All posts by Kristen Jeffers

Kristen Jeffers has always been interested in how cities work. She’s also always loved writing things. She went off to a major state university, got a communication degree and then started a more professional Blogger site. Then, in her graduate seminar on urban politics, along with browsing the urbanist blogosphere, she realized that her ideas should have a stronger, clearer voice, one that reflects her identity as a Black southern woman. And with that The Black Urbanist blog was born. Seven years, one Twitter account, one self-published book, two podcasts and a litany of speeches and urban planning projects later, here we are.
Jobs, Weekly Newsletter

Jobs, Opportunities and Funding as of October 19, 2018

An image of a cupcake in front of a Baltimore apartment building advertises the October 19th jobs, opportunities and funding dispatch by The Black Urbanist

Welcome to the sixth Jobs, Opportunities and Funding Dispatch. Today is October 19, 2018, and Wednesday was the 8th Anniversary of the creation of The Black Urbanist!

I’ve always been interested in how cities work and as I got older, I really wanted them to work better. As the platform has grown, I’ve really become invested in telling the stories of black towns and cities, people in the African Diaspora and how we interact with all kinds of cities, critiquing theories and practices that we’ve all accepted as fact in land use and planning, and finally, helping people get their foot in the door and find their place as practitioners of place.

It’s been a joy to see all of you open and respond to these emails and I’m happy I can provide value to you and your colleagues and friends. That being said, before I get into the job check-ins and the new gigs, please stop, listen to Episodes 9 and 10 of The Black Urbanist Radio Show with Ashley Dash and Gisla Bush respectively. Both of these women have powerful insights into how to up-level your career and how to make it work along with having a life! Take that advice and go after one or more of the jobs on this list!

Alright, let’s check on the still opens…

Rockingham County, NC Marcus Slade is your guide

SieX 1 and 2

US PIRG

Bicycle Colorado

livingLAB Detroit

Marin County (CA) Bicycle Coalition

City of Long Beach Advance Planning Coordinator (But only until next Friday 10/26)

Silicon Valley Bike Coalition

Options for Homes in Toronto. This position has been reviewing resumes for the past couple of weeks and a decision may have been made. I would call or email to double check before submitting any information.

The University of Washington, Tacoma Urban Studies Department  (Dr. Mark Pendras is leading the search for this tenure-track position and the priority deadline is November 5, two and a half weeks from today

All those jobs in Boston but some are already starting to review resumes and interview candidates. I would suggest continuing to check that pages regularly if you are interested in any of these posted or upcoming City of Boston jobs. I also want to applaud the City of Boston for modeling a great way to write a job description and recruitment sites for the government jobs. A lot of the government positions are good about showing salary and being clear on what type of job, but this also gives you some insight on culture, hiring timelines and also encourages people to come to this page and ask questions that aren’t found.

The Loeb Fellowship (until January 4, 2019, so you have some time, but again, this is a fellowship so it can take some time to get an application package together).

The NAACP National Headquarters Design Competition. There’s one more information session on the first of November, but you have to submit your intention to compete by November 9th and you have to have your final materials in by November 30th.

And finally all those Washington State DOT Jobs (That Barb Chamberlain can help guide you with. She did say that the planning ones are closing very soon. Not sure what very soon means, but I would get that app in ASAP if you want to work with them. Also, please do reach out, even if it’s just to add another potential mentor or friend to your roster of people in this world.

Oregon Parks and Recreation Department First review of applications is October 29, but they will accept them afterward on a limited basis.

 The University of South Florida This closes tomorrow night 10/20/2018

Cascade Bicycle Club  I want to applaud them for being so transparent about what working for this kind of organization means and what is required. If you are looking for a great model to write those job apps, this is a good one , especially for my private and other non-governmental folks out there.

The League of American Bicyclists

Cal Poly Pomona November 16th is the hard deadline, but they’ve even said it themselves that the sooner the better.

City of West Hollywood. You have just over a month to get this application in, as it closes on 11/20/2018

Uber (Nadia Anderson is a potential future colleague).

Don’t forget about the Bike Equity Network group or the Untokening if you’re doing any kind of mobility and transportation-related work and want to stay in the loop around debates and discussions. Also, Jessica Roberts’ webinar is now on-demand and watchable whenever you’d like. Here’s her list from this week (both the Tuesday and Friday lists are included here):

The City and County of Denver is hiring a Safe Routes to School Program Administrator. Denver, CO. Source: emailed to me. Salary listed.

The City of Tukwila, WA is hiring a temporary part-time Transportation Demand Management (TDM) Program Assistant. Tukwila, WA. Source: emailed to me. Salary listed. 

The City of Bloomington is hiring a Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinator. Bloomington, IN. Source: emailed to me. Salary listed.

Denver’s Department of Public Health and Environment is hiring a Program Administrator (Safe Routes to School). Denver, CO. Source: APBP career center. Salary listed.

Walton Enterprises is hiring a Bike Culture Program Manager. Bentonville, AR. Source: National Center for Walking and Biking. Salary not listed.

Salt Lake City is hiring a Transportation Planner I or II. Salt Lake City, UT. Source: emailed to me. Salary listed. 

Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit, Inc. (TCAT) is seeking a Project Manager. Ithaca, NY. Source: TRANSP-TDM list serve. Salary not listed. 

The City of Berkeley is hiring an Associate Planner. Berkeley, CA. Source: A Jobs Jawn. Salary not listed.

Orange County Transportation Division is hiring an Assistant Project Manager/Transit Planner two Planner IIIs, and two Planner IIIs (Transit Focus). Search here. Orlando, FL. Source: APBP career center. Salary not listed.

Apex Design is hiring a Multimodal Transportation Planner. Denver, CO. Source: National Center for Walking and Biking. Salary not listed. 

The City of Bloomington is hiring a Transportation and Traffic Engineer. Search here. Bloomington, IN. Source: National Center for Walking and Biking. Salary not listed. 

The Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition is hiring an Executive Director. Santa Rosa, CA. Source: National Center for Walking and Biking. Salary listed.

The City of Missoula is hiring a Program Assistant – Transportation. Missoula, MT. Source: National Center for Walking and Biking. Salary listed.

My brother from another mother  (and King of NUMTOT ;)) Jerome Horne  would be thrilled to have you as a colleague at his and Austin Gibble’s agency, IndyGo in Indianapolis. They are hiring for the following positions and more:

  • Strategic Planner
  • External Communications Coordinator
  • Internal Communications Specialist
  • Customer Service Supervisor

Henry Pan sends over this call for three (yes, three) Associate Planners for the City of Berkley and while he doesn’t have a personal connection to this job, he does note that applying to this job will at the very least put you in the pipeline any future openings in the Berkley planning department.

He does know and can connect you with someone for the public engagement coordinator opening, at SLF Consulting, a Twin Cities area firm.

You could dump city life completely and go work on a farm with the Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust on the Soul Fire Farm in Upstate New York. There’s a coordinator position open for applications until November 1st and there’s still time to become a Farm Apprentice for next year. Thanks to David Kanthor for bringing this opportunity to my attention via email.

And finally, if you want to add jobs, the best way to do so is to email me at kristen@theblackurbanist.com, to tag me on your job posts on LinkedIn, share it in The Black Urbanist Facebook group, or tag me on any tweets or social media posts where you see this job. After a few weeks of doing this and realizing so many jobs close on Fridays, and that there are so many jobs that do come recommended, I’m considering changing how this list comes out. Right now, I’ll officially be doing one of these a week, but don’t be surprised if you start to see more Jobs, Opportunities and Funding Dispatches to the point where they come out every weekday but holidays. That probably won’t happen until I get more staff here at The Black Urbanist, but be ready.

Either way, the minute you see or post a job, send it over and I’ll get it out as soon as I can. Also, please let me know if any links don’t work and also if you’ve filled these jobs and they just happen to still be sitting on your website. The goal with this list is still that these are jobs you are either a point of contact for, either as a future colleague or hiring manager or can mentor applicants to producing a successful application. I may also pick out some of your social media accounts that are excellent resources for good leads and add anything of note that I think you (the potential applicant) should shoot for,  regardless of if there’s a lead from this list or in your own personal life.

Also, a reminder to review your announcements for areas of potential inequity and to publish at least a salary range. It’s not enough to include an EEOC pledge or invite for certain groups to hire, especially if things like work environment, licenses, and other things don’t actually affect your day to day work product.

I believe that while being a prepared or preferred candidate may not be a job guarantee, it will start the process of building a bigger group of mentors and friends for all of us throughout the industry and in the communities, we both serve and live.

Plus, I’ve heard from multiple people that my post where I included some questions to ask and traps to avoid when considering this career field has helped them decide on planning school and also have a better balance of their career

I’ve noticed several of you unsubscribing, before you do, click on this link if you just want notifications once a week, with a link to content from the prior week. I’m still determining a hard date for that (truly weekly) recap.  And do nothing if you don’t mind seeing me in your inbox 3-5 times a week, as I increase the frequency that I share jobs and content from The Black Urbanist platform.

Happy job hunting and have a wonderful weekend!

Please forward this to anyone who needs this. And if you’re new here, come over and let’s get to know each other better.

Also, this platform doesn’t have a paywall,  but I still need to eat. Buy me a meal via PayPal or Cash App, or many meals via Patreon.

Podcast

The Black Urbanist Radio Show Episode 10–Gisla Bush–Gigi The Planner Wants To Help You Get a Planning Job!

2 Comments

I asked this question before, but in honor of this episode’s guest, I’m going to ask it again: Are there too many planners? Gisla Bush, also known as GiGi the Planner, and a self-described urban planning career promoter seems to think the answer is no and goes as far to say there aren’t enough black planners especially.

We also talk about what inspired her to create a personal brand in this space, encountering and overcoming ageism and other challenges in the field and what she feels planners, especially those who want to work in the government sector, need to do to be successful in the field.

You can listen along or read the transcript below.

You can listen in a lot of places, but I want to highlight listening on Radio Public. Radio Public is part of the PRX family, which not only produces some great public radio podcasts, they are working to share the wealth through profit sharing like they do with Radio Public and training. When you listen on Radio Public, I get paid and you get more information.

Anyway, here’s the link to listen there 

https://radiopublic.com/the-black-urbanist-radio-show-8XMJj1/ep/s1!842b3

Plus

Libsyn

SoundCloud

And we’re on your other favorite podcast players.

And here’s the full transcript of our talk, with show notes embedded.

[00:00:00] Gisla Bush: Hi, my name is Gilsa Bush. My brand name is Gigi the Planner. I would consider myself an urban planning career promoter the purpose behind my organization, my business is to increase the number of black urban planners. So first I do so by allowing kids and teaching kids, black kids specifically, about the filter urban planning through workshops. And I also do career coaching for black planners going into the field and also going into their master’s program,

Kristen Jeffers: Which sounds really awesome and needed. I will tell everybody on the mic when I first heard about this. I was like, yeah, this is absolutely what we need. You know, as those of you who have followed me for a while know recently. I wrote a post about how asking just flat-out, you know, whether or not this is something that is an issue. Are there too many planners?Are there not enough planners?  Is there something that happens when you think about marginalized groups such [00:01:00] as you know black or Africaness at least in sort of against say whiteness, not amongst ourselves because we know we’re awesome regardless, and that’s essentially why you’re doing the work that you’re doing to make sure that people know that they’re awesome at this is a career path. So I like to start out by asking when did you kind of have an inclination that I don’t know if it wasn’t planning maybe architecture or just something related to like how we use land and how we do things around like the environment around us. When did that become an option for you or when did that even become an interest for you?

Gisla Bush: Well, my mother is an architect. So I grew up being taught sort of taught under her with drafting and I was going to go into school being an architect. Growing up. My mom always told me that had a knack for color and I’m a designer by heart. So, you know architecture seem like the the [00:02:00] path that I wanted to go into. I had an interesting background growing up and went to college really really young at the age of 15 doing dual enrollment. So I attempted to get into the architecture program at that time and it didn’t really work out. So I had to try to find next best option for me that was sort of  similar to architecture but wouldn’t really put me behind and caused me to have to be in school a little bit longer. So the school aid makes you Florida Atlantic University allowed me recently open a program for Urban Design. Which is you know a mesh between architecture urban planning landscape architecture and civil engineering. So I was able to learn about the field of urban planning through my degree in Urban Design. So that’s really how I sort of started in that I sort of know fell into it like most people do I really didn’t know what it was but ever since then I’ve really had a love for it.

