncanny feeling that they were always a deduction or two ahead of me, the whole time; these people were smart and experienced (which was, of course, consistent with the fact that they were at Harvard University doing what they do).

 Professor Mark Mulligan’s interview was very enjoyable.  He was so upbeat.  He could immediately see opportunities and overlap between his own work/studios and my interests and we had a great discussion about related issues in an Asian context.  The interview almost felt like a brain-storming session.  He’d have a question, I’d provide an answer, then we’d explore it, he’d have ideas about how to explore it further, and so on.  After that interview, I thought that, if Professor Mulligan was a typical professor at Harvard, then there would be no limit to the possible avenues to take during the Fellowship.



Camilla Ween with her Loef Fellowship Class of 2008



Camilla Ween’s interview was the hardest for me.  Unlike the first two interviews, the audio at my end was a bit spotty and, occasionally, I had to ask her to repeat herself, which I hoped was not too bothersome for her.  There was also a small delay in both the audio and video transmission which was just long enough for us to start sentences simultaneously and then simultaneously gesture for the other to finish and then we’d both start our sentences again.  However, it was still amazing that we were, more or less, having a face-to-face conversation with an ocean between us.  Despite the distance, philosophically, I felt quite close to her.  She was definitely a kindred spirit. Her main concern about my transportation reform ideas was the sheer magnitude of the problem in the United States and the tilted playing field over here.  It was so nice to get an independent and well-articulated verification of the magnitude of the problem from someone who is so knowledgeable and a world-class leader in my profession.  She was dead on; it was a tough challenge.  And that was exactly why I wanted to do the Fellowship.   I also mentioned that our Livable Transportation group had already achieved several successes in parts of America, in all the basic contexts (rural, suburban, and urban), despite the tilted playing field.  The real challenge would be spreading the ideas, scaling things up, leveling the playing field to make it easy for all cities to do the right thing, and making a new normal.  Lastly, we discussed that, in North America, it took about five decades for the originally untested conventional transportation paradigm to demonstratively and repeatedly fail on so many levels.  I assured her that nobody was expecting to develop a silver bullet that would solve such a giant problem quickly.

Ian Lockwood’s Loeb Fellowship Application

(The events in this post occurred in December 2010)

One item, from James Stockard’s letter that struck me like a 2x4 was the application deadline of Monday, January 3^rd, 2011.  Considering that it was December 6^th, and I had to Fed Ex my application to arrive at Harvard University by the 3rd, my real deadline was more like December 29^th, just over three weeks away. Among other things, the application asked for four essays and a “portfolio” but, as a transportation engineer, I did not have a portfolio.  I wondered if there was even such a thing as a portfolio for transportation engineers and, if so, what would one look like?  Furthermore, I had several consulting tasks to wrap up before the holidays, not to mention to get ready for the holidays themselves.  So, if anyone is still wondering why the Lockwood home was not decorated for the holidays and why my family and I didn’t get around to sending out a holiday card, now you know why.

The Lockwood Clan's Draft Holiday Card

That being said, there was actually a draft card done.  Before my nomination, the card was nicely on schedule.  After reading the application requirements, it was clear the card was going to be a little late.  I made a few subtle changes to the card to reflect its inevitable lateness, but still didn’t get it finished.  The application had priority and by the time it was complete, the card was too late and got shelved.  However, as you can see, from the draft card, our family’s life in 2010 revolved, to a great extent, around volleyball and the Winter Park High School.  It seemed like we were always somewhere on campus.

The interesting thing about completing a Loeb Fellowship application is that everything has strict word-limits or other limits.  Consider letters of recommendation, for example.  I was fully prepared to bury the selection committee with letters of recommendation.  Over the years, I had worked closely with dozens of mayors, business people, redevelopment agency officials, public works people, architects, planners, engineers, park people, DOT officials, environmental groups, city managers, developers, advocacy groups, urban designers, health officials, and so forth.  I knew people from each group who would be happy to write me a letter.  However, the limit was three letters.  Only three?  The limit for the portfolio was four pieces of work.  What, only four?  I was fully prepared to put together a tome.  Each of the four essays was limited by a word count which amounted to about one page each.  One page each?  There was too much to say!  Upon reflection, however, the strict limits made a lot of sense because the competing design professionals were likely prepared to do the same thing as me and the selection committee would, indeed, have been buried in bulky applications.

