ABOUT

I am an economic geographer and certified city planner with more than two decades of experience helping public sector organizations, nonprofits and associations in public-private partnerships do the real work of community development, from visioning through compliance.

My work connects systems. I have designed, funded, implemented, and evaluated initiatives spanning economic development, affordable housing, public health, childcare, social services and workforce development. For each engagement, I lead and put together the right team of content experts to match the challenge.

Before consulting, I served as the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s representative to Arizona’s colonias, assisting U.S.-Mexico border communities. As a city planner in southern Arizona, New Jersey, and Kansas, I developed plans that cross sector lines rather than reinforce them. I am bilingual in Spanish and grew up in Venezuela.

I hold a doctorate in economic geography from the University of Arizona, where I also taught briefly as an adjunct, and a master’s degree in planning from Kansas State University. My doctoral research was supported by fellowships from the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Rural Poverty Research Center. I received community development training from Harvard’s JFK School of Government and hold the AICP credential from the American Institute of Certified Planners, a division of the American Planning Association. I co-authored two academically refereed books with the University of Arizona Press: Colonias in Arizona and New Mexico and The Colonias Reader, along with more than a dozen peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters on housing policy, rural poverty, public health, and community development in intercultural contexts.

In 2025–26 I released three new resources on trust, partnerships and compliance. Your Seat at the Table is a leadership parable I wrote with contributions from Jenni Moreno about building — and rebuilding — partnerships across power differentials. The two companion workbooks, The Money Trail and Lines You Shouldn’t Cross, were coauthored with Jenni Moreno.

My research and practice are grounded in trust as a measurable foundation. My research with Dr. Mary Adam produced a trust-building framework used across community development and health contexts, including ongoing work in Kenya through Trustforchange.org.

I am a founding member of Promoting Independence, supporting young adults on the autism spectrum, and serve on the advisory board of the Erik Hite Foundation, which provides flexible childcare to first responders.