Kristen Jeffers: That’s really awesome because your program like coming [00:03:00] out of the gate was an integrated program. So many of us seek have to make a decision like we have to think about architecture or planning especially as we climb the ladder for thinking about even more advanced degrees. I know for me  at least if you’re thinking about the North Carolina schools like UNC Chapel Hill has the planning program and N.C State  has the architecture program technically, even though we’re in the same university system. Those are two schools and two ways of doing things. To separate degree audits and sometimes a long time in between  to be able to complete those programs. And so, you know people who were able to you know, do that program and do doctorates in that program, you know, there’s a 45-minute ride horses, you know and other schools. It’s just a 45-second walk across the hall to meet with architecture advisor, and then you might have a planning advisor. I think that’s something we don’t even think about enough that there are sometimes [00:04:00] barriers. You mentioned that you know going to college at an early age. That was somewhat of a potential barrier just go into  what that was like because I feel like you mentioning that there’s going to be a lot of folks who come to this and come to thinking around these things after having even more like years lived, you know, it’s oh I didn’t realize I was a community advocate and I realize now this is a professional field. Oh, you know, I really didn’t know that anything else, you know, I didn’t have a parent connected to the field. I didn’t have anyone who had some form of connection. So,  talk about you obviously I’m thinking you might feel like you had an advantage having a hand and having a this interest and having someone recognize that and you as well as other things, is that true do you feel like you had an advantage,

Gisla Bush: um, somewhat somewhere, you know, like I said, it’s just sort of fell into it. [00:05:00] There just happened to be a programmer Urban Design that it just started, you know, it was in second semester when I found out it was a brand new program. I’m trying to get into architecture. I tried actually tried twice to try again to architecture program. But you know, this is separate enrollment process for that and I just didn’t make the cut. So my idea was to pursue my bachelor’s degree in Urban Design and then headed into my master’s degree in architecture. However, I’m going through that program. I learned about you know a little bit about what architecture would be like and I had a class and site planning and it did not really I did not really feel as if you know, this was really what I wanted to do.

Kristen Jeffers: Hmm.

Gisla Bush: So I got a taste of I got a taste of architecture while in Urban Design that I figure out that that’s not what I want to get into its little bit too nitpicky for me. I’m going to be probably stressed about all the little details as you know goes into architecture. So I just felt like you [00:06:00] know through Urban Design. I’ll have a better way and urban planning to as well, but a way to express my design.

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah. Yeah. I definitely can see that. It’s for me. It’s been coming up with the right kind of language to talk about what I’m doing. And again, I’m primarily a words person. I came to this because I was writing down things and I just went to journaling and then the next thing I know I’m like, okay,  well maybe I could build something and then over the years I found value in staying in to how we talk about things. Because often times you can draw the best building you can have the best land use plan if you can’t convince neighbors or convince the media. Like the mass media that this is a good idea. You may not even get to the stages of construction management. You know, it may just sit as like, I don’t know and it’s been a while since I’ve been through the phases of construction, but it definitely won’t be going into like an actual build phase. It’ll just be collecting dust and you know, I just heard about. Somebody else [00:07:00] finding plans for some form of mass transit that was supposed to be built in Baltimore and it was like, yeah, it’s not going to be built because it’s you know, it’s years ago. But again, someone was probably paid, someone who probably had a planning degree or architecture degree or even an urban design degree or engineering degree to make that plan, but it never made it. So just thinking about how so many of our, so much of our work so much of our ideas and goals of always get there. That’s definitely something that I think about a lot and honestly like you coming into thinking about the a way to open up the field, you know, you have created a brand much like I created a brand and just staking a claim to say not just that on here, but your, you’re taking it a step farther. And say how can I make sure [00:08:00] more people are here, you know, where did that calling and drive come from initially?

Gisla Bush: I guess the idea stemmed from me, you know surfing through LinkedIn and I happen to come upon a young lady from North Florida area doing some work with black girls architecture. There was a Barbie architecture camp that she had and I thought it was really interesting and then maybe a few weeks later I found about the Hip-Hop Architect. And so when I saw these two people, you know doing things for architecture and I just thought to myself. Well there needs to be somebody, you know, that’s promoting urban planning for blacks. So I thought you know, I think this is a good opportunity for me to you know to birth this dream so that was about, that was about a year ago and I started about May, I actually started this journey, but that was sort of where it, it started also, you know [00:09:00] being working in local government and the city in South Florida, I’m currently the only black planner at my office and we have I would say a pretty large department but 15 planners and often times I feel lonely, you know, I don’t fully, you know mesh with the rest of them because of know just different backgrounds initially when I got there there was a black gentleman and he was an architect, he was like an Urban Design planner and he left after a year and then a few years later. I was able to get my friend become an intern there and she was there for a few months. But you know, I’ve been there for five years and you know, it’s kind of lonely, you know being the only black person in the room.

Kristen Jeffers: Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Gisla Bush: So that’s sort of you know, that’s all sort of my drive. That’s also why the emphasis is for why I decide to do what I’m doing also because of that another factor is you know, going to school in the urban planning and went to Florida Atlantic University. As I said before. I got my bachelor’s and my [00:10:00] masters and I noticed, you know, quite a few black people in my program, but I did some of them did actually, you know, they got their degree in urban planning, but then they just work somewhere else. So I just felt the need that there needs to be some sort of retention and you know the graduates that’s coming from this plan program to still pursue planning because you know, What good is it to have planners out there that are just you know, you know maybe working as a teacher and that’s the same thing, you know, I guess being a teacher but you know, we have a great disparity of you know, white planners planning our communities and we really need a lot more black planners planning our communities because you know, the residents can resonate with them better. There’ll be more open to listening to them. So through my career coaching that as part of you know, what I’m trying to do is sort of help. People get to their next stage because I know there’s an issue with people trying to find jobs and not really knowing the steps. [00:11:00] So those are you know, the reasons why I got into what I did and the impetus for why I decided to move forward with them.

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah. It’s definitely a huge need like there’s a need from the community standpoint of having enough people that you know, understand the cultural dynamics. Essentially, especially in communities that have essentially been like planned off the face of the Earth as we’re seeing, you know, another wave of property values of land speculation of what we’ve termed gentrification but really it is a lot of things that are underpinned by that whereas in other assets there’s a lot of folks in the black community who have access to capital and access to creating new neighborhoods and sometimes neighborhoods that you know, That mirror some of the new neighborhood sometimes there are cases where we have as black folks have been able to aid [00:12:00] in gentrification, you know having folks having more diverse perspectives in the room having more of diverse perspectives both on the technical side as well as the sales side the be able to talk people through things because ultimately there’s a lot of folks. I feel like at the community level who just own hot property, if they’ve been able to own property and who can’t fathom the fact that you know, after years and years of being you know, ostracized or oppressed by landlords or even other government officials, I think it’s really important to have people in the room that are dedicated and have either examined ways in which they thought they had to say certain things or do certain things to get ahead in the business or even just thinking about like personal family issues because sometimes you know, some of us have land in the family and it’s not always ours to access at least not in  our generation or we’re not quite on the right side of the family to deal with [00:13:00] that or the lands been lost and it’s in pieces and there’s just all sorts of elements and angles you talked before about feeling isolated that there were no other people like you in your office and even you may have the technical prowess, but there’s just certain things where people ask questions or they try to get holidays right or they try to get hair right and all these things just come up that you know, you just wouldn’t have if you had a more and I definitely say diverse and inclusive office across the board not just your black diversity, but your diversity across like gender identity, sexual orientation and number of women versus number of men versus, you know, other other marginalized racial groups and cultures just having a lot of folks, especially the number of folks that reflects your population numbers you know there may still be some communities a majority of white European oriented folks, but there are a lot of [00:14:00] black and Asian and Latinx communities that were they are the majority. But do they have the same representation and governmental offices, especially in long-range planning when we’re long range planning where we’re thinking about how we put it infrastructure. Are we thinking about how are we going to teach how we’re going to put in infrastructure and have to teach people or are we looking at how communities are using things and potentially, you know, the things are already there. But really it’s awesome that you’re focusing in on and obviously you coach people from around the world. All from all different backgrounds, but I think this is a great opportunity to talk specifically about black women and some of the issues we face with stepping into a field again. There’s been a lot more attention paid to stem oriented fields. I feel like there’s a lot of more programs. You have a youth program. There are hundreds of others again. I’m you know, we part I partner with The Plug [00:15:00] which is another just media source that highlights activities and STEM of you know, especiallyblack women looking at what Arlan Hamilton’s doing with Backstage Capital the potential to fund being on the VC level and on the investor level but really what would you say and how what specifically are things that you started to see come up when you’re canceling your black women clients as well as other friends and colleagues on getting in and staying in and maintaining yourself in our field?

Gisla Bush: Well so far most of my clients have been black females and I think because I am a black female  they’re naturally drawn to me. I would have said I was think there was anything different from them versus, you know, somebody else as it relates to male or other races that have any particular issues I would say though that you know, they’re very [00:16:00] passionate about what they want to do. They have you know, a lot of drive. One of the things I realized that you know, the people I’m coaching our don’t really have a good knowledge of what urban planning is. So me helping those, you know, moving forward into the field, you know, just trying to just let them know about the ins and outs of what it’s like to be a planner, you know just be real with them, you know and let them know that. You know, these are some of the issues that I deal with, you know working in there and I’m just not trying to paint a facade. I don’t try to play a facade like urban planning is the best field ever. I don’t try to do any of that.

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah,yeah

Gisla Bush: I love the field but there are some things about it that you know, I don’t love

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah

so that’s something that I’ve been trying to, you know, make sure that I, you know, let my clients know about know the Hard Knocks of life was really going to. When you get to know working in a department or local government, but I really can’t speak to where its private because I’ve never worked in the [00:17:00] private sector, but at least let him know what happens, you know working in the public sector some of the things that you’re going to be facing some type of work that you’re going to be doing and just no getting a sense for you know, how it’s going to be.

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s valid, you know, someone who has like a master of public administration or of technically affairs in my case. There’s this is a little bit of a distinction there, you know, we learned everything from public budgeting, you know where your money comes from and how it can be lost and you know, how on basically it’s at the mercy of elected officials how a lot of what you do as a public administrator or someone who works in government as you’re at the service of government officials, you know people who are elected and often times. You may want to consider elected office especially if you really want to set the agenda set the budget agenda, set the agenda that goes out to The [00:18:00] Press set the things that keep people when people do organizing if they’re talking about whereas if you’re great with being behind the scenes, if you’re great, especially with you know, doing mapping GIS coding it there’s a lot more coding involved now and always has been but it definitely is a area of coding and you know, That aspect where people there is some overlap there where two other sort of more general fields of computer science or you know  website making and software making you definitely do have to be you don’t really get to have an ego a lot of times, you know, your plans go through multiple red lines. And if you hated the red on your teachers pages when you were coming up, you’re really gonna hate it when you hear in the professional setting now, it’s. that doesn’t go away you I think you have to really like if you decide to do more public engagement like you but or if [00:19:00] it’s actually something you have to do and generally you have to do it when you’re in the government sector. You don’t really get the specialize like you doing private where it private you have people who are just GIS technicians, and that’s it. And then you have people who do the public meetings or people who had the meetings with the stakeholders and they go to different peoples meetings and go to different community meetings and sometimes yeah, you get that separation in the government sector, but sometimes your agency or your even your firm is too small for you to be able to differentiate I would think you would agree with what a lot of what I just said and that’s probably some of what comes up when you talk to different people about the realities of field where there any things that I missed. And that analysis of just the kind of the quirks of the field, especially since you are actively working and have been actively working in the field for a while. And like I said, you see it everyday versus me seeing it. It’s been a few years since I’ve been in private firm and it’s been a couple years since I’ve done like I on-the-road project.

[00:20:00] Gisla Bush: I mean what other things that I let people know is that you know, you have to deal with the public. That’s one of the biggest things, you know working specifically and local government is dealing with the public and they can be brutal. They can be very brutal. Everybody wants everything yesterday. You can’t get it to them fast enough and you just have to know stand your ground know what you’re talking about. I feel like sometimes there’s another ageism issues. I’ve had somebody tell me, they didn’t u say to me specifically but they told a co-worker. How old is, why do you guys have kids working, you know the department and you know, I felt like this to that and you know people look at using as if, I  have some people ask me how old I was a few times and different things like that that you have to deal with, you know, especially being a black female working in a professional environment, you know people, you know marginalize you. [00:21:00] I’m the youngest in my department and only black person been there for five years and I still be I guess yeah, I started working there when I was 18 as an intern. I moved up slowly but you know, it’s something that I think about constantly on a daily basis, you know, just making sure that I am you know performing my best doing my best and try to not let you know my coworkers. And you know the public or anybody let me down. You know, you just have to really have a strong backbone. I would say, you know working in local government dealing with the people on a daily basis and screaming at you yelling it at you cursing you out and it could be really, really depressing I was saying yeah, especially if you deal with it for so many years on a daily basis, you know especially working at the public counter. We have all these people coming in and a lot of them being homeowners wondering why it’s taking you so long to review the requirements [00:22:00] and their site plans and everything and you just have to just let them know there’s other people, you know ahead of ya. Yes. So no I deal with it all the time. I’m in is something that you know, you just have to get over.