The challenge quickly became who to pick for references, what work to choose, and what to write about.  My early conclusion was that there was not even close to enough room to cover everything which made the application that much more challenging.  My first strategy was to summarize my background but concluded that, given the space limits, it would be too general.  My strategy ended up being trying to use each part of the application to cover selected aspects of my career, interests, and goals; somewhat like Sally had alluded to in one of her instructions.  For space reasons, I had to leave some chapters of my life out completely and strip away the remainder down to my message.  The message was diversity/depth, room for improvement/potential, and commitment/mission.

The second and simultaneous challenge was to do the soul searching that the four essays required and then, somehow, articulate my thoughts properly within the word count.  The clever nature of the questions forced me to dig deep into what I was about as a design professional, consider the profession as a whole, where I saw my career heading, and what I needed to work on to enable that.  Specifically, the questions were:

i)          What are the issues in our field that concern you?

ii)         How do you think your work has made the most significant impact on the built and natural environment?

iii)        What are your preliminary thoughts about a work plan for your Fellowship year?  What would you like to accomplish?

iv)        Why is this a good time in your career for you to do a Loeb Fellowship and how will it be useful for you to be at the GSD?

The questions seemed simple enough at first glance, but when I began putting pen to paper, it became a bit of a journey.  Consequently, I spent practically every spare moment from December 6th to the 24th thinking about the essays, pondering my future, discussing the issues with my wife and a couple of close colleagues, writing and rewriting the essays, and summarizing them to fit the word count.

For several years, my career had been following a positive but not overly planned trajectory; a kind of natural progression.  My professional growth strategy had been a fairly simple one: choose projects and causes that had the most potential to make a difference; assemble the best teams that I could; exceed clients’ expectations with the things that mattered; be on panels and advisory groups that could push boundaries; help junior staff develop, and write, conduct lectures, and share my ideas as broadly as I could.  It had been far too long since I’d taken stock and thought about how to improve myself; what I needed to do to exploit more of my own potential.  I certainly had never thought about it for several days in a row nor documented it before.  I definitely had not shared anything like that with a selection committee before; consultants simply are not in the habit of doing that sort of thing.  Upon completing the application, particularly the essays, I thought that, even if I did not get awarded a Loeb Fellowship, going through the process was highly worthwhile.

There were so many people who could have written reference letters for me, several of whom are very close friends and colleagues.  I felt troubled that I could not ask them all but I had no choice; only three.  I ended up choosing the references by following the same logic as with the essays.  I tried to provide diversity to my application by anticipating what the references would likely talk about.  Consequently, I asked Tim Jackson, Dan Burden, and Andrew McNeill.

Tim Jackson, who I described in an earlier blog, knows me from the office.  For those of us who do a lot of work-related travel, the office in Orlando is like our home base and Tim represents a lot of glue that keeps it together.  Tim was my partner and supervisor and is one of my mentors.  We had worked together for many years.  He was instrumental in putting together the original Livable Transportation group and sustaining it to this day.  He knows my strengths, weaknesses, work ethic, philosophies, hobbies, and family life and could provide the selection committee with insight into my regular work and home life.

