Fall 2000 Forum Biographies

Victor H. Ashe
Knoxville, Tennessee

In his fourth term as mayor of Knoxville, Victor Ashe is continuing to develop new and innovative ways to deliver essential public services while maintaining a level tax rate.

Ashe was first elected mayor of Knoxville in 1987 and won reelection in 1991 and 1995 by at least a two-thirds majority of the votes. In the 1999 primary election, Ashe was elected without a runoff to his fourth consecutive term as mayor.

On March 14, 2000, Ashe was elected as a delegate for George W. Bush in the Tennessee Republican primary running statewide. He received more votes than anyone else running for delegate in the state Republican primary. In the 1988 primary, Ashe was also elected to serve as a Republican delegate for George H. W. Bush.

As mayor, he has concentrated on improving the city's financial condition, making sure city neighborhoods are clean and safe and developing new parks and greenways. Tremendous progress has been made towards these goals as Knoxville's bond rating has significantly improved, saving taxpayers millions of dollars in interest costs, and crime rates have been reduced by more than 30 percent since 1991. Five major new parks, more than 10 miles of new greenways, and new downtown attractions along the Tennessee River have been developed.

Mayor Ashe is a past President of the United States Conference of Mayors, which represents 1,100 cities with populations of more than 30,000. As USCM President, Ashe led the battle against unfunded federal mandates that resulted in the passage of a mandate relief bill which was signed into law by the President in March 1995.

He is a past president of the Tennessee Municipal League. In 1992, Mayor Ashe was elected delegate to the Republican National Convention, and in 1996 he served as an alternate delegate. The mayor also serves on the advisory board of the National League of Cities, the nation's largest municipal organization. In 1999, Mayor Ashe was honored with the Martin Luther King Leadership Award.

A graduate of Yale University and the University of Tennessee School of Law, Mayor Ashe was elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives in 1968 at the age of 23. He served six years in the state House before being elected to the Tennessee State Senate where he served nine years. While in the Legislature, Ashe successfully passed bills creating Tennessee's Natural Areas Preservation Act and exempted prescription drugs from sales tax. He also authored Tennessee's presidential primary law.

Dick Bigler
Project Manager, City of Knoxville Public Building Authority

Dick Bigler has a degree in Architecture from the University of Houston and over 30 years of experience managing the design and construction of a wide range of U.S. and international projects including a new satellite town in Istanbul, an airport in Macau, a large mixed-use project in Indonesia, and office projects in Saudi Arabia, Illinois, and West Virginia. Mr. Bigler serves as the Program Director for the Public Building Authority in Knoxville, where he is responsible for managing the design and construction of the new 506,000-sq.-ft. Knoxville Convention Center slated to open in 2002, redevelopment of World's Fair Park, and a variety of other related projects totaling $160 million.

Mr. Bigler's U.S. experience includes serving as Development Manager for two of the nation's largest developers, Gerald D. Hines and Trammel Crow, on high-rise office building projects in Springfield, Illinois; Charleston, West Virginia; and Houston, Texas; and for developers in Austin, Texas, for projects that included mixed-use retail and residential, office buildings, a suite-hotel, and executive housing. He was also Project Architect for the Exxon Company General Services Division, responsible for managing the design of a research facility, regional computer center, office buildings, and restoration of a building for the 1968 Hemisfair.

He has overseas experience as: 1) Senior Engineer for ARAMCO in Saudi Arabia on a wide range of projects including a headquarters office project, housing subdivision, dental clinics in three communities and a pivot irrigation project for 250,000 acres on 11 remote sites (projects ranged from $60 million to over $250 million); 2) Managing Director for the restoration of an Ottoman Palace in Istanbul, Turkey, its conversion into a luxury casino and construction of a new 500 room, 5-star hotel ($130 million); 3) Director of Construction for the planning, design and construction of Anateppe, a new satellite city to accommodate 22,000 people ($950 million); and 4) Construction Manager for the Macau International Airport terminal, apron, control tower and navigational aids ($450 million).

In addition, his consulting assignments have included: 1) Jakarta, Indonesia, on two mixed-use commercial projects that included hotels, office building, condominiums, retail, and parking ($450 million); 2) a themed resort project in Singapore, which included a theme park, golf course, hotel, and conference center ($250 million); and 3) San Francisco International Airport construction management assessment on behalf of the San Francisco Airport Authority.