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah, so I thought a couple of things that you mentioned that I would think we’re great you mentioned agesism. And that was something that even like I forgot not, that I forgot about it being a thing, but it’s been a little while and I just I feel like I just aged out of the ageism but that was definitely a factor coming in. I definitely dealt with a project where I worked on where people were definitely use it as a attempt to, rail against the younger people coming up. You know, when we do long-range planning, we think about everybody from you know, the common phrase in the field is 8 to 80 and a lot of people’s like. Oh, well, I’m here at this public meeting to keep things the way they were I’m here, just public meeting the keep things. [00:23:00] You know, like I said this these kids are a problem or, or sometimes it’s the flip side, you know only the old people here don’t like know what they really know what they know and they only want us to have issues. And so there’s definitely a clash of generations and so being able to balance that is definitely something that I think you have to be successful at especially when you’re working front facing in a more customer service vein of this not you know, you’re just sitting around and theorizing you’re doing research and it’s kind of isolated from. The public side of things again for folks who may be thinking about this who are thinking about leaving say customer service oriented jobs. Say you’re already saying teaching in a classroom or maybe even in full-time Ministry and you’ve been doing community projects of your church or synagogue or any sort of religious organization. You want to add like a professional element to it or you know, you’ve been working retail or you [00:24:00] own a business on say like a little Main Street and that’s you know, you had the Main Street. Location of the historical classification you start really digging into what that means and you decide. Oh, well, maybe I want to design more Main Streets or oh, maybe I want to like be the president of my Main Street organization. You know, what does that really entail? And yeah, you definitely those things you have to be considerate of like that’s just kind of the nature of public-facing planning. But have you have you encountered in your counseling some more theorists, like folks like myself who kind of preferred a more, not to say that I don’t do public facing work. Like I actually do have a degree of love for customer service and helping people and doing things tangibly. But you know, what’s your balance beent people who want to either go into a more public-facing job or you know people who have decided that maybe they want to stay a researcher of theory or people [00:25:00] who decided they just want to plan for whatever they’re doing like, We want to be more folks. They want to be able to teach that each unit of social studies on say how cities are made and how places are made better or they want to be a better pastor to their Church community, you know, have you what have you been encountering, you know that you’re able to share and some of the conversations you’ve had around those thoughts.

Gisla Bush: Well, a lot of people that I’ve spoken to so far. I still like in that idea phase they’re trying to find out what they were or figure out what they want to do in the future. They have an idea and I’ve spoken to a few people and they have, you know, a lot of ideas. So trying to sort of coach them and direct them in the right path. As you know, I’ve been sort of what my thing is, you know, some people want to go into GIS, a lot of people are going to community development. I think that’s you know, a lot of blacks are going into planning to do community development. So most of them had been sort of in that idea phase [00:26:00] so far. I’ve actually spoken to one person who knows specifically what they want to do and I was actually surprised because she she works  in the department that she wants to work in and I was asking her,You know, this is your goal to work here. Why are you trying to pursue a degree in planning? And she mentioned to me that you know, there’s a particular department that I want to get into and you have to have a master’s in planning to get into that department. She said there’s like a culture and in department where if you and one department for over two years your started. The key can like move to another place. So she said, you know starting her master’s will you know push her into the other department so never been you know, a lot of different facets about a lot of different things we want to do but it’s mainly been community development for the most part. That’s what seems like, you know, most blacks, you know, getting to planning one sort of like help others like themselves minorities and other blacks and just you know, help promote our community.

[00:27:00] Kristen Jeffers: Yeah, and you brought up something very,  that’s I would say one of the bigger controversies right now in our field is like credentialing and what kind of credential you should have especially past the Bachelors level essentially, there’s been a lot of the conversation around who’s a planner who is in the planner centers around our certification exam. You know, it’s basically the acronym is essentially the American Institute of Certified Planners. That’s what the acronym actually stands for. You just get the opportunity, much like when you get a masters degree or when you get a doctorate to add that to your name on your LinkedIn profile on your business cards, you know somebody, you know can verify that there’s a certificate and there’s an exam and then there’s people who have vouched for you to do that. If you’re looking I would say if you’re looking at the broader world of thinking about the ways we use [00:28:00] land, we build on land, we think about how land works of course what we build on top of land and how to get around land. There are so many paths in and out that may or may not require certain certifications. However, as you just said, there are definitely departments. That look highly or even restrict access to people who don’t have a masters or the at beyond the Masters having the AICP designation having taken the exams and continuing to maintain that certification. You know, there’s obviously the architects, of course talk about the levels of certifications and the years of testing and sometimes multiple type takes of said tests to become, have the ability to use the word architect in front of them essentially those of you who are not familiar, you can’t exactly you can’t call yourself an architect. And actually you’re not supposed to call yourself an architect at all of any sort of type unless you’ve gone [00:29:00] through those levels you start out as an architectural designer once you’ve passed your exams you have the ability to legally be an architect now obviously some in other organizations and other fields they’ve basically adopted that word to talk about what they do, but if you’re actually working on buildings and if you’re actually, you know in the grounds to be licensed, you do have to be licensed you can’t do what’s called sealing drawing you actually literally kind of like a notary does, have a seal to stamp off on drawings. Same with some  of our Engineers, but essentially you know, what you mentioned is this clear there are limits but there aren’t limits and a lot of ways. So what would you say to someone who has a more general interest and is you know doing something? Like I said, they want to they want to kind of do it by the book versus not by the book. Like how do you [00:30:00] nudge folks in a particular direction? And what are some of the things you would suggest for people to do? I obviously think that determining if you want to do it by the book versus not by the book is number one, you know, you’re not going to get far if you’re going to go in one direction without the credentials that you need in another direction unless the complete system blows up overnight and granted we do have folks who advocate for that. But essentially what are some things you’ve said for to do for people to get started with say a viable career as well as a not viable career in the states.

Gisla Bush: Well, I think especially for minorities and black specifically I think it’s important to have all those credentials because you know, as not being a minority especially in the field of planning you’re competing against, you know whites and a lot of them have those credentials and when it comes down to it comes down to it when an employer’s looking at all these resumes and they see they have five people with [00:31:00] Masters two people with bachelor’s they might may not even look at those people with the Bachelors degree just because you don’t have a Masters. I’ve even heard some people say before, I heard one guy. This was another field, accounting but it’s still sort of relevant, but he was saying that, you know even looking for intern. He said that if he got Masters degrees to apply and bachelors, people that work with their  Bachelors to apply, He doesn’t even look at people, The Bachelors. Looks at those are the Masters. So I think you know it helps you be, you know, more competitive in the field to have those credentials because in general, you know, planning most people the planning degree has their masters and planning. There are a few schools that offer bachelor’s degree in planning, but I still think it’s important to go that next step and get your Master’s. It doesn’t have to be in place specifically, but just to have a master so you can be competitive with everyone else.

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah, and it’s easier again, even know the rules have changed with taking the AICP exam and I came out of grad school. I was [00:32:00] looking at eight years even with a masters before I could sit and that’s eight years consistent with a mentor with people who can sign off on projects that I’ve done people giving me projects that would count as far as projects to write an essay on and it have you know documentation for and then also sitting for the like the exam I feel like honestly the exam itself. Is it as difficult as finding obviously your projects because again the exam is just this kind of like you sit for the GRE or any other interest exam, you know, you can study for that. There are tools it’s basically standardized testing. There are right answers and there wrong answers, but when it comes to writing your essays and writing your recommendations, there’s really no substitute for time in the field and time working, but I also want to touch on kind of, what it takes, you know, if you decide not to say be employed like say if you decide to [00:33:00] start a development firm say, you know, you come up on some property and you decide hey, I’m actually going to be a land developer. You know, what are your thoughts? And what’s your advice for folks who decide, you know that that’s going to be the career option if you have thought through that and if you can count out anybody you’re coaching who said after this, you know, yeah, I could go and get all these certifications but my family owns x amount of acreage in a certain area. You know, how do I hire people or a family, you know, you have like a three flat and say Chicago or Baltimore somewhere. You can just rent out your rooms, especially now that Airbnb allows you to rent out rooms, you know, does that you know, how do you feel about advising this person? And how do you explain to them that even though what they’re doing is not quite planning. There’s definitely some form of development there like or [00:34:00] is this something you’ve encountered in coaching and even in like obviously you work the public desk that so you’ve probably run into some black folk singer like yeah. I want to build a shed or oh, I’m gonna build five houses on our own Farmland, you know talk about that a little bit.

Gisla Bush: Um, well, I haven’t encountered anybody yet. I’m asking about land development. But if there was anybody that I would have in the future to coach I wanted to get into that I would tell them. No to first of all find a mentor vital in development or that you you can’t, you know, get under their tutelage. Which as well as you know work in the field a little bit understand the nuances of the field. And even with you mentioning we know work at the public counter. I remember encountering a lady she came and she wants to build a Triplex. She bought the property and everything already and she came in one to build the triplex, but it wasn’t done for a Triplex and she was getting mad and frustrated saying that. There’s a Triplex right next door. Why can I build a Triplex and she doesn’t [00:35:00] understand there’s more nuances in just that, you know being educated about the process. So I would say that’s the most important thing to do is to get that education about how what you need to do and where the steps need to be taken that to get into development. A lot of people don’t know about zoning, you know, you know, you can’t build whatever you want, you know where you want to build it?

Kristen Jeffers: Uh,No.

Gisla Bush: Yeah, so I. Think that you know, it’s very important to understand that specific Nuance, especially as it relates to develop development because that’s going to make or break any project that’s going to make or break anything that you want to do in the future as it relates to, you know, making a lot of money. So if you don’t understand that, you know, you can build this high-rise here. Um, they maybe shouldn’t buy that property know a lot of people buy these properties prematurely because they just don’t have the education behind all those different nuances. I would I would say, you know find a mentor number one and the number two just so, you know, [00:36:00] maybe even work a local planning, you know planning and zoning department local government and just get understand what it all entails to, you know, get into development and even work for the private sector to because there’s there’s two different sides to the point, but I would say local government. Probably the number one place to work at least start out.

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah, I think that’s a that’s great advice because again, if you’re not familiar with the process you’re going to get frustrated anyway, and sadly, you know, if you haven’t had an inspection and know what that is sector supposed to be looking for because it tends again that inspector a lot of places that inspector their lives in the plane Department that is Department of planning and inspections for a reason because inspecting land that could potentially be a development site is important. Inspected to make sure that it’s not a flood plain or there’s not any this isn’t like a home place for not just [00:37:00] natural wildlife, but also are their graves on that site. Is this site sacred land that’s just been taken away but there’s history and background at this is not necessarily the place that you need to be going. But also kind of a more I would say easy question for you as you are looking at youth and kids who start to have this interest like I don’t know they watch Sesame Street or they watch Richard Scarry’s Busytown or they play SIM City or City Skyline or just various things. They’re essentially toys. And so for me, it was like playing with Lincoln Logs playing with Matchbook cars, reading maps pointing out where things are, you know looking at train schedules looking at bus schedules. I feel like it’s we’ve gotten better.Identifying giftedness and quirkiness or different different types of thinking amongst black kids, you know, [00:38:00] where as when that correlates with being on the autism spectrum. We’re doing a better job of identifying the fact that there are black autistic kids and this may be an interest for them because in a lot of ways tracking mapping and using GIS and coating helps with, you know, processing numbers and processing patterns, but also just you know, if. Kids getting involved, you know everything from the kids who spoke out against the school shootings to kids who go with their parents to Black lives matter rallies and other civil rights rallies. And then like I said you watching your mom do her work over these years and wondering well could I do that? You know, I guess the advice and the question I have is for folks. How do you how do you cultivate that what is your advice for? Debating you interest and pulling that youth interest past just interest through if they decide to major in [00:39:00] that or make a career out of that as they become adults.

Gisla Bush: Well, you know with my workshops I try to you know, emphasize the fact that you know, planning is a broad field you can get into a lot of different things especially politics. I think a planner, you know, getting to politics is like that perfect mesh.  I actually had up workshop last weekend and I had. I’m a senator to come in. He was a planner a certified planner I think he’s the first [Florida state] senator that’s a certified planner and you know, he understands the development, you know, he understands the development side and him running as,the first  state representative. And now a senator he was able to you know, really touch on those issues that you know, a lot of government officials understand, you know, I you know working, you know in my capacity and having gone to City commission meetings and you’re hearing these you know, the mayor and the commissioner speak. They don’t understand they don’t fully understand that [00:40:00] aspect, you know of development and that’s all really a city’s about development and a lot of these people that come into the city making their case before the commission the city council a lot of issues or things that happened with their home. A lot of things that planning is owning types issues. That’s what a lot of the issues are things related to planning and zoning. So I just feel like a lot of a lot of youth that are you know, proactive they want to make a difference, you know, and I think planning is one of those ways that you can make a difference and I tried to make sure that I emphasize that you know in my workshops. You know planning is a broad field is a lot of different things you can get into it. You just you don’t have to be pigeonholed to work in planning zoning department working for planning consulting firm. There’s a lot of different things that you could do, but the plenty of. So I think that’s one of the things that I think should be probably spoken about more, you know, the broad aspect of what planning [00:41:00] is because there’s just so many things that you can get into.