Fabian De La Espriella and Dan Burden

Dan Burden was also a partner of mine for many years and we share a burning desire to change the conventional transportation paradigm into a sustainable one.  Dan is one of those rare “the glass is 10% full kind of people.”  He is hugely optimistic and inspiring to me and to thousands of other people.  He is one of the top pedestrian bicycle people in North America, a true change agent, and a champion of the populace; that is he cares deeply for pedestrians, cyclists, transit users, passive park and open space users, children, Ma and Pa businesses, and all the other people who typically have little or no voice, compared to the big business, special interest, and lobby groups.  Dan started a number of worthy non-profit organizations over the years, is a prolific trainer, and a visionary.  Dan and I love swapping ideas, slides, lessons learned, and insights.  I was hoping Dan could articulate my passion for change at a societal level.



Andrew McNeill, Landscape Architect

Andrew McNeill is a landscape architect and city planner.  Andrew "gets" city-making; he knows what makes them tick.  He is a design leader and strategic thinker in a suburban city in Canada, called “Mississauga,” located just west of Toronto.  Mississauga is approaching a million people and has dozens of Fortune 500 companies headquartered there.  “Toronto’s” airport is actually located in Mississauga.  Years ago, Andrew led one of the largest public outreach efforts for planning and design in Canadian history to determine the vision for Mississauga.  He involved well over 100,000 people.  The upshot of the vision is to change the city from a relatively anonymous suburban place into an urban city with its own identity, as defined by its people.  I was blessed with being part of the team that helped with this complex and ambitious effort.  My role ranged from early educational efforts for the city staff and public, to leading the design of a downtown college campus master plan, to leading the consulting team that prepared the downtown master plan, known as the Downtown21 Master Plan.  I was hoping that Andrew would describe my passion for highly public and collaborative processes that help make cites pleasant and efficient places.

Coordinating the letters of recommendation was not as simple as one might think.  There were confidentiality requirements, references were travelling, and so forth.  Ann Mieczkoski, who is Tim's assistant, one of our key marketing people, and our interoffice coordinator (all rolled into one) helped me by coordinating the letters so that they would get to Harvard on time and according to their requirements.  Ann is type of person who is generous with her time if she is helping someone, even if she has to work late, which she does regularly.  I knew she stayed even a little later because she helped me and I really appreciated it.   

Doing a portfolio was a final part of the application. It came together more easily than I originally thought due to the diversity strategy developed earlier.  I had to pick four pieces of work out of hundreds of projects that I’d done with my first consulting firm in Canada, the projects that I did as the Transportation Planner for the City of West Palm Beach, and the hundreds of projects that I’d done with Glatting Jackson and AECOM.  The four that became my portfolio were the Virginia Route 50 project, the Mississauga Downtown Master Plan, the New Jersey Route 31 project, and a seminar that I did for the National Capital Planning Commission in Washington DC.

I

Civil War Vintage Stone Wall & Scenery Along Route 50

The western part of Route 50 in Virginia is a beautiful, two-lane, rural road that winds its way through the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  It is also the main street for three quaint little towns.  The Route 50 project was about saving the agricultural, historic, and very scenic rural area from a huge highway expansion, three highway bypasses, grade-separated interchanges, and the accompanying sprawl. In the mid-1990s and right out of graduate school, when I’d studied “traffic calming”, I got a call for help from the Route 50 Corridor Coalition from rural Virginia.  It was led by a talented artist, Susan Van Wagoner; supported by a preservation group called the Piedmont Environmental Council, led by a bright, young, and committed-to-the-cause lawyer, Chris Miller; and involved a cast of characters that could populate a few novels, or a stage (see below).
 


Volunteers from the Route 50 Community Performing a
Traffic Calming Musical to Raise Awareness and
Lighten the Divisive Mood that had Gripped the Area



I ended up helping the town, rural, and business communities by encouraging them to stop arguing about which side of their towns should get destroyed by the highway bypasses and, instead, develop a vision for themselves that did not involve the large highway (a.k.a. development road) that the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) was trying to force through their area.  I also helped the community develop an alternative project (i.e., the USA’s first rural traffic calming project), based on their vision, and then led a team of designers to prepare the preliminary plans, despite the interference and strenuous objections of VDOT.  However, after several years, VDOT came around, became supportive, and eventually became our client for the project.  Now, they consider the project one of their context-sensitive design success stories.