Ron Watkins
President, Worsham-Watkins International

A native of East Tennessee, Ron Watkins studied Business Law and Real Estate at the University of Tennessee and Management at Harvard Graduate School of Business. He worked in the Broadcast Advertising field for 11 years with Nationwide Communications, Inc., Television Division, serving as General Sales Manager. He managed the national sales staff and was actively involved in Network Relations, Corporate Acquisition Analysis, and Corporate Sales Development Policy.

Mr. Watkins began investing in real estate in 1969. He has developed and owned multifamily housing, warehousing, corporate centers, office buildings, retail centers, medical facilities, college and university facilities, leisure communities, and urban revitalization projects.

He is president of Partners and Associates, Inc., a full-service real estate development and consulting firm that specializes in development and turnkey development management of medical facilities, college and university facilities, commercial/retail/corporate facilities, residential/recreational/leisure facilities, and urban revitalization projects. He is licensed as a Real Estate Broker, an NASD Broker-Dealer, and a General Contractor.

John O. Norquist
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

With a record of streamlining city government, improving public safety, and spurring job growth in Milwaukee, Mayor John O. Norquist won election to his fourth term as the city's chief executive in 2000.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel praised his leadership and his accomplishments: "Norquist has had a skillful hand on Milwaukee's helm." The Wall Street Journal calls Mayor Norquist "a genuine New Democrat" while complimenting his work to reduce taxes. The Economist magazine says Mayor Norquist is "part of a strong wind of change that is beginning to blow through American cities." Governing magazine named him Public Official of the Year in 1998.

John Norquist took office in 1988 as the 37th Mayor of Milwaukee. Under his leadership, Milwaukee city government has become more efficient and less costly for city taxpayers. At the same time he has added hundreds of new police officers to the Milwaukee Police Department.

Before he was elected Mayor, John Norquist represented Milwaukee's south and west sides in the Wisconsin Legislature. Fellow legislators elected him to Democratic leadership positions in both the state assembly and state senate. Mayor Norquist served in the Army Reserves from 1971 to 1977.

Mayor Norquist is a prominent participant in national discussions of urban design, government efficiency and educational issues. He is the author of The Wealth of Cities (Addison-Wesley, 1998). As an Adjunct Associate Professor, he has taught at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban Planning.

He chaired the National League of Cities Task Force on Federal Policy and Family Poverty. Mayor Norquist serves on the board of the Congress for the New Urbanism and the Amtrak Reform Council and is a former public board member of the American Institute of Architects.

Norquist earned his undergraduate and master's degrees from the University of Wisconsin.

Peter Park
Planning Director, Milwaukee Department of City Development

Peter J. Park is the City Planning Director in the Milwaukee Department of City Development. Since his appointment in 1995, he has been instrumental in improving planning, design, and development processes in Milwaukee. Under his direction, the city has established a disciplined approach to comprehensive planning, created the Milwaukee Development Center (consolidating planning, zoning, and permitting functions), streamlined development review procedures, raised consciousness of the importance of urban design and begun a complete update of the city's zoning code and map.

Mr. Park is an adjunct associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban Planning. He coordinates the Joint Master of Architecture/Master of Urban Planning Degree Program and teaches urban design lectures and studios. The work explored in his design studios has influenced significant development activities in Milwaukee including the removal of an elevated downtown freeway that makes way for more than 20 acres of new development along the Milwaukee River.

Mr. Park has spoken to numerous local and national organizations including the American Institute of Architects, American Planning Association, American Society of Landscape Architects, Urban Land Institute, Council for Urban Economic Development and Congress for New Urbanism.

He co-authored The Wisconsin State Building Program Research Project: A Comparative Analysis and edited Growth Management and Environmental Quality.

Ken Nelson
President, Milwaukee Rowing Club

Ken Nelson is a certified public accountant whose practice is focused on litigation support and transactional tax planning. During the 1980s, Nelson developed over $100 million of real estate, primarily hotels, and was the first franchisee of Residence Inns and the third franchisee of Hampton Inns. Nelson was the president of Hardage Enterprises, Wichita, Kansas, where he worked from 1981-1983. Prior to that, he was with the James T. Barry Co., Inc. in Milwaukee, and held the record for the state's largest sale for a number of years. Nelson worked for Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co. (now KPMG) from 1976-1979, first in the Chicago office and then in the Milwaukee office. Nelson obtained an MBA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1976 with majors in finance and accounting, and a BBA from the same school in 1974 with a major in accounting.

William A. Johnson, Jr.
Rochester, New York

In January 1994, William A. Johnson, Jr. assumed office as the 64th Mayor of the City of Rochester, and the first African-American to hold the position of chief executive for New York's third-largest city. In January 1998, he began his second term in office, after running unopposed in both the primary and general elections.