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah, absolutely like that’s bringing up the fact that and I think we talked about this earlier in the hour, you know, being elected and having like I said having gone through the certified planar process or even certified as an architect like again, if you’re  to be governing over this thing that we’ve built knowing the technical side of how it’s built I think it’s very very valuable. And I think especially if your child or if you’re if you’re really young if you’re a middle or high school and you’re listening to this or you’re thinking about these things, that’s the perfect time you have a lot of time ahead of you to plan through finding mentors, finding projects getting jobs in the field. You know, you have a lot of time to try. You know and you know, if it’s going to take four to eight years for you to get certified as a planner or four to eight to 10 years to find the body of work, you know to really get [00:42:00] cranked up, you know, the sooner you’re able to know that the better but if you’re thinking about this thing you’re saying in your late 30s early 40s or even older or younger somewhere in between. It’s not impossible. There’s definitely a lot of you know across other fields. You’ve seen a lot of career changes, but I think it’s possible for people. To come into our field if anything it comes back to ages. And will you let people in at after a certain age? Will you let people in at a young age? So get to know what the fields like and start to get their feet wet, you know, a lot of planning is observing. A lot of it’s anthropology literally getting to know how a community functions, how community uses the spaces you’ve created at the walls everything from the walls to the ground to how they come to and from it all those things and as we get into this like the internal side of things and kind of come to the end of the conversation, you know, you mentioned earlier that if you’re not ready for [00:43:00] going into planning, especially working for a jurisdiction working in the government sector sometimes working with governments and other developers as a private part, it’s a private firm. You can definitely fall off but you can definitely get depressed and you can definitely have issues with just sometimes even yourself or for whether or not you know, you just exist as a person and again anybody who’s listening or read me knows that this is a personal thing for me. I’ve definitely been through some of those struggles. What do you do personally to ensure your own self-care like what are some things that are not planning not this career work that you value you and you enjoy not just the sheriff or folks just to know what other people get into besides their planning work. But also things that you could potentially get into so that you’re not tied to your planning work.

Gisla Bush: Well, I do a lot of host of other things beyond just you know, working as a planner. I am a classical pianist. [00:44:00] So I did piano. I also tutor kids in math, you know low-income mainly predominantly blacks in the in the in the subject of math , you know DF students and just trying to know help encourage them. I think you know the the best way to deal with self-care is you know to help others. Now be it through planning or outside of planning just to you know, get into the realm where you’re serving. You know, that could be very therapeutic to serve and you’re putting a smile on somebody else’s face and helping somebody else with the problem. So that’s what, that’s what I do with me and my sisters. We have a tutoring program that we do on the weekends and free tutoring program. And that’s just you know, some of the things that that I do also, you know part of some advisory boards with the city that I [00:45:00] live in with education. It does not come out the some ideas about how education could be, you know be made better within the city and just doing with youth. So I’ve been dealing with youth for a while. You know, I’m so like a youth myself. But yeah, I think you know like I said before serving is I think self-care what’s up here things that I deal with right now. I’m sort of like all over the place with so many different things going on. So every once in a while, I just need to sit down and take a breath, but I know I think reading is also really I love reading I haven’t been able to read much since my college days, but other than that, That has been one of the things that I’ve always enjoyed doing.  sort of outside of that realm.

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah, all those things are excellent. Like just you know, I posted recently after you know, Aretha Franklin’s passing, you know, how much I wish that I had spent more time with my [00:46:00] piano. Like I took lessons in college and just being able to play at that level being able to switch in and out of styles and piano. Obviously, I still go to a lot of concerts. I literally for those of you listening before we got on the mic to record. I was just buying concert tickets and making sure that I was going to be able to go to my first concert. What will be my return to DC. So I’m excited about that. I this is the day where recordings normally my yoga day. And again, I had been away from this particular studio looking forward to getting back into that and you know, I find myself watching a lot of things on YouTube that don’t necessarily have anything to do with what we’re doing. Like I watch a lot of hair videos, you know doing my own hair as well as like the artistry of you know, doing hair and you know going out for walks now like I made myself walk to like my other job, and I’m like just. Getting a sense that actually [00:47:00] using the city that’s why I call it like as much as we plan for the city as much as we plan for places. Sometimes you can get caught up in like the mechanics of it or sometimes, you know, if there’s been political battles over a plot of land or area of land. Sometimes it can enjoy like what we have like one of the things I absolutely love doing especially being in a black body in this country and just period is the travel that I do going to. The traction sitting in tourist attractions to be like, hey, I can afford to be here. I’m here now I paid for this. This is you said this was fun for anybody who can afford it. You know, I’m here, you know as much as I like challenge the fact that you built something that’s quote-unquote unaffordable or unattainable. Guess what I got in here somehow so it wasn’t completely out of the out of bounds. So yeah, I guess as we wrap up just any other last thoughts. Of course, I’m going to ask you to tell my way to find you, but just in general, like [00:48:00] what’s one thing that as your coaching people as you are becoming more of a established planner and eventually will become a certified planner. You know, what’s one thing you want listeners to kind of leave with that you feel like a specific to you like a piece of advice or you know, Something that really moves you about your work that you want to make sure people know.

Gisla Bush: I would say, you know, it’s to be confident be confident in yourself, especially, you know being young coming into your field that I think it’s very important that you know, you find your confidence. I’m still finding my confidence. I’ve come a long way, but they’re just a lot of different things about you know working and you know, the government is working in a professional environment and being young as I was mentioning before. The ageism  issues, you know, you feeling that you’re not adequate that you can’t you’re not capable of you know speaking to your elders and sometimes I see [00:49:00] myself, you know speaking to somebody, you know developer or others and thinking about you know, they’re listening to me. There are they are taking my word for you know doctrine and you know, you thinking I’m just, you know a young girl and like. They to really listen to me. So you just not defy your confidence be sure of what you’re saying, you know speaking to people and just you know, I think through your the way you find confidences by, you know, knowing your craft like really researching and fully understanding what you’re saying because I think a lot of times people doubt their confidence is when they when they’re not when they’re unsure about what they are, you know, telling the public telling others offering information. I think no being confident. I think it’s probably one of the most important things

Kristen Jeffers: I agree that and again what you’ve been able to do in just a short time like at a young age and that  I’m not saying this in the condescending way. I’m saying this in the this is [00:50:00] awesome way, you know, but again, you don’t have to do all this at once folks. If you’re listening at home, you know, there’s plenty of time to do awesome things. But you know, it is it is an achievement to be able to do things kind of on a either slower timeline or even a longer. Like I feel like the timelines matter in some ways like that and I think that’s awesome. I think it’s awesome the you’ve  a peer mentor for so many years. I continued to be a peer mentor both inside and outside the field and that you’re willing to be a peer mentor and a friend to so many of us who are looking at planning careers or related careers and finding our way. And again, it’s an honor to be able to be a resource as well and reach out. And with that being said, how can people find you.

Gisla Bush: So you you all can go to my website www.gigitheplanner.com. I’m also on Facebook and Instagram at Gigitheplanner. You can follow me there as well.

Kristen Jeffers: I also thank you so much for coming by and [00:51:00] coming on the show and I myself Kristen will be back to wrap up any loose thoughts and things after a break.

Please forward this to anyone who needs this. And if you’re new here, come over and let’s get to know each other better.

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Podcast

The Black Urbanist Radio Show Episode 9– Ashley Dash–Career Expert and Fellow American Expat in America

Ashley Dash lectures at one of her many career seminars. She is also the featured guest on this edition of The Black Urbanist Radio Show, hosted and produced by Kristen Jeffers

Sometimes what makes you appreciate new spaces and places is moving around and making those places for your career. My guest this episode, Ashley Dash grew up in the South, but also traveled the world at an early age as a military brat and to visit family. Because of her parent’s service in the military, she was even born outside of the United States in England. However, she actually grew up in South Carolina stayed near their to attend college and the first job she could get after her high-achieving college career was near her then home in South Carolina.

It was during that college career that I met her at a Monster.com career accelerator for high achieving college students. We reconnected recently over a Facebook video I happened to catch on a layover during one of my many recent bouts of domestic travel. I told her she had to come on the show after listening to her video where she talks about her many moves and I’m thrilled to feature a migration story and introduce how that ties into how we experience black urbanism.

You can listen and check out the transcript of our main conversation below.

You can listen in a lot of places, but I want to highlight listening on Radio Public. Radio Public is part of the PRX family, which not only produces some great public radio podcasts, they are working to share the wealth through profit sharing like they do with Radio Public, and trainings. When you listen on Radio Public, I get paid and you get more information.

Anyway, you can listen there—

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And here’s the full transcript of our interview, with show notes embedded.

[00:00:00] Ashley Dash: So I am Ashley Dash and I am a Career Branding Expert and I have been around the country going crazy over the last several years just really learning how to build my business build my career and really move forward in a way that is hopeful for me.  A lot of times people ask me;  how do I get started? And the way I got started actually was after I graduated from college.

I was actually an unemployable college graduate. I had a brand-new shiny degree that no one really wanted. I had several corporate internships under my belt and just for a period of months, no one would hire me and no one would I always say touch me like a 10-foot pole so better word.

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah.

Ashley Dash: All of the traditional advice and people normally say like, you know go to Career Services, I was doing. Get internships. I was doing you know graduate I did that it just didn’t work. So it is from that place of like, you know, being out of money out of interviews. I really had to rebrand and change my life and I was able to do that in 30 days. So it’s from that place. I actually helped my clients and help other business professionals and entrepreneurs really move forward with their lives and what their career so they can increase their confidence, make boss money and really good get unstuck at work, because that’s something I get a lot is a lot of people feel stuck. So those are things that I focus on as I’m working through clients and I’m talking with people.

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah, so you talked about just in that little bit, you know being you know, you have all I know when I came out of undergrad I had a ton of internships and club memberships and running things and you know one case I had run a concert festival, I had managed money, I done all these things but often that resets when you leave the college setting and you go out to quote unquote the real world. So I definitely relate to that. I’m not sure how I cannot remember how close to [00:02:00] like the 08 recession you graduated out of but I know that was a factor with me. I had a job when I walked across the stage and December of 2007 and I was that was early for me.

That was a semester early. I was one of many of my classmates that I knew of who took advantage of the fact that our degree was a little lighter at least as far as coursework it was made for a lot of people to transfer into after other options. And so I took advantage of that. I was like yay, I’m getting out here.

I’m out of the gate. Yeah, there might be a recession but doesn’t matter I have a job and I guess I have an apartment and I finally have a car, you know, the life has started and actually the life truly has started. You know, like I said, I’m just 22 and pretty soon, I’m going to make this decision about law school and there’s gonna be a magical partner that’s going to appear we’re going to take over the world together babies, big house.Like even though I’ve always known that I wanted that big house to be like in a major city , it probably was going to be a big town house, but nevertheless all these wishes were there, but then six months into my working, at this organization I get laid off with four other people on the same day.

So essentially it was a reduction in force. It was  eligible for unemployment, but that was still something. I didn’t understand

And so yeah, I it’s July 1st of 2008 and I am unemployed. For the first time in my life is not my choice. It was definitely a learning experience and there were definitely things that happened at that position that I wish that I could learn better. But and also just as far as like how I conducted myself in the office like everything from like the junk on my desk to just bouncing around in the energy that I had in that office, but yeah, [00:04:00] definitely took it as a firing and

Ashley Dash: but it’s all lessons learned like It’s like 20/20 hindsight or so many things that I would have done different had I known but a lot of times you don’t know so I’m excited to hear about your experience at least initially because like I was not that person who had a graduation had a job after graduation, right? So I actually graduated late a semester in December. And the internship I had they let me stay on a couple months after graduation. But after that was kind of like I was unemployed, right?

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah. Yeah

Ashley Dash: But, I coudln’t qualify for unemployment. So I was living off of savings.

Kristen Jeffers: Mmm Yeah,

Ashley Dash: you know going through that process. I learned a lot about myself there was some personal things that had to happen and just but during the period 2008. I did land like I called my first real job, right? So you can’t see me but my air quotes my first

Kristen Jeffers: yes. Yes. Yes

Ashley Dash: with like you would benefits and you know, I can get my car and I can get my own apartment and and like really living the life, but that was dampened because the Great Recession did come. And while I want to say our organization that I was with at the time did not lay anyone off. Everyone had reduced hours.

Kristen Jeffers: Hmm.

Ashley Dash: So and at the time I wasn’t salary right? It’s my first time I was an hourly person. I’ve still making good money, but you know,

Kristen Jeffers: yeah, yeah,

Ashley Dash: really. So every other week, you know, we had to get like a Friday off.

Ashley Dash: So part of it was like I could feel you know, the impact to my paycheck.

Kristen Jeffers: Hmm

Ashley Dash: on the one hand but on the other hand I was. This is amazing because every other weekend I had like a three day weekend. So I was traveling I was busy.

Kristen Jeffers: Yes,

Ashley Dash: making all these road trips, you know, I was planning like two major trips twice a month because I knew that I had this, you know extra time, although my pay was impacted, you know, you know, I was I was able to deal with it. Wasn’t that big of a deal? But just [00:06:00] before everything kind of like during that time of the Great Recession if you survived, right?

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah,

Ashley Dash: it was still this just level of uncertainty. Yes level of the Doom and Gloom on the news on the radio. So I definitely learned how to have conversations how to have uncomfortable conversations how to ask really tough questions when bby no one has answers. I’ve had some really good experiences during that time professionally where I could like Leverage for like interview questions in the future. So I want to say at the time I worked for a commercial trucking and organization and I was responsible for reporting, right?

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah. Yeah

Ashley Dash: for the reports I was responsible for showing them, okay. How many trucks do you predict will be bought, you know on a on a monthly basis. So it’s like a rolling report and I remember sending this report. That was 0 for weeks at a time, months at a time to the Vice President of Sales vice president marketing saying hey, yeah, no one’s buying trucks and it was just these experiences that I was able I didn’t understand at the time but I was able later able to leverage these conversations into like interview questions.