Getting the "Bones" Right was Fundamental
to Allow a Walkable Downtown to Emerge

The Mississauga Downtown Master Plan project was about creating a transit-oriented, pedestrian-friendly, and vibrant downtown out of what was a suburban area.  My main contributions involved adding new streets to the street network, determining roles and cross-sections for the streets, developing an integrated transit strategy, planning the bicycle and pedestrian accommodations, and helping with the open space plans. 

Parks & Open Space Layer

Light Rail & Bus Rapid Transit Layer

I was also the “face” of the project and conducted the major presentations to the public and City Council.  However, every aspect of this project was a collaboration and would not have been possible without Ed McKinney who was the urban design brains behind the project.  Also, Andrew McNeil was the strategic leader, Steven Bell was the organizational genius, and a cast of other professionals at the City and on our consulting team caused this project to succeed.  As is the case in many North American cities, the most challenging group to involve holistically was the City’s transportation engineers.  I believe in my heart that they really meant well and tried hard but this experience reinforced in my mind that my own profession requires nothing less than a paradigm shift for North American cities to achieve truly integrated urban planning and design.     

Anti-Community Interchange vs Pro-Community Street Network
(Competing Visions)

The New Jersey Route 31 project started out as a short conversation between me and a client from the New Jersey Department of Transportation, a great guy and fellow engineer named Gary Toth.  Gary was giving me a ride to the airport at the time.  We were driving around a dangerous and obsolete traffic circle in a little town called, Flemington, when he mentioned that the circle was going to be replaced by a giant highway interchange.  The interchange’s construction plans had just been completed to the disappointment of the local businesses that would be economically decimated.  He added that the NJDOT also was planning to build a matching, huge, and expensive highway through the area (the right-of-way for which had been systematically assembled since the 1970s when the idea for the highway got “on the books”).

The Network that Replaced the
Destructive Highway Plan

I mentioned that the area looked like it could benefit from a smaller-scaled street network which would be lot cheaper for the NJDOT and not destroy the businesses, historic farms, wetlands, and character of area.  Instead, it would help the area (i.e. a Smart Growth Plan). That chat led to a small, low profile, contract to discuss the radical (at the time) ideas with high level NJDOT officials and a few key stakeholders.  One thing led to another and, eventually, the project turned into the largest and most influential Smart Growth project in the state, involving several agencies, several jurisdictions, several consulting firms, and a myriad of stakeholders.   

Everybody on the Stakeholder
Pyramid is Important with
Smart Growth Projects

In retrospect, one of my key roles was working with the stakeholders, inside and outside of the NJDOT, on the wisdom of shelving the 1970’s highway and interchange plans and doing something that was pro-community, less expensive, and context-sensitive.  My other role was to lead the multidisciplinary design team through a highly collaborative and public design effort which, by the way, would have been impossible without Donna Drewes.  Donna is a highly experienced community planner in New Jersey.  However, her great gift to this project was that she knew and had the respect of everyone in the area, from the community folks to the State leaders.  She was instrumental in helping us: i) figure out what we call the “Stakeholder Pyramid” (i.e., strategizing how and when to involve the people from the top to the grass-roots); and ii) successfully negotiate through the complex political minefield.

The Sparce Hierarchy with the Huge Highway (left)
Perfromed Worse than the Connected Network (right)
from Every Perspective (Cost, Historic Preservation,
Environmental Stewardship, LOS for Motorists, etc.)