Mayor Johnson has made accessible government one of his top priorities. During his first term, he made more than 4,000 public appearances, interacting with a broad cross-section of community residents that included school children, senior citizens, corporate executives and business owners, working-class citizens, and the poor and unemployed. He has been instrumental in launching new programs and initiatives that will position Rochester as a viable renaissance city. He has concentrated his efforts in the areas deemed most critical to improving quality of life: public safety, economic development, neighborhood revitalization, human services, education, and a regional focus on government services.

These efforts have resulted in such innovative initiatives as the Neighbors Building Neighborhoods process of citizen empowerment, Neighborhood Empowerment Teams which provide a rapid response to neighborhood quality-of-life issues, affordable and market-rate city housing development, comprehensive youth violence prevention programs, community-oriented policing, the establishment of downtown entertainment districts (including a major music festival), a free entertainment shuttle service throughout the center city, and a AGood Grades Pay@ program tied to youth employment.

One of Mayor Johnson's most notable accomplishments was the leveraging of more than $25 million in private investment for the construction and expansion of five supermarkets within the city by a major national chain. This is particularly noteworthy because it is contrary to the national trend of disinvestment by supermarket chains in urban communities. Mayor Johnson has also undertaken efforts to attract international investments and recognition to Rochester. He led a delegation of U.S. Mayors to South Africa in 1995, and formed two new Sister City partnerships in Japan and the Dominican Republic. Rochester now has 10 Sister Cities.

Mayor Johnson earned his B.A. and M.A. degrees in political science from Howard University in Washington, D.C. After completing graduate school, he taught political science at C.S. Mott Community College in Flint, Michigan, for four years. In 1971, he became Deputy Executive Director of the Urban League of Flint. Less than two years later, Johnson was selected to be the President and CEO of the Urban League of Rochester, New York, a position he held for 21 years. During his tenure at the Urban League, Johnson launched a number of outstanding programs. He received national recognition in 1985 for developing the Community-wide Initiative to Improve the Quality of Education in the Rochester Public Schools; he established the Salute to Black Scholars Program, which recognizes outstanding academic achievement among African-American high school students; and he established the Black Scholars Endowment Fund, a $1 million permanent fund that awards scholarship money to deserving students. In 1999, Governing magazine named him one of the Top 10 Public Officials in America.

Loretta Scott, Director
Department of Parks, Recreation and Human Services

Loretta Scott was appointed as Commissioner of the Rochester Department of Parks, Recreation and Human Services in 1992, becoming the first African-American female to ever hold the position. Prior to her appointment, she served as Deputy Commissioner, Assistant Commissioner, and in a number of other increasingly responsible administrative positions within the department.

Ms. Scott manages this major city department with a budget of $18 million and a staff of more than 230 full-time and 200 part-time and seasonal employees. Responsibilities include administration of recreation centers, athletic fields, swimming pools, ice rinks, cemeteries, street tree maintenance, special events activities and a Farmer's Market. She is also responsible for the management of contracts for the operation of the Rochester Community War Memorial Arena, the Riverside Convention Center, and the Centers at High Falls, an historic site which houses a museum and three restaurants. Additional department responsibilities include administration of the city's programs for youth employment, job training, and human services.

Major accomplishments include guiding the development of an urban forestry master plan leading to the reduction of the city's street tree pruning rotation from 150 years to five years, revitalization of the 95-year-old Rochester Public Market, and renovation of the city's indoor sports arena, thus doubling its capacity and enabling new entertainment options for area residents.

Ms. Scott has been active in the community for many years. Her past and present board participation includes Action for a Better Community, Alternatives for Battered Women, the United Way of Rochester, and the Landmark Society. She is also on the Board of Trustees for the Rochester Museum and Science Center, as well as the Rochester Chamber of Commerce. Loretta is well known for her efforts to decrease the isolation of African-American professionals in the work place. She is the former president of the Rochester Chapter of the National Forum for Black Public Administrators and is a member of Rochester's African American Leadership Roundtable.

She is a former student of Monroe Community College and is a Bachelor of Liberal Studies degree candidate at Empire State College.

Eric W. Logan
President, Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery

A resident of Rochester for 24 years, Eric is a Manager of Global Messaging and Group Ware Engineering for Eastman Kodak and has been with the company 19 years. Eric has been a member of the Friends of Mt. Hope Cemetery for seven years and the President for five years. Eric is married and has two children. Eric also serves on the WXXI Community Advisory Board and is a volunteer fund raiser for WXXI.