Have you ever had a tough, you know conversation with someone? Yes. I mean who tells you know your first job your entry-level, right? Who tells the Vice President of Sales that no one’s buying trucks.

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah

Ashley Dash: The last month or two right?

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah.

Ashley Dash: So yeah. Hi, like looking back. It makes so much sense. But when you’re in the moment, you really can’t predict what’s going to happen and where it’s going to go.

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah, I’ve been through so many career transitions.  there been times where I’ve been unemployment eligible as well as times when it’s just been I’ve been fired and it always been times. I’ve had to walk away from positions  I feel like. Is something to be said about that flexibility and also being somewhere that you can be flexible,

but I want to go back to talking through that experience of even though you weren’t necessarily [00:08:00] making a whole lot. But in those early days before bills and like things of that nature really piled up being able to travel so much like I worked a $11 an hour job.

I worked it 40 hours a week. I was able to. Take a then-boyfriend on a plane up to DC. Which again is something you know, . I was back in Greensboro at this point, even if I had been in Raleigh, this is something you kind of just drive it, we did a hotel and all these things and I was like.

I was able to do that.  I was living at home. rent free. All I did was I went home. I pay my car note, which was very low  I had no credit cards back then credit cards did not become a factor until much later into my adult life.

And now let’s do it and now it’s like I’m that’s a. Yeah, it’s very much a monster. And I wish I can burn it send it back to work from where it came from but it happened  I sense that you’ve always had a bit of Wanderlust. Maybe

Ashley Dash:I do

Kristen Jeffers:You know, when did like what when you were coming up as a kid like would I know if my family was always a running joke, you know my grandparents live out on some property out in the country, but I grew up in Greensboro proper and I was like I have to go. Home and there’s got to be action going on. Part of the reason I live in the DC area now because it’s always been a city that was a goal City. And I was at person that would cry when company would leave.

Ashley Dash: Me too

Kristen Jeffers: like I just loved having a lot of action and energy in the house.

You know, my first train trip it took. Years for me to fly for the first time and now that I’ve been flying like I try to fly as much as possible, I’m the person that folks come to for directions. I am definitely not directionally challenged. So, when did you start to notice that about yourself that there was something where you just didn’t mind a lot of travel and a lot of moving.

Ashley Dash: Well, it’s [00:10:00] not myself. It’s actually my family. So I do have Wanderlust probably more than. All of my family grew up in a military family.

Kristen Jeffers: Ah,

Ashley Dash: so I am a military brat. I was actually born in England. So my first flight I don’t know.  So travel has always just been a part of my life.

It’s just something that. That we did now I actually grew up in a very small town called Jackson South Carolina. Very small very country.

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah,

Ashley Dash: but I was always visiting like my aunt she had three three girls my cousins and I was my mom’s only child. So I was always like visiting them and because.

My uncle, you know that family they were military. So he was in the Army so they would be traveling across the country for his job. So every summer basically I would go visit them and they will be in a different part of the country. So when summer I was in Louisiana, another summer, I was in Texas

Kristen Jeffers: Um-hum

Ashley Dash: I was in Georgia another summer. I was in Maryland like that was just what we did. So for me, it’s just a natural part of my life and like my family and even now like my grandmother would jump on a plane. Like that’s just we go to Maryland for Thanksgiving and we’ll fly her out and she has no problem, you know jumped on the plane picking her up like our whole family is like that so I think that’s just something that we do as a family and that I just inherited now, my mom has always been a really an advocate of what she calls culturalization right?

She wants me to experience the world. She wants me to see. Where people live and their other perspectives, so I was always going on different trips or or opportunities, whether it’s like going to the Opera or going to a symphony or band is exposing me to other cultures so that I wasn’t I guess in her words be like, it’s Country Bumpkin.

She wanted me to experience life. So I think just. Even though I live in the country having these experiences where every summer I was leaving and seeing new things new ways of life. I think that just kind of carried over as an adult, right?

[00:12:00] Kristen Jeffers: Yeah. Yeah

Ashley Dash: as an adult I was then able to make you know decisions for myself, but I think tried to be honest.

I didn’t really mean for all the traveling that has happened in my career to actually happen.

Kristen Jeffers: Okay.

Ashley Dash: It was like an accidental thing like one thing led to another so I remember. That’s my job a couple times and I realized it was time for me to move on. Like I was just like I was getting to a point where I wasn’t necessarily happy.

I kind of feel like I learned enough, but I really didn’t know where I wanted to go. But I was just like in this angsty place if that makes sense.

Kristen Jeffers: Oh, I understand that completely.

Ashley Dash: Yeah, so that angsty place where I’m like not happy, but I don’t want to leave. I don’t know what’s next just like all these questions and I remember seeing this position opening at Mercedes-Benz and I was like, you know what I’m going to apply.

Now here’s the thing. I didn’t actually think I’d get the job anyway.

Kristen Jeffers: Okay.

Ashley Dash: So this is my mindset at the time. Okay. I was working to Human Resources, but the position was like in compliance look HR compliance.

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah

Ashley Dash: ever done anything like that. Like I was a recruiter. So I was like a happy career fair lady, you know telling people a lot how awesome it is to work compliance like the opposite of recruiting right?

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah. Yeah,

Ashley Dash: but in my mind I say, okay. I’m going to apply for this job. They’re going to see my name see my resume. They’re going to say, you know, thank you, but no. Thank you. But they’re going to have like this name recognition. So when there’s another job at opens up, I’ll apply getting like oh, yeah, she apply for X y&z.

Okay. That was my mindset. When I applied for this position. I’m not going to get it. It’s okay. It’s part of a bigger plan. Right? So I actually applied for the position and then went on vacation for like a week because I didn’t think that I would, you know, hear anything back and I heard back like they call me later.

Yeah, we want to you know schedule an interview and I was like, well, you know, I work for the affiliate organization. They’re just being polite. Right.

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Ashley Dash: So then you know, I do like, you know a phone interview and you know, everything’s fine. I’m expecting to say Hey, you know, thanks for applying but blah blah blah blah. All right.

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah

Ashley Dash: I do the phone [00:14:00] interview and I don’t hear anything some of the okay not a big deal, you know, I wasn’t expecting this job and like a week later. They called back there like yeah, can you fly out for interview? I’m like what is happening? You know, I talked to my mom like yeah, they want me to fly me up and you know, things like that at the time I lived in Fort Mill South Carolina, which is like a suburb of Charlotte.

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah,

Ashley Dash: and the job was actually in New Jersey or like the greater NYC area.

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah,

Ashley Dash: so. Everything I can it was very interesting because in my mind, I hadn’t prepared for the job the way you would traditionally think that you would and every step the process. I was like, they can’t hire me like I don’t have any experience or this is just a courtesy interview or they’re just being nice, but I think when they flew me up, He got really real like, you know,

Kristen Jeffers: yeah.

Ashley Dash: Yeah you want to play it was my first time traveling for an interview. So that was a new experience and I want to take my first time in first class on the airplane. That was awesome.

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,

Ashley Dash: right and just you know having those the all the interviews so just really getting immersed into these like an experience is really enough enough.

There’s not another way to describe it where you just kind of have to go with the flow you having the all the things they talked about like in undergrad. Finally came to fruition at hell. Yeah, like yeah used interview. This was panel interviews that we have to talk. We have to like interview while I’m eating lunch.

Make sure nothing in my teeth and pop these people and what do you order and etiquette and all those things? You’re kind of? Yeah, whatever. Yeah all came together and that and they actually offered me that job and it. Again, interesting because it was like this temporary job. It was like this full-time project assignment where you do this job for two years and then after that you leave like that that’s basically what it was but I felt like it was like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity where like who when am I ever gonna get a chance to work for Mercedes-Benz, even if it’s just temporary?

Ashley Dash: Yeah that was kind of like the beginning of me [00:16:00] moving for my career. Kristen Jeffers: I had family members that would always fly in so it’s always a lot of going to the airport but never actually getting on a plane and I’m like, well what’s on the other side of the plane like, you know, what’s you know, I hear that there’s like a I mean you can see the Jet Bridge but like it’s like you just they disappeared into a tube to go into a smaller tube and then they like get to go somewhere and come back, you know, this was back before, 9/11 like the terror attacks and like you could go to the gate.

Ashley Dash: Yes,

Kristen Jeffers: so and you could go to the gate anytime you wanted to my parents my dad, especially like he would you know, once it was clear to do as an obsession with transportation vehicles, like my dad was would take me to the airport. We’d sometimes just sit and watch the planes go and then sometimes it would just be us going to the gate.

Yeah, my aunt still lives in Detroit and she would fly say into Greensboro.Airport or maybe occasionally Raleigh airport, but at the time Greensboro airport was definitely still like a thing that people did not to say they don’t do it anymore, but it was definitely more vibrant. And so we would just show up and like at the gate.

I’m I’m both of my parents only and so my mom had siblings and they at the time I just have one other cousin who was also an only they lived in Oklahoma City. I never visited them out there, but. And they were always come in for a little bit during the summer. So that was a big thing. It was like well what a wonder what’s going on there and like I have an uncle and aunt on both sides that both at one point lived in the Hampton Roads Tidewater area.

So there were years where we would go up and visit them and that was a car trip. And it was actually that set on my mom’s side that you know, we took the train up to DC to go visit them even they looked right outside of Baltimore to time on the south south end. So, you know, there [00:18:00] was that was already kind of brewing and cultivating but I myself did not make it on a plane until I was 20 and I had all the fear that comes from flying and just hearing about it and just seeing the process over and over again and wondering what’s going on on the other end. I think my mom was excited a little bit after she got used to the idea of me going to work in Kansas City, but I think part of it.

I think everybody probably thought that I had died just having to move away. For work, I worked for let’s see a good five, maybe six or seven years in North Carolina. I mean I did both rounds of schooling. I did, you know, a lot of I started getting involved in the community, you know, I lived in you know, I live separately from my family and my parents in North Carolina in Greensboro where my parents were just a few, you know few miles away and then after just being flexible like.

It wasn’t a thing of I didn’t think I could get this job. It was a thing of I had an email in my inbox and somebody saying you should strongly consider this and then continuing and I kind of knew and The Way It Was Written that this was a we love to have you how can we make this work? Yeah, and I’ve been spoiled ever since since things like that come up.

You know anybody that’s listening and wonders why you know, you might post something and you know, I think I’m a good fit. Don’t apply you have I have to apply I’m pushing myself to do more applying and not writing myself completely off now. Absolutely. I’m happy with building building a company and building a building a stack of things to do.

But I know for me it was that was kind of my first experience of even, you know, being flown places and moving away. And then I think that just really opened the [00:20:00] floodgates. I mean that same year. The Black Urbanist had really started to get people’s attention and I started to get paid speaking and workshops and doing some urban planning work.

So I would say 2014 really started to blow up in the doors for that kind of work and then the following years like, oh well for your, like day-to-day nine to five, you know, moving away and moving and doing something might be a possibility now. I’ve been trying to work in the DC area since the end of undergrad and it’s I am I kind of want to like go back into more of your story and like walk through all the places you’ve worked before I come back to how I got to DC because it that part of the story really talks about how I took I took initiative.And I definitely leapt into what has become a net but it was a it was a long way down to get to the net so

Ashley Dash: so yeah, so I’ll definitely gonna I’ll give you the kind of like my synopsis but like one thing I really do want to iterate is what you said about taking initiative. Like I might clients probably hate me because they hate hearing the word action like so I just say that so often like on repeat like take action take action take action just because I know what action can do like I know what action will create another action is like this ripple effect in my clients.

Like they don’t believe me until they’re on the other side, but then we can trace back to the one action. They took right that one thing they did.

Kristen Jeffers: Hmm

Ashley Dash: that kind of change the trajectory of their career or. Trajectory of their life. So I definitely am an advocate of that in terms of moving. So yeah, I again from Jackson South Carolina I moved around a lot.

But that’s kind of home base for me. And then I went to Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina. So that’s what I’ve been most of my life, you know in South Carolina.

[00:22:00] Kristen Jeffers: Yeah

Ashley Dash: Traveling places but based there. So after graduation, I found a job basically right outside of Charlotte and I was there for about four years.

I want to say. Now I was having to actually I had a remote boss and the headquarters was actually in Portland, Oregon. So I was still traveling and you know, I see year I was based in South Carolina. Now, I got promoted got a cool job. And then that’s when I applied for the New Jersey job.

Kristen Jeffers: Okay, okay.

Ashley Dash: So that’s kind of just kind of how it started and looking back. It’s kind of like their trajectory change of my career just like that taking action just really having a resume and hitting submit. That’s really what it is. But once I got to New Jersey, I had a mentor and that’s kind of how she reframed how I viewed myself how I thought about myself that’s where the word branding came from.

That’s actually where I most people could say and at least in my mind where I actually became a career branding expert because I had been doing this. branding of myself my resume having conversations interview all along when he was in New Jersey that kind of package it together and became the same like this actual process that was repeatable not kind of like just guess and check.