Ed McKinney was also instrumental in this effort for its urban design and then leading the follow-up work.  Also, it was during the Route 31 project, when we first worked with Scott Diehl, a formidably-sized ex-soccer player who had become a talented yet conventional, skeptical yet open-minded, traffic engineer.  His firm was in a “forced marriage” with my firm, as arranged by Gary Toth, our client.  Note that Gary had a habit of pairing us up with local firms in order to train them in the ways of Smart Growth and public processes.  According to Gary, it had something to do with New Jersey learning how to fish instead of getting a fish.  Anyway, at the start, Scott was visibly uncomfortable with what was going on.  It was very unconventional and nerve-racking for him.  However, being a life-long-learner sort of person, he allowed himself to be being immersed into the project and process.  Like a sponge, he quickly picked up on the philosophies, the principles, the collateral benefits, the thoroughness and efficiencies of the public involvement process, and the potential for replication.  Scott became a kindred spirit and he expertly handled the various analyses that were needed to make the business and traffic cases complete.  New Jersey had gained a very good fisherman, just as Gary had intended.

The seminar/discussion with National Capital Planning Commission was the fourth part of my portfolio.  I had several outreach/advocacy efforts to choose from but this one was a special to me due to the optimism that I sensed during and after the event.  The discussion was an educational and awareness effort, arranged by Stewart Schwartz, the Executive Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth in Washington DC.  Stewart is an incredibly energetic and insightful advocate for saving our planet and our species.  Despite mankind’s strong, yet mostly unappreciated, trajectory towards a slow suicide, Stewart masterfully and courageously leverages all of his energies and his organization’s influence and resources to maximum effect.  Wasted opportunities are the bane of Stewart’s existence and, since he knew I would be in town for another project, he and his committed staff arranged and promoted the event.  My job was to share some ideas and insights about replacing conventional transportation values and practices with more sustainable ones and then have a discussion with the staff and friends of the Commission.  The audience was comprised of fellow practitioners, politicians, developers, property owners, advocates, staff people from several jurisdictions, and a few local residents.  The gender mix was about 50-50 and there was a wide range of experience levels.  Attendance that evening was purely voluntary.  Everyone in the room was on their own time and was engaged.  They wanted to learn the perspectives of others and they wanted to share their own.  The unanimous commitment to make a difference by such a diverse group was uplifting.

So, with my application complete, I double and triple checked the documents against the list of requirements. Everything was there.  I was done.  I was also alone at the office and New Year’s Eve was around the corner.  My colleagues were somewhere else, likely at their homes enjoying the holidays with their families.  I had missed most of the holidays; yet, my wife and children never complained, not even once.  They understood that I was working on something important.  They, like my colleagues, were all rooting for me.  Although I may have been physically alone, I felt immense support.

I was sitting in my chair.  The only things on my desk were the list of requirements, a pen, and my completed application, neatly stacked.  I pondered that stack of paper somewhat like I had pondered Sally’s e-mail three weeks earlier.  However, this time, I contemplated the future, not the past.  I imagined a committee of really smart people poring over dozens of applications from around the world and, somehow, making a connection with mine.  I imagined that stack of paper relaying my message that I had worked so hard to get right.  I imagined being selected as a Loeb Fellow and being able to “pause” for ten months and do all the things that I’d written out in my work plan.  It was a wonderful feeling.  I also imagined not being selected, feeling disappointed, but still feeling comforted because: i) I had the full backing of my family, colleagues, and firm to take a shot; and ii) I imagined that I would still fulfill a slimmed down version of the work plan, even if it was not at Harvard and even if it took longer.  Either way, I imagined a brighter future as a result of the process of completing the application and proving that I had a supportive environment.  Happily, I sealed it up, sent it off, and went home to my family to enjoy the remainder of the holidays.

Support for Ian Lockwood’s Loeb Fellowship Nomination

(The events in this post occurred in December 2010)

Before I went anywhere with my Fellowship application, I had to gauge the level of support from AECOM and my coworkers.  I genuinely had a good feeling about this but did not want to jeopardize my job, my friendships, my professional relationships, nor the “great group” that the firm had developed over the years to provide Livable Transportation services.  I started by telling Tim Jackson about my nomination.