Keynote Speaker
Peter Harnik

Peter Harnik, a Washington, D.C.-based environmental writer and activist, is the author of Inside City Parks, the newly published study of the park and recreation systems of the 25 largest cities in the U.S. The two-year study, carried out for the Trust for Public Land and published by the Urban Land Institute in July 2000, focuses not only on statistics such as acreage and spending, but also on innovative programs and initiatives. Through the book and in his continuing work, Harnik is particularly interested in such issues as how parks relate to cities at large, what makes a park system successful, how old parks can be revitalized and how new parkland can be created.

Previously, Harnik co-founded the national Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, where he served as vice president, and also co-founded the local Coalition for the Capital Crescent Trail which created a $30-million rail-trail in Washington and Maryland. He currently serves as president of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association. In 1980 he co-founded the People's Alliance for Rock Creek Park, which successfully worked to reduce weekend auto traffic in Washington DC's largest park. In 1982 he worked on the United States' exhibit for the Knoxville, Tennessee, World's Fair. He is also a contributing author to the 1997 ULI/TPL book, Urban Parks and Open Space, in which he studied in detail parks in Boston, Minneapolis, Philadelphia and Pinellas County, Fla.

Grover Mouton

Grover E. Mouton, III, architect, urban designer, artist, is the Director of the Tulane Regional Urban Design Center and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Tulane School of Architecture (1984 - present). He has developed urban design programs for Ft. Meyers, Florida; Charleston, SC; Augusta and Savannah, GA; Monroe and New Orleans, LA. His master plan for Birmingham, Alabama's Civil Rights District for mayor Richard Arrington include an interpretive museum and park for the 1961 Civil Rights Movement and received the National Trust Honor Award. Other projects include the New Orleans Regional Medical Center Master Plan; the Downtown Riverfront Master Plan for Monroe, LA; the Public Art Master Plan for Phoenix, AZ; the Master Plan and expansion for the New Orleans Country Day School; the expansion of the New Orleans Museum of Art; the New Orleans Aquarium of the Americas and Riverfront Park; the expansion of the Birmingham Botanical Gardens; the Master Plan for the Skowhegan School of Painting, Maine; a Master Plan for Oberlin College, Ohio; and the Interpretive Master Plan for the National Parks Service, Women's Rights Park, Seneca Falls, NY.

His drawings, formatted in environmental installations, have been exhibited at the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC; the Drawing Center, NYC; the New Orleans Museum of Art; the University Museum, Houston; Tulane University, New Orleans; Venice Biennale; Documenta, Kassel, Germany; and Marlborough Gallery, NYC. He is a member of the Board of New Orleans Botanical Gardens; Shadows-on-the-Teche, an historic property of the National Trust; the Preservation Resource Center and the new Ogden Museum of Southern Art.

Mouton received his M. Arch, Graduate School of Design, Harvard; B. Arch, Tulane School of Architecture. Diploma, Rome Prize in Architecture, American Academy in Rome. Fellowship in Architecture, NEA. Fellowship, Center for Advanced Visual Studies, MIT. Student Scholarship Program, the Architectural Association, London and the Skowhegan School of Painting.

Paul Rookwood

Paul Rookwood is a landscape planner and designer for Wallace Roberts & Todd, LLC, with international experience in a variety of planning and design projects. He has served as Principal-in-Charge / Project Director for WRT assignments in comprehensive planning, master planning, parks and recreation planning, open space planning, and urban and landscape design projects. His experience ranges from policy planning, through physical planning and landscape design, to construction administration. A particular focus in many of his projects has been the integration of development and natural resource conservation. Mr. Rookwood has presented at numerous conferences on open space planning, environmental conservation, recreation, leisure and tourism.

Mr. Rookwood's experience in parks, recreation facilities, and open space planning and design ranges from long-range planning for park and open space systems to the design of individual parks and greenways. He has helped create park system plans for fast growing sun-belt suburban cities in Southern California, Texas, and Florida. He has also helped older cities such as Louisville, Memphis and Trenton develop plans for how their park systems can adapt to changing recreation demands and new ideas about natural resource conservation. His work on individual parks is similarly diverse, ranging from major destination attractions like San Diego's Mission Bay Park to the design of small neighborhood and community parks.

With the emergence of interest in linear greenways, Mr. Rookwood has also helped communities plan citywide greenway trail systems, and design individual greenways such as the Falls of the Ohio River Greenway in Southern Indiana, Nashville's Mill Creek Greenway, and the Louisville Riverwalk.