So I was there in New Jersey for a little over two years and the company actually was open to relocate so they wanted actually Rico relocate the entire headquarters to Atlanta and I had to have family. It’s an Atlanta was fine. Actually never place. I wanted to live to be.

Kristen Jeffers: Okay.

Ashley Dash: So when the opportunity came up to move to Atlanta, I actually shifted over to Silicon Valley.

So I moved over from New Jersey to Silicon Valley, California, which was really cool. Yeah. It’s one of those decisions one of those opportunities were it was just like you mentioned where I didn’t really formally interview. It was kind of like a conversation. I knew who the you know, the. HR [00:24:00] Director was a kind of sent an email saying hey, you know, this is what I’m thinking.

You know, what do you think? Yeah, we had a conversation and you know, we’re pretty open house. Like look, you know, I know I don’t know what’s out there but I don’t want to really move to Atlanta. I’m going to send you my resume. I didn’t ask. I told him I’m going to send you my resume and if you think I’m a good fit for this role, you know, let me know if I’m like the top two the top two I will formally apply.

Um, if not, just let me know. No questions asked no no harm. No foul and everything will be fine. He said okay and I shot him with my resume. The only thing the next day the next week, I’m gonna say like a Thursday. So maybe like a Monday or Tuesday. We had a conversation and he was like basically job is yours basically was that conversation it was like.

What he was like I’ll give you until like, you know some extra time to think about it because you know, it’s a really big move but you know, I was like, are you sure like, do you want to talk to somebody else? So like I gave him my you know managers information and I believe they had a chat not I’m pretty sure they had a chat but basically the job was mine.

It was like not like I hadn’t even flown out there. We didn’t do like a video conference. It was like a phone call.

Kristen Jeffers: Oh awesome, which is great,

Ashley Dash: which is great. So that’s actually how. Got to Silicon Valley, California, which is super cool because like it’s known for Tech and you know startups and it and I’m an HR professional so that’s not something that you would think you would end up in

Kristen Jeffers: but I but they all hire people and you would hope they’d have HR that works

Ashley Dash: They do  but in your mind least for me.

Kristen Jeffers: Oh, yeah.

Ashley Dash: Yeah feet that way. So that was really cool. So I was there I want to say in Silicon Valley maybe less than a year right at a year. I can’t remember to be honest and then they have had. Opportunity for in Southern California. So basically like Long Beach, California outside of LA

Kristen Jeffers: mhm

Ashley Dash: to have another HR business partner role and I kind of just raise my hand. I was like, well, I’ll go [00:26:00] yeah. Yeah, it was one of those things where like, you know, Guys aren’t you know looking at whatever then you know, I’m totally open and they’re like, okay send Ashley.

So then I moved yeah to LA and again learned a lot learned about culture just really cool things. Enjoy it the California weather that you know, sunny California cool a talk about and it was really really cool. But at that time I was starting to feel like the I guess the homesickness or the itch to be you know home and I was making good money.

I was able to fly home, you know to visit that I felt like I was missing out and experience and I had a lot of personal things that were changing in my life. Like I broke up with my boyfriend for like a very, you know, we had been together for like a lot on and off for like years and yeah, you know, I was in school and I just wasn’t in a happy place to be perfectly honest.

So like career-wise everything looked amazing. It was fine, but I just wasn’t happy on the inside so. Had to make some changes how to really go through some some good bad and ugly experiences and ended up moving back to California, not California, to South Carolina.  So and it was during that time where I was able to really like reconnect become like a full-time entrepreneur really do what I do now the career branding and just really transition into this new phase of life.

It really was like a transition of okay, I don’t. Work for someone else. I don’t even know what that feels. Like. What do I do?

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah,

Ashley Dash: so there was a lot of just questions and angst and learning and I found some mentors and business and you know, there was just a lot of things happening. So for like two years in South Carolina made my home base was there but I wasn’t I was traveling literally across the country to like take these classes learn these things skills meet these new people.

So I was in Texas. I was in DC. I was a [00:28:00] Maryland. I was just traveling and then I was like, okay during that time. I was visiting my sister and I was like kind of staying at her house when because I always fly out of Atlanta.

Kristen Jeffers: Mhm,

Ashley Dash: but I would travel so I would like kind of have a trip fly out of Atlanta and they kind of hang out with her for a couple days.

Hang up my nephews and things like that and then go home. So that was that was kind of like the the deal and. But I was traveling so much. I was always at her house. Yeah, because I was always doing something and she would always say, you know what you should move here and I’m like, I don’t wanna you know, it’s not really my vibe.

You know, I’m not really open to Atlanta. And then as I was growing in my business, I started meeting people from Atlanta had like a some other opportunities pop up and in. Came a little bit more real and earlier this year almost the beginning of the year. I was talked to my sister and I was like hey, how would you feel if I moved to Atlanta and like she’s screaming? She’s like, I’d love it.

Kristen Jeffers: I feel like she probably did a bunch of dances. She’s like you’re gonna be here and you know, your nieces, nephews. How what’s the balance there

Ashley Dash: I have two nephews

Kristen Jeffers: Okay. Well nephews excited, you know. Yeah.

Ashley Dash: It’s a bend. Once she okayed it and I didn’t really have to like, you know find a place to live. I can kind of just stay with her. It was like oh this could be super simple like yeah, I could just make the transition. So I always tell everyone I am now an Atlantean I’m like kind of like still unwilling in a way because in my mind I never wanted to be here not that it’s a horrible place because unless she was always showing me a lot of love and they’ve always been amazing opportunities, but I guess in my mind, I never thought.

Of it as a place to live. I think some I think some people at least for myself. They have places in their mind. They think they will live like, you know, you want to live in [00:30:00] DC, you know.

Kristen Jeffers: Hmm.

Ashley Dash: I wanted to live in New Jersey like in the you know, DC, I mean the greater New York area. I think they’re just certain places you want to live and I have to be honest Atlanta was never on the list. It was always a list of visit for never to live.

Kristen Jeffers: Hmm interesting like I know for me it was either going to be Atlanta or DC. I know for me my city that I like the vibe, but I couldn’t see myself living there. Necessarily is New York City. I do feel like New York City may be in the future

likewise.I just did it Los Angeles for the first time and I’m like, you know, this could be a thing like there’s so many places that I know. When a necessarily see myself living but I really enjoyed the vibe. I honestly looking back on my time in Kansas City absolutely enjoyed it cumulatively but you know, you talked about, you know being in a long-term relationship are trying to maintain a partnership with a person and that kind of blowing up and how to kind of fell into the mix, you know for me.

I definitely was pulled between two coasts. My ex help me kind of get to DC because I knew all the time when we were talking about this. I was like, okay. Well I can lean on them being there. You know, we have friends there also in the same industry and you know, we can I can kind of flex there. You know, my I’ve always kind of been I’ve actually grown out of this a little bit.

I don’t know if you read Daily Shine but there was a reflection on like doing things for yourself in one of the recent like daily, like sort of quote unquote meditations. It sends a sort of like, you know, and I’m like it took me a long time to kind of do things for myself.

I probably would have moved away quicker, but I kind of wanted to stay nearby and I felt this pull, the need to be nearby and I know you felt that kind of on the opposite end. I also felt a smidgen of that [00:32:00] when I came back to the East Coast.  I do feel like Kansas City sort of sits on an urban island.  Granted Minneapolis is not far away and I feel like Minneapolis is also a vibrant place and I would enjoy living there but I also hated driving through the rural parts of Missouri and Kansas basically anywhere where you can see for miles and you still are nowhere near close to being where you need to be was just insane. Whereas like I drive on the East Coast. There’s the forest and they start weaving through the mountains and then we start getting  close to the coast. You start to see the the shoreline and you know, there’s just so many changes even like I said, I feel like even I would say the southernmost cities. like I said your Georgia your upper, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina. You don’t really get far into the country until before you see Civilization now, I would I guess some people would question South Carolina.

On my mom’s side. We have family that’s down in like the Orangeburg/ North Area and so North when my mom and my aunt went down there a few years ago and this was back in the MapQuest era, the hotel was not there yet on the map like it was there but it wasn’t on the MapQuest yet some other stuff sort of disappeared. Like there was just yeah, they pretty much drove off the map because there wasn’t anything to get there. But yeah, I just took it back like I’m.

Kind of mentioned. Like I said, you know you were able to you really only worked for two corporations like you worked in Charlotte for one and then you worked for another and they were they moved you around the country were able to take advantage of that but even with the stability and sometimes I beat myself up for this because I’ve worked for a lot of different organizations and you know, I’m like, you know, if I would just be with the organization, [00:34:00] you know, that could plant me somewhere and I.start saving money and I can start being a philanthropist and I can really be part of like a community. But even with you having like I said having a fairly good working situation where they would move every once in a while, you still had that itch to do something on your own as well as an itch to be closer to family.

I will say that yeah, and I will say before I ask you my next question. I will say for myself. I know my entrepreneurial sort of my entrepreneurial like experience and like the true H came like before I was like, oh I’m gonna have this website and it’s going to be a public service thing and I’m still going to work for somebody’s non-profit and this is going to be a non-profit is going to be a C3 and I’m gonna be ED but I get to Kansas City.

I’m out there and for some reason I’m like all that time is spent by myself as I got adjusted to the city and next thing I know I’m like, you know, I’ve always liked patterns on like surfaces. Let me start drawing stuff. Let me like use my like Adobe Creative Suite and make these things. So then we get Kristpattern which is coming back.

It’s a little bit on hiatus because again, it was a dabble and actually jumping into that industry is a few more loops then I’m like, you know, I’m doing public speaking and I’m really good at it, you know personal branding up, you know, a lot of folks are in especially in the planning and development world like they’re great at marketing their building, they’re great at marketing their city. They don’t necessarily market themselves, and I can like definitely talk about that. So oh and I was at this conference this industry conference. I don’t know if any time when you were at Mercedes-Benz if you actually came out to the Transportation Review Board annual meeting, which I’m sure they were colleagues who did I’m sure I’m run into colleagues of yours there.

Ashley Dash: I did not

[00:36:00] Kristen Jeffers: Yeah, but that’s the thing is like it’s like the transportation Super Bowl like as far as research and like people piloting things and people sit around talking about things but it’s the basically an opportunity for people to just come and do powerpoints that look horrible. They literally take the the default. If it’s not PowerPoint is keynote. It’s not that it’s whatever Google Sheets has standard and not to say that that’s a problem like again designers made those and they don’t necessarily terrible out of the gate, but I’m like if you’re going and I know you will harp on this because this is what you essentially what you do now, but I’m like I cannot walk into another room.

And see another presentation look horrible. I know I can help people. I know I can make like I can make quote unquote boring things spectacular. We don’t have to do this every year you could come into to this conference and there are literally thousands of people we take up the entire convention center in DC.

Which is about four or five blocks by itself. We take over that entire space and then some of them like people could be talking about your thing. You could like I said, it’s a U-Boat, you know this as well. It’s great to be able to have somebody call you up and say hey I saw your thing. Please come and do this.

Speech. Please come and work this job. Please come and do this Workshop. I personally not that I won’t jump into an application period again, I have done that recently and it’s worked out well. I like being able to be called up and say hey, this is something that I want you to do and you know as we kind of I nothing we’re going to go completely ran out this conversation, but I definitely want to spend some time talking to especially I would say our sisteren other black women.

Who and I guess I would say straight-identified. I didn’t find not to say that, you know queer black women don’t go through this as well. But anyone who [00:38:00] as like I said a black person interacting through all the sort of struggles we have either with family or with society or with what it means especially as a college educated person depending on like what schools you went to or what organizations you are a member of or not a member of just you know, if travel wasn’t something your family could do if you’re especially if you’re first generation college or you know, you’re the first to live out.

Your hometown of there’s like a pool for you to kind of be your the mother bear even just a sister bear that kind of loads everybody together in your experience. And I know you’ve coached a lot of folks like this. How do you really get folks to see that? Like I said, it’s a good thing that you’ve got entrepreneurial ideas in your head.

It’s a good thing that you’re you got people calling you to come and work at a company. It’s a good thing to, you know, live not just across the United States but even consider International opportunities like talk me through kind of what you do when you have a client that has had some of those fears about moving and kind of becoming what I like to call an American expat or even like a real one like leaving the borders using that passport, you know.

Ashley Dash: So I do get a lot of those people and what I had to realize and to be honest, it made me uncomfortable and to be honest. I’m still working through the uncomfortability.

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah. Yeah

Ashley Dash: that people who I did that I knew but you know, we weren’t like they went to my church. They were my friends and my sorority sisters they were yeah.

Ashley Dash: Yeah, they have been watching my career, but I had no idea right for me. I was just living life.

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah. Yeah

Ashley Dash: I was just taking on opportunities. I was just experiencing what I felt like I could be the best decisions at the time throughout my years people were saying, how did you do that? [00:40:00] How did you do this? How did you do that?

And I kept getting these questions and I couldn’t understand why I was doing this question. So like oh, I was just applying for the job. Oh, I have some look at my resume. Oh, I did this like I was giving very flippant almost answers because in my mind it was that easy. And I have to be honest when I moved to New Jersey from Mercedes-Benz, that’s actually when a lot of things shifted for me.

That was actually when I first form I worked my first black female supervisor.

Kristen Jeffers: Hmm.