Tim Jackson, PE, AICP

Tim is in charge of our office in Orlando as well as the other AECOM Planning and Design offices in the southeastern United States.  Tim is a seasoned professional engineer and planner and has a unique understanding of detailed design as well as really big picture ideas.  He has a passion for a range of pursuits from helping large private property owners preserve huge natural areas in perpetuity, to helping DOTs with reform ideas, to many other worthy endeavors.  No matter how many balls Tim has up in the air, he always manages to find time to help me strategize my projects or develop the best teams to allow my work to succeed.

Tim could not have been more supportive of my nomination and application.  He already knew a few Fellows from past years and immediately knew how important an opportunity this was.  He also asked me all the right questions and offered any support that he could.

Next, I had to inform my fellow principals, coworkers, and colleagues from around the continent.  I decided to do this via a group e-mail so that they would get the correct information, all at the same time.  I was blown away with the response.  Here is a sample of the responses:

John Paul:  What great news!  To be nominated is quite an honor, in and of itself.  I still have memories of some of the Loeb Fellows while I was attending Harvard - two of them, Andrew Altman and Jacquelyn Harris had a direct influence on me and began to change my views of planning and urban design.  You certainly could fill that role for many of the students there now.

Chad:  Wooohooo!  Congrats Ian. I'd love to share my experience with you regarding my interaction with the Loebs during my time in Cambridge. Good luck and talk to you soon.

Sarah:  Hip Hip Hooray, Ian!!  This is such wonderful news and TOTALLY deserved!   What a gift to the students, university, yourself!  What a talent you are – it’s so nice to see that being recognized!  Ian, if there’s anything we can do, name it!  Congratulations and well done, Chap!!!  Rock em, sock em!

Phillip:  Delighted to know you’ve been nominated for the Loeb Fellowship.  Mine was ages ago (83-84), but I still think about and draw upon the experience all the time. Great opportunity to focus on an interest – and also a lovely, intellectual wallow. As you are probably aware, the Fellows have become an exceptional network. Cathy Sloss Crenshaw, one of our brightest developers, finished her Fellowship in 2006 and has since brought Loeb teams to Birmingham to help her with projects.  Best of luck on the Loeb.

Ann: Ian- this is so exciting! Congrats on being nominated, Harvard would be at a loss if they didn’t choose you. Let us know if you need help.

Carey: That is absolutely fantastic, Ian.  It would be heavenly for you….please let me know if I can send a letter or do any references for you in support, ok?

Tina: That is wonderful news!  How exciting!  I’ll keep my fingers crossed in hope that you are one of the 10 selected to participate in this opportunity.

Sharon:  Congratulations Ian, as they say at all the awards shows, it’s an honor just to be nominated!  This sounds like an amazing opportunity, best of luck! 

Bruce:  You suck. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.  Actually, congratulations and the best of luck with this.  You will be missed during that period and I hesitate to think of the crazy ideas you’ll come back with.

Erin: Wow! How exciting Ian! This is quite impressive. Well best of luck for sure – I am rooting for you!!

Pegge:  Yay, you!  I’m so proud of you for being nominated!  You’d be a wonderful scholar!  I wish you the best of luck during the process.

Pete:  Wow – very exciting.  Good luck! 

Carol:  Wow and good luck!

Tara:  Best of luck to you Ian.

John: Congratulations Ian!  This is exciting news!  Way to go!

Ken:  Congratulations. Make sure your college try is better than the guy in this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0JD8pOgD1s&feature=related

Jay:  Best of luck Ian!  Thanks for sharing and I wish you the very best!  Please keep me informed as to how this pans out.

David:  Wow, Ian – congratulations!  I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

Evan (son), Joanne (wife), and Sarah (daughter) 

When I went home that evening, I passed the news onto my family.  My wife and teen-aged children were very happy for me and encouraged me to apply with enthusiasm.  Everyone knew, that I was one of numerous highly qualified professionals applying for only a few spots and, if I ever were awarded a Loeb Fellowship, then it would not start until some nine months into the future.  Consequently, the whole thing seemed a bit theoretical and far away.