Mr. Rookwood's primary interest in working with parks and park systems is to move towards a more integrated, holistic understanding of the role parks and open space can play in building vibrant, vital cities. Beyond the conventional recreational focus, open space can help communities manage sprawl, protect natural systems and help revitalize older city centers and neighborhoods, contributing to economic as well as ecological health.

Lee Springgate

Lee Springgate has served 29 years in municipal parks and community services, the last 22 as Director of the Parks and Community Services Department for the City of Bellevue, Washington. Upon his retirement in November 1999, department responsibilities included parks, public open space, recreation, cultural diversity, human services, municipal facilities and adult probation.

During his tenure, the park system expanded dramatically, a wide range of recreation programs were initiated, and an eclectic group of municipal programs were absorbed and integrated into department operations. The department became well known for providing an outstanding suburban or "edge city" park system that was guided by a strong Olmsted/ environmental vision and operated through an innovative array of management programs (enterprise funds, volunteer management, contracting, partnerships, marketing /customer service initiatives).

The department received over 47 national and state awards for project and program excellence over the past twenty years from a variety of professional organizations and community groups.

Lee has been host city and program chairman for state conferences, has authored numerous articles for national publications, and has been a featured speaker at many conferences, seminars, and professional training schools. He has also taught graduate level courses at the University of Washington Urban Planning School. He holds a master's degree in Public Administration from the University of Washington; received the Outstanding Public Employee award from the Municipal League of Seattle and King County in 1988; the Best of Bellevue Public Official award from Advanced Bellevue in 1997; the William Penn Mott award for Excellence from the National Recreation and Park Association in 1998, and the Distinguished Professional award from the Washington Park and Recreation Society in 1999.

He is currently managing his own consulting firm, the Point Wilson Group that operates out of Port Townsend, Washington.

Ann M. Zoller

Ann Zoller currently serves as the executive director of ParkWorks, a nonprofit corporation which works on behalf of the City of Cleveland and other public partners. ParkWorks is an environmental and green space development organization whose program focus includes urban parks revitalization and programming, reforestation, beautification, recycling education, and other related programs. Recently, the organization concluded a comprehensive strategic planning process which has outlined an ambitious new program focus to restore urban parks as a means to spur community development and restore neighborhoods within the City of Cleveland.

At the request if Mayor White, the first initiative under ParkWorks' program agenda is the design, funding and construction of community parks at elementary schools in the Cleveland Municipal School District. To date, the organization has raised and leveraged more than $2 million for this program, with nine projects completed in 18 months. In addition, the organization has partnered with the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority to create an innovative training program for residents of public housing, which provides extensive training in the landscape and related industries and secures employment for graduates.

Prior to joining ParkWorks in 1997, Ms. Zoller served as the director of program development and marketing for the Cleveland Bicentennial Commission. The Commission was responsible for the planning and implementation of the nationally recognized celebration of Cleveland's birthday in 1996. Over three years, Ms. Zoller was responsible for assisting in the development of a menu of more than 40 arts, cultural, educational and neighborhood programs; three major events; and lasting legacy capital projects. She helped develop and sell a program that yielded $2.5 million in scholarships and $4 million in free media. She was responsible for all marketing, public relations and advertising functions for the Commission. She played a supervisory role for all major events, including Celebration 200!, a $2.5 million event which featured a live performance of the Cleveland Orchestra on the Cuyahoga River. In total over $80 million was invested in Bicentennial initiatives.

As a member of the Department of Parks, Recreation and Properties for the City of Cleveland from 1992 – 1994, Ms. Zoller served as special events manager, Assistant Director and Director for the Department. As Director, she supervised six divisions and over 800 employees within the department, including Recreation; Parks Maintenance; Parking; Property Management; Convention Center and West Side Market; and Research Planning and Development.

Wallace-Reader's Digest Funds

Linda Cox, FAICP
Program Director

Linda Cox joined the Wallace-Reader's Digest Funds in 1998 as program officer for the Urban Parks program. Before coming to the Fund, she served for six years as director of the Planning Center at the Municipal Art Society, assisting and training community organizations and leaders with neighborhood planning and development issues and fostering collaboration between New York City's design and manufacturing sectors. Educated as a city planner, Cox also has served as director of community-based planning for New York City's Department of City Planning, planning manager for Gainesville, Florida, a consultant in Venezuela, and as a high school teacher in rural Kenya. She has written or edited a number of articles and handbooks on community planning and development issues. Past president of the New York Metro Chapter of the American Planning Association and a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners, Cox is a graduate of Swarthmore College, and holds a master's of urban and regional planning from the University of North Carolina.