Ashley Dash: She was she became my mentor and I just took me under her Wing I had had other mentors but this was a mentor that kind of changed my life in terms of she sent me to get trained as a career coach. So I’m like a certified job and career readiness, you know coach and development coach, right?

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome.

Ashley Dash: I’m so she does have these opportunities for me and as the opportunities for myself, I just began to say yes for myself other people were saying, how can I say? Yes, right. They they were coming. So a lot of times my clients were a lot of my friends or my family like I was practicing on them for lack of a better word.

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah

Ashley Dash: One of my sorority sisters like she’s been like my guinea pig since this like junior year.

Kristen Jeffers: Mmm-hmm.

Ashley Dash: We were just practice things. I would practice things on her and they would work and then we would perfect it and we go do it again and it would work. So when clients are coming to me, they’re not coming to me totally brand-new by the time it gets to me.They know they want something different.

Kristen Jeffers: Mmm-hmm,

Ashley Dash: Either, they’ve had a conversation with me. They’ve heard me talk somewhere. They’ve seen my career. But they come to me saying, you know what I want something different. I just don’t know how to get there. Right? So a lot of my people that come to me they are mostly African-American. I would say most of my bases like 95-98 percent African-American females, right?

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah.

So why coaching client that’s who doesn’t want my clients are a lot of [00:42:00] times they just need two things, right? They need to be told it’s okay to reach that high. Right. They just need someone to say, you know what you’re not crazy.

So a lot of times I repeatedly say you’re not crazy. You’re not alone your yeah self, right?

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah. Yeah

Ashley Dash: Because a lot of times you feel crazy. And you feel like you’re by yourself you feel like you’re alone, especially if you’re at some of these big corporations and there’s like one of you in a room or yeah, you know, there’s like tokenism.

So the first thing that we talked about really is mindset is like, you know, what you can do this. I’ve done it. I had complete utter faith in you. But you have to be okay with some of the changes are going to come right? So once we get the mindset right up, okay, you say you want this you’re committed you’re invested in this process whether that’s money time resources.

Great. Now let’s put together an action plan. That’s why I really come in. That’s where I really come and say hey, I’m going to take action. I’m going to you know, get stuff done and that’s where I provide strategies. That’s where I provide the real help in terms of career branding. That’s where what get into.

That’s what I really get into what I do, right? So the personal branding the professional branding and the personal branding right? So those are the things that I focus on in terms of my clientele.

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah,

Ashley Dash: I told him that it’s okay to dream big. Yeah, it’s okay to be amazing and dude. Wonderful things and you’re not crazy in the sky is not the limit. You can go above and beyond and this is how we’re going to make it happen.

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah, and I feel like we need to hear that like I will go ahead and tell folks on this on this episode, you know, I reconnected with you and I said I’m what I’ve been one of those people that’s watched you climb, but likewise a lot of people have watched me climb as well.

You know a lot of people have been like well Kristen like where are you today or [00:44:00] how have you done this traveling thing or like you’ve literally gone all these places? Like how do you do that? Like, you know, I you know, you get the Litany of I have XX and next thing but I’m like no like what you’re saying about reminding folks that you’re not crazy was perfect like literally and just so folks know kind of how this conversation. came together. I during what I like to call my Odyssey 2018 where I literally spent 26 actually 27 technically because of the red-eye flight to get me back to the East Coast, days on the road. I am at the Kansas City Airport, which as many of you know who have followed me know that airport drives me up the wall.

It literally is a walled Fortress and it really hit me this time that that’s why it bothers me because once you go inside security, it’s kind of hard to get back out. I literally have Global Entry. I have a passport on me. Now. I have a real ID driver’s license, at the time (And for clarification this time is before I moved back to the East Coast and was flying out of MCI) . I still have my original North Carolina license and we I was on the renewal cycle where I didn’t need to change like literally I’ve changed my license because I’ve moved but my, North Carolina.

Just is going to expire in December. Like it would have expired in December. Like I didn’t necessarily need to do all you know change my whole license or anything like that, but I knew getting in and out of that security fortress at MCI meant I need to have as much IDs as possible or at least I needed to feel like I had as much id as possible.

And as you can hear in this it’s like extra stuff that we do to feel safe and like so I’m literally sitting at outside of the fortress. At a power outlets, like once I go inside there’s less power outlets. Once I go inside is less bathrooms. Yes, and who knows like how long it will take and then my flight kept getting delayed later and later and later.

Thankfully I hadn’t gone [00:46:00] through. I had checked my bag. So it’s kind of stuck on that flight, but I didn’t have to go through this Fortress. And so say if somebody wanted to come and pick me up Take Me Back Time bring me back. They could have done that. So I was like, yeah, I could do that. I’m sitting on my phone.

I’m charging. That I’m scrolling through Facebook and then I literally start playing a video that Ashley’s made and she’s talking about moving around like oh my gosh, you know literally right now I needed that reminder that I’m not the only one bounce around the country all the time that happens to be in a similar skin or skin tone and have similar Parts, you know, basically someone who is who understands this and then of course, I knew obviously about Ashley’s work and career.

I want to this will be the first of many episodes where I specifically talk about to a talk to people who are focused on the getting your career together portion of our lives. There will be more episodes upcoming that will focus stop talk specifically with folks. Who are urban planners and some of you are friends and colleagues and maybe you and then also I want to start talking to folks who don’t necessarily identify as urbanist quote-unquote.

But still, you know, you’re doing Ashley you’ve been you’ve lived in multiple places you’ve experienced places. And like I said now you have this you have cities that you didn’t see yourself being in but now you are part of that and again, you know as a business person being connected to places is important like that at that Atlanta Airport, may drive some people crazy, but I at least know and I think it’s the B terminal now that I can rent a bed and I gives me Comfort like

Ashley Dash: It’s home. Yeah, so I was laughing while you were speaking because you mentioned the airport code of your other airport, and I’ve noticed that Travelers a lot of people who travel a lot. They don’t actually say like Atlanta airport [00:48:00] or they don’t say, you know, You know Baltimore, they’ll say BWI They’ll say CLT.

Kristen Jeffers: Yes. Yes

Ashley Dash: I was laughing but I want to hit on an important point in terms of what you were mentioning and I know everybody’s you know different places in their careers and with us, aren’t you entrepreneurship is that that’s your career or whether it’s do a traditional 9-5 or something more creative and open and flexible for me.

I focus a lot on corporate and you know in terms of my clients. It’s but the one thing that I realized and what I saw was that a lot of my I won’t say like colleagues, but a lot of when I looked at the people who work successful at work when I was working, right? They were white males.

Kristen Jeffers: Mmm-hmm.

Ashley Dash: There’s always like a lot of stigma about, you know, kind of saying that calling out.I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it. It’s just an observation. It’s life, right?

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah.

Ashley Dash: They were white men and what I notice about. Of the most successful white men the ones that were directors and when that were kind of like in the money that I wanted to make it’s like this is like their third or fourth rotation out of like our location like they were not afraid to travel.

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah.

Ashley Dash: They were really open and saying yes to opportunities at different organizations and different cities and different states and though that people had kind of been at the same job for like 10 or 13 years and the same position never left, weren’t exactly happy so I started noticing the trends and what I thought of in terms of success and what I wanted now, that doesn’t mean that other black women weren’t successful because they were but they just didn’t really move the way I were seeing white males move.

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah. Yeah

Ashley Dash: I think I consciously I started like oh noticing like oh if I want opportunities, I need to move. I think it was just kind of like this thought that happens. And then once I did it one time and was successful, I would go I can do this again.

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah. Yeah,

Ashley Dash: he’s repeated over and [00:50:00] over again, but it really is like super simple just have to realize that it’s happening.

Kristen Jeffers: Exactly and you saying it made me think about that quote, you know, if I can just have half the confi–or like. I don’t know like a finger of confidence of like a mediocre white guy, you know, I’d be doing all right, and like I said, I feel like you know, I also see that people might see the dark side of that people might see like white families say leaving their parents on the side of the road or whatever folks have like a stereotype is of like moving away from your family and like kind of doing things for yourself, but I am absolutely happy that we’ve made self-care and a just a minimum level of self-preservation default no matter where we are.

I am lately one of the things I’ve been tracking is just how much especially kind of in our in the community development space. You know, there’s a lot of talk about it’s not being done the tragedies things that are happening and like I said, it’s not that I feel like we shouldn’t highlight violations of public space violations of private space But like I wonder what’s going on that’s positive, you know, obviously, you know there are places to see that, you know, I read the whole newspaper.

I see it in the arts section, but I definitely one of the things I’m hoping to do as like time goes on like as this as my platform grows to continue to highlight more voices and more folks who are doing awesome things like yourself like helping folks kind of make those decisions and encouraging people and then like I said also just talking about kind of the places in the backdrops that that’s happened in and so as talking getting into sort of like the fun side of things, you know, I definitely want to do what I would call like it’s not going to be like another rounds rapid fire.

I’m not going to pull the guns [00:52:00] out, but I. Definitely want to do a series of quick questions and sort of in this conversation of like a few things. My first rapid fire is like as far as airports. We just briefly mentioned that you know, I have a feeling I might know what your favorite is, but you know surprise me tell me like what’s your favorite airport is and why?

Ashley Dash: My favorite airport is the airport is actually I’m going to say Jacksonville airport. It’s tied with DMV airpot

Kristen Jeffers: yes. Yes,

Ashley Dash: Because they at least the Jacksonville airport is so small. It’s so small security is so easy and I can basically walk on a plane.

Kristen Jeffers: Yes at that. This is so underrated when you have a small airport that works like that’s probably why I already why RDU is my favorite. RDU is beautiful. It is very easy to get in and out of especially Terminal 1 [I mean 2 here, but 1 has improved from the old days as well] Terminal 1 is very, like I said, it was built after the 9/11 environment. It was built for posts, you know major TSA security so when you go in there are multiple lines the queue moves fast, and of course, like I said now I have like I don’t have to take anything off besides maybe a jacket sometimes and so I just walk right through and I’m sitting there and of course I absolutely love all airports that take the time to think about like local food and like quality and food.

So but still any airport, we can just walk right through now, you know for as far as like being able to get in and out I thought. ATL was a favorite. But Denver. Yeah Denver is different Denver is like a new favorite. Like I feel like it’s got the convenience. Like obviously you got the train under it, but you’ve got this big open Atrium.

There’s a lot of in spaces and there’s a lot of things in each terminal where you don’t feel like you have to move a lot. Like there’s three major terminals. There’s a lot of shops. I feel like it’s what [00:54:00] Atlanta’s trying to do but not so many train stops and Terminals and the walk and people running around. Oh and even better. There are moving sidewalks on the concourses.

Ashley Dash: See I mean I use this like Charlotte used to be my favorite. I think yeah, I was most comfortable with it. Yeah the whole renovation every time I went it was under construction. So I was just like,

Kristen Jeffers: I feel like I don’t even know what that even looks like.I haven’t flown into Charlotte since probably 2015.

Ashley Dash: It’s been a couple years since I’ve flown through Charlotte

Kristen Jeffers: yeah, and I know they’ve been doing a lot of changes. I want to kind of go over there and see what’s going on just as such,

Ashley Dash: you know, because I’m going to be nosy.

Kristen Jeffers: And yeah, I want to be nosy.And like I said, I like reviewing and kind of getting a sense of what’s going on. But I know I won’t know where I’m going and I already know that the long-term parking went up so I’m like, okay, I can’t deal so one other thing. I would say which city that you’ve lived in has had the best food scene

Ashley Dash: Oh, California. I was in Artesia. That’s where I lived, basically Los Angeles County.

Kristen Jeffers: Okay,

Ashley Dash: and I thought it was going to be New York, New Jersey, but they had really good pizza like really good Italian.

Kristen Jeffers: Mmmm

Ashley Dash: In California least Southern California sudden, hold on Silicon Valley. I can’t remember.I just had really good food in California. They had these like eclectic places. They had like that would have you know food trucks I had watchos for the first time.

Kristen Jeffers: What is that?

Ashley Dash: A wacho is waffle fries with nacho toppings

Kristen Jeffers: interesting.

Ashley Dash: Yes I had my first Wacho experience in LA

Kristen Jeffers: I’m making a note for the next time.I’m out to find this Wacho place.

Ashley Dash: There’s this place with a waffle. That’s like I don’t know how to do like a waffle. It’s like chicken and waffles, but it’s like a sandwich and it’s but they put coleslaw on it insert and it sounds really disgusting [00:56:00] when you say it out loud. But it’s like my favorite place and they had like the spicy Barbacoa salad.

I’m not even sure where the cuisine was, but it was delicious. They had Chicago deep dish pizza in California that I really liked a lot their worst. They have really good Indian food. Like there were just so many different things that they had and yeah.

Kristen Jeffers: Yeah, I feel like I haven’t eaten my way through LA enough. I feel like this on the list like it was very interesting. I complain so much when I moved to Kansas City. I was like, I can’t eat my any of my comfort food. I don’t trust the seafood. There’s no Cookout. There’s no Bojangles. There’s no Biscuitville and that’s very specific to Central North Carolina. I’m like, there’s nothing here that I can eat when I feel sad. Fast forward three years and I’m looking back and I’m coming when I was back visiting. I’m like, okay. All these places were good. Like you don’t have like a dancing bean mascot brunch place anymore. That was a thing. So, you know just I even though I do have favorite food scenes. I do kind of subscribe to the water making a difference sometimes and weighed like things tasting or flavored but I feel like there’s you know, you live somewhere long enough, you’re gonna find your like stack of restaurants that you to take people to or you call up when you need some comfort.