My parents, who live in Canada, were their usual supportive selves.  My mother, a retired nurse, was very proud that I might be heading off to school to position myself to do more good work and better achieve my potential.  My father, a retired landscape architect and park planner, recognized the opportunity to help a lot of cities and people.  He encouraged me to write a book about Livable Transportation and share my ideas broadly, something he and I had been discussing for years but I’d never had the time due to my family and consulting obligations.

What is a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University?

James Stockard in Loeb Fellow Class of 1978

Attached to Sally Young’s e-mail, was a two-page letter from James G. Stockard, who is the Curator of the Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University and, interestingly, completed a Loeb Fellowship, himself, in 1978.  His letter touched on the application processes, the stiff competition for Fellowships, and the deadlines.  It also covered the purpose of the Fellowship and indicated the website where more information could be obtained.



Frances L. and John L. Loeb, Benefactors

In summary, in 1970, John and Frances Loeb endowed the Loeb Fellowship through a generous contribution to the Harvard Design School.  John Loeb was a wealthy investment banker from New York City and, at the time, was the Chair of the Graduate School of Design’s (GSD’s) Development Program.  The goal and structure of the Fellowship was crafted with a great deal of help from William Doebele, the Associate Dean of Development at the Design School.

The historical backdrop for the Fellowship was the late-1960’s social upheaval and riots going on in American cities.  The goal was the betterment of the built and natural environments by helping promising design professionals become more effective leaders and practitioners.  The Fellowship would do this by: i) identifying about 10 mid-career professionals, each year, who have the potential to make a bigger difference in the future through their work and leadership; and ii) providing them with the time (i.e., one academic year) and resources (i.e., more or less, all the resources at Harvard University) to pause their careers and normal routines to build a platform from which to launch the second half of their careers.

William A. Doebele, Curator 1970 - 1997

At Harvard University, the Fellows would undertake a self-directed mix of studying, researching, writing, reflecting, discussing, learning, exploring, sharing, and generally seeking out what they would need to position or reposition themselves for the second half of their careers.  In return, while at Harvard, the Fellows would be encouraged to be a resource for the students and faculty.  William Doebele would become the Curator of the Loeb Fellowship from 1970 to 1997.  Jim Stockard has been the Curator ever since.  Since 1970, over 400 Loeb Fellowships have been awarded and have helped the recipients achieve many marvelous things, just as Frances Loeb, John Loeb, and William Doebele intended.

Ben Hamilton-Baillie Nominates Ian Lockwood for a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University

(The events in this post occurred in late 2010)

A short e-mail arrived on Monday afternoon, December 6^th, 2010, from Sally Young, the Program Coordinator for the Loeb Fellowship.  The e-mail said that Ben Hamilton-Baillie had nominated me for a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University.  The news was accompanied with some friendly instructions to locate more information about the Loeb Fellowship program and the application process.  After reading the e-mail, I partially closed my laptop so that I could no longer see the screen, sat back in my chair, and, for the next five minutes or so, contemplated the events leading up to that moment and the wonderful trigger that may just have being pulled.

Golfer Crossing Stream

Ben and I would eventually work together, in 2008, as part of a brilliant team assembled by the Montreal architects Daniel Pearl and Sudhir Suri, from the firm, L’Oeuf.  The project was the redevelopment of an old golf course into a “One Planet Community”.   That meant that no stone would remain unturned to make the mixed-use development uber-environmentally-friendly.  Our client, Suzanne Deschamps, was likely one of the most charismatic and environmentally-minded developers on earth.  She wanted her development to be in the same league as BedZED, Sonoma Mountain Village, and Mazdar City.  Even the polluted water that had, for decades, flowed along a stream through the site might still enter polluted but it would leave clean.  Ben’s and my role was to help provide transportation and street design direction.

