When Colleen looks at an empty field, she sees opportunity—an opportunity to help communities build strong, sustainable futures while respecting their history. With more than two decades of experience working on complex, multidisciplinary projects across Arizona, New Mexico, and beyond, Colleen has a knack for empowering communities to realize their potential and working with stakeholders to ensure all voices are heard. As the sector leader for Arizona’s Community Development group, she works with project teams to set clear objectives, staffing, project needs, schedules, and expectations.
Colleen has worked with a wide variety of clients, designing the visions of major technology companies, commercial and residential developers, military and government entities, and municipalities across the southwestern United States. As a certified floodplain manager, she understands that resiliency is a key part to any community’s future. Colleen manages project permitting and design efforts for communities within floodplains to meet FEMA requirements.
Passionate about inspiring youth to pursue careers in STEM fields, Colleen has been a Future City coach since 2013. As a coach, she’s mentored middle school students through an engineering-based project to design a city of the future and solve engineering dilemmas.