Months prior, I learned about the Montreal project via a cold call.  Out of the blue, Sudhir Suri called me and introduced himself and his firm.  He described the redevelopment project, emphasized the high setting for the environmental bar, and covered his team’s desire to build shared spaces and/or other cleverly designed streets and trails.  He said that his team had been searching for a top notch transportation person and asked if I’d be interested.  Naturally, I replied “Yes, very much so.”  He then added the detail that the team had narrowed their search down to two transportation people; me and Ben Hamilton-Baillie.  He then asked me to provide him with the reasons why they should choose me and not Ben and I presumed that they would be calling Ben with a similar request.  I replied, “Of course, you should hire Ben.”  I explained that Ben was a well-respected British architect, lecturer, and designer of streets and public spaces; he had worked closely with Hans Monderman, from the Netherlands; they had pioneered “Shared Spaces” in several European countries; in my view, Ben was a true kindred spirit in the quest to change the conventional transportation paradigm into something sustainable; and that he would be perfect for your team.  Sudhir agreed.  Then, I added, “You should also hire me” and explained that I’m a well-respected transportation engineer, speaker, and designer of streets and public spaces, who has worked throughout North America with people like Walter Kulash, Dan Burden, and Mayor Nancy Graham, who helped pioneer traffic calming and road diets, and who is on a similar quest to change the conventional transportation paradigm.  With the two of us, I explained, the team would get both the European and North American perspectives.  Sudhir agreed with that too and Ben and I had the pleasure of being part of a very high caliber team and contributing to the project.

Ben Hamilton-Baillie (front right) with Loeb Fellow Class 2001

During the on-site design charrette in Montreal, there was a bit of a mix-up with the hotel reservations.  Ben and I were inadvertently booked into a different hotel than the balance of the out-of-town consultants.  Consequently, we ended up having several breakfasts and suppers together.  As a result, we got to know each other.  It turned out that, during our careers, we had been striving for very similar goals.  So, there were tremendous commonalities.  However, due to our different backgrounds and contexts, there were plenty of differences, nuances, and experiences to share.  We traded war-stories, philosophies, Power Point slides, and learned a lot from each other.  It was during these exchanges that I learned that Ben had completed a Loeb Fellowship in 2001 and had found it extremely helpful.  He suggested that I should consider doing the same and that he would be willing to nominate me. 

Phillip Morris with Loeb Fellow Class 1984

 Ben’s positive account of the Fellowship mirrored an account that I heard years earlier from Phillip Morris, from Birmingham, Alabama.  Phillip was a gifted journalist and had completed his Loeb Fellowship in 1984.  Phillip was the point person for what I would call a “community-based client group.”  Phillip had me put together a consulting team to develop a grass-roots, environmentally responsible, and economically sensible Smart Growth plan to help stop the Alabama Department of Transportation from building an extraordinarily wrong-headed, sprawl-inducing, expensive, elevated freeway outside of Birmingham.  Philip said that his Loeb Fellowship was one of the most enjoyable and valuable experiences of his life.  He highly recommended I consider one as well.

Despite Phillip and Ben’s encouragement, the year 2008 was not the best year for me to consider a Loeb Fellowship.  My consulting partners at our firm, Glatting Jackson, and I had recently purchased and renovated a beautiful historic building, in downtown Orlando, and moved our office functions into it.  On the heels of our move, the economic downturn hit Florida hard and Central Florida even harder.  Consequently, local consulting firms were going under left and right and our primary focus was keeping our office in business and continuing to employ as many of our talented staff as possible.  Though plenty of pain was endured, the situation at the office eventually stabilized over the subsequent couple of years.  One of the changes involved our little firm joining a much larger firm, AECOM, in December, 2009.  By the autumn of 2010, it felt like the market and the situation at the office was about right for me to consider pursuing a Loeb Fellowship. 

I dusted off the idea from 2008 and discussed it with Joanne and she said, “You’ve always wanted to do something like this.  Take a shot.”  I mentioned the aligning of the stars to Ben and, a couple of weeks later, Sally’s e-mail arrived.  I’d been nominated!