Ashley Dash: So. I there were those farm-to fresh tables in California, I love those.

Kristen Jeffers: Oh, yeah. Yeah one last sort of rabbit fire. Like do you prefer like being driven around the city or do you like doing say the walking tours? Like I guess like, you know, you got the touristy buses or even just hitting Uber or Lyft multiple times versus say getting out walking a city, you know, you got all the dockless bikes now you got the scooters in a lot of places like how do you like exploring like areas that you tour like cities or even like smaller places

[00:58:00] Ashley Dash: depends on the city to be honest. If I’m in like a major city like New York, I do not want to be walking I want to be driven around and but actually no I don’t want to be driven around because traffic is crazy. Subway I did  a lot of subwaying in New York and I was in California, Sililcon Valley actually my mom she came to visit me one weekend and we actually got it Uber and we have to find the photos then there somewhere but we got an Uber this really nice gracious and provide. I wish I knew his name, but he actually took us to all the headquarters of the different like tech companies in Silicon Valley.

Kristen Jeffers: Nice, yeah

Ashley Dash: No doubt took pictures from like LinkedIn Google Facebook.

Kristen Jeffers: Nice.

Ashley Dash: We have all these random pictures just of our day just being silly acting really funny. Where we kind of like just had like maybe two hours and we were driving to come just took us to Samsung because he kind of knew where everything was

Kristen Jeffers: hmm

Ashley Dash: seems like what about this place? What about this place? And we were just like literally just hopping in and out the car just taking photos and having a blast so

Kristen Jeffers: that sounds pretty awesome. It reminds me of when my mom came up to DC the first time obviously there was a lot of Metro in that was involved, but it was also buried. Hold and you know as much as I am miss public transportation alternative methods, you know, I do still have a driver’s license and I do like using said driver’s license, you know, now that cars have the inside console and speaker systems and you know, it’s like, okay I’ve got this car that means I can like go on road trips now. All right, you know I can stay later than transit runs and you know with my mom being there. I mean, we went down to the National Mall and it was February and it was cold. And I just wish we could have just been picked up at every single museum. Now. This makes no real sense. They are all the mall is made to be walked all [01:00:00] two miles of it. And yes two miles if you never walk them all be prepared. Don’t think you’re gonna do it like a nice little stroll you will hurt even if you’re in good shape if you walk at you’re not prepared and so even though we went from we did not do the the African American History Museum together. I’ve done it but we didn’t do it together. We actually did Natural History because there’s the butterfly garden she loves that it was awesome. So, you know, I wish that I kind of could have teleported a little bit that day before –

Ashley Dash: oh love it

Kristen Jeffers: like even today and commuting like we now have the electric bikes and I’m like this the best invention ever because I can like zip around, you know, I can get from point A to point B I don’t have to wear myself out too much. You know, I’m working again. I’m on my feet all day. Like I need something that’s like a stable thing even as much as I want cities to like be diverse about it. But I also want us to kind of think about when it is appropriate to mix in the car things.

You know, some people are going to pull my card after this episode, but they should know better. They know that I’m a multi-modal person and like a lot of their people are as well that being said, I Ashley it’s been a pleasure to have you on the show. Make sure let’s make sure people know where to find you and especially if they’ve been tickled by these ideas around Career Development and career guiding and career branding.How can that happen for folks?

Ashley Dash: So a couple of different ways. So people just kind of want to check me out. They can go to my website and that is actually www.careercorneroffice.com so they can get some you know freebies from training they have access to like resume tips and just kind of like some really cool information.

So that’s where people normally go to check me out. They can get access to my book Finding Career Freedom. So a of information is there. A [01:02:00] lot of people who actually say hey I heard you I’m super excited. You know, I actually want to work with you. I actually have an application process. So those of you who are interested maybe I said something that makes sense or you know it’s time for you know a chat, I offer career breakthrough strategy sessions and if people go to www.workwithAshleyDash.com, they can go there and complete an application and I’ll review your information and we can jump on the phone how to chat about you know, what makes sense for your career. Like what’s the next step whether that’s in business or just your career life that that’s resumes or networking like I cover it all because I’ve had to deal with it all

Kristen Jeffers: yeah as we all as we all do and like I said definitely reach out on social media handles. Is that something you’d like to share with folks or should folks start with the career website.

Ashley Dash: I think if they start at the career website I would say that’s fine. You know,  they can find me on you know, Facebook Ashley Dash Career Branding Expert on Twitter @Ms_slfconfident. Like I have a couple different handles. So if you go to CareerCornerOffice.com, that’s where most of my information resides and then if you go to Facebook, that’s where you see a lot of my videos. That’s actually how you found me. If you go to Ashley Dash just type in you know, Ashley, that’s spelled the traditional way da sh, I normally pop up for Branding expert in the a lot of my videos and you know, my trainings and my group all the information for people who really want to get connected and we learn how to upload their careers all the information is there.

Kristen Jeffers: Sounds great. And this was great. Thank you for coming on and having this conversation, especially how you know, moving and place and all those things affect your career and just you know, being able to get out of any kind of comfort zone even if you’ve never moved or never plan on moving again, like there’s still things just [01:04:00] mindset-wise it’s helpful to learn and so with that I will I myself Kristen will come back and wrap up a few loose ends and but we’re going to go ahead and take a break here.

Please forward this to anyone who needs this. And if you’re new here, come over and let’s get to know each other better.

Also, this podcast doesn’t have a paywall,  but I still need to eat. Buy me a meal via PayPal or Cash App, or many meals via Patreon.

Jobs, Weekly Newsletter

Jobs and Opportunities and Funding as of October 11, 2018

Hello folks. This is the 5th Jobs, Opportunities and Funding Dispatch. It’s October 11, 2018 and I’m here a day earlier than promised because several of the jobs listed here are closing on Friday and I have one that’s double recommended! Plus, the planet is going through climate change and I know a lot of jobs on this list will help to fix that.  Or you could do like this person above did and build a vehicle that raises awareness. Or even better, do both, we could use all the help we can get.

First, the still open jobs and opps, some with rolling applications, others with deadlines that aren’t tomorrow.

Rockingham County, NC (Marcus Slade is your guide)

SieX 1 and 2

US PIRG

Bicycle Colorado

livingLAB Detroit

Marin County (CA) Bicycle Coalition

City of Long Beach Advance Planning Coordinator

Wilsonville, OR (But only until Monday 10/15)

Silicon Valley Bike Coalition

Options for Homes in Toronto

The University of Washington, Tacoma Urban Studies Department  (Dr. Mark Pendras is leading the search for this tenure-track position)

All those jobs in Boston, namely this one!

The DDOT Hospitality and Commuter Outreach Coordinator (housed with Foursquare ITP)

The Loeb Fellowship

The NAACP National Headquarters Design Competition

And finally all those Washington State DOT Jobs (That Barb Chamberlain can help guide you with)

Then the closing tomorrows (Friday 10/12/2018) that I know of from the Bike Equity Network List.

  • The NCDOT is hiring a Transportation Planner I. Wake County, NC. Source: National Center for Walking and Biking. Salary Listed. This is the one that I double recommend.  Hanna Cockburn who is the Bike and Pedestrian Director at NCDOT along with a number of other folks I’ve known over the years of doing bike/ ped and transportation work period in North Carolina are doing some great things and Hanna’s really awesome. I first worked with her on the Greensboro Bikeshare Task Force and I remember seeing her Planning Department booth at several of our noted street festivals and can vouch that she will be a good resource, not just colleague (and maybe supervisor, I can’t tell how this will fall on an org chart but she will be in the building.)
  • The City of Providence is hiring a Planner. Providence, RI. Source: emailed to me. Salary listed.
  • The City of Sacramento is hiring a Program Analyst. Sacramento, CA. Source: NACTO jobs board. Salary listed. (I also appreciate that this one notes that the driver’s license requirement can be waived due to physical disability. I don’t know if they read last week’s email, but thanks for making this note).

And then everything else from Jessica Roberts’s Bike Equity Network list with longer/rolling deadlines

  • Oregon Parks and Recreation Department is hiring a Recreation Trails Planner. Salem, OR. Source: emailed to me. Salary listed.
  • The University of South Florida is hiring a TDM Outreach Coordinator focusing on bicycle safety education. Tampa, FL. Source: National Center for Walking and Biking. Salary Listed.  ( I also want to add that this is a part-time opportunity and a great way to test out the field or get back into the field after a pause if you’re local to the area).
  • Cascade Bicycle Club is hiring for a Policy Director, a Digital Communications Manager, a Rides Program Manager, and a Major Taylor Project Ride Leader/Instructor. Apply here. Seattle, WA. Source: emailed to me. Salary listed.
  • The League of American Bicyclists is hiring a Communications Director. Washington, DC. Source: National Center for Walking and Biking. Salary Listed.

I appreciate that Jessica’s well-organized in sending this list on Tuesdays in the Bike Equity Network Google Group. and I also suggest that if you’re interested in getting some of these jobs well before their close date and you live in Bike World (those of you know who you are) and you want to keep working there, hop into the Google Group! Also, thanks to Jessica for mentioning me on that list!  (And I didn’t realize until this morning I wasn’t in the Google Group and I’m very happy to be there now) It’s not too late to catch her webinar, Transportation Seminar: Transportation Behavior Change…Now With SCIENCE! which will be live at noon Pacific tomorrow (10/12/2018), but on-demand as long as you register for it.

Also, BIPOC folks who are community planners, advocates and all other related activities, the Untokening 2018 is accepting applications for its next iteration in Detroit. This is an excellent opportunity for those of us who are BIPOC to come together and learn from our peers, heal from prior injustices in the sector and plot out what’s next. I was at the first, I yielded space for Californians to convene for the second and I’m leaning towards not being in Detroit again this year (even though this promises to be an even more focused and purposeful version of the Allied Media Conference), but you should apply. Please ask for the fee waiver and scholarship if you think you have an inkling that you need it! The convening is only a month away, so I’d hurry and get your information in so the organizers can follow up with next steps.

Another phenomenal resource for jobs and opportunities. is Lynn Ross. Lynn runs Spirit of Change Consulting and is a veteran of HUD (under the Obama administration), the Urban Land Institute, APA and the Knight Foundation and she currently runs the @urbanistleadersofcolor Twitter handle, where she retweets opportunities, such as this newsletter and other activities of note from a list of other black and POC urbanists throughout the world. If you still read this and marvel at our existence, this will help you see that we’re pretty normal. Also, she just retweeted these job leads on her personal account. I think she’s just the messenger, but they seemed cool. She also tweeted a link to the Hindsight Conference, APA Metro New York’s 2nd Annual Equity Conference which is going on a week prior to the Untokening and she, like me shares great articles and resources around POC and places and spaces.

A couple more leads and then I’ll close the book for this week.

Lisa Nisenson, who you may know from Alta Planning, CNU and also as one of the co-creators of Cards Against Urbanity passed this opportunity along to go work for the city of West Hollywood as an Urban Design and Architecture Studio Manager. You could literally go to Hollywood, but still be a planner. Go figure.

Several folks in the Planning and the Black Community Facebook group have recommended applying for the Design Director position for the City of Detroit and I add myself to that list.

One of my fellow Congressional Black Caucus transportation panelists Nadia Andersonhas posted an opportunity to work partially with her team at Uber. More on that opportunity as a product marketing manager.

And finally, if you want to add jobs, the best way to do so is to email me at kristen@theblackurbanist.com, to tag me on your job posts on LinkedIn, share it in The Black Urbanist Facebook group, or tag me on any tweets or social media posts where you see this job. After a few weeks of doing this and realizing so many jobs close on Fridays, and that there are so many jobs that do come recommended, I’m considering changing how this list comes out. Right now, I’ll officially be doing one of these a week, but don’t be surprised if you start to see more Jobs, Opportunities and Funding Dispatches to the point where they come out every weekday but holidays. That probably won’t happen until I get more staff here at The Black Urbanist, but be ready.

Either way, the minute you see or post a job, send it over and I’ll get it out as soon as I can. Also, please let me know if any links don’t work and also if you’ve filled these jobs and they just happen to still be sitting on your website. The goal with this list is still that these are jobs you are either a point of contact for, either as a future colleague or hiring manager or can mentor applicants to producing a successful application. I may also pick out some of your social media accounts that are excellent resources for good leads and add anything of note that I think you (the potential applicant) should shoot for,  regardless of if there’s a lead from this list or in your own personal life.

Also, a reminder to review your announcements for areas of potential inequity and to publish at least a salary range. It’s not enough to include an EEOC pledge or invite for certain groups to hire, especially if things like work environment, licenses, and other things don’t actually affect your day to day work product.

I believe that while being a prepared or preferred candidate may not be a job guarantee, it will start the process of building a bigger group of mentors and friends for all of us throughout the industry and in the communities, we both serve and live.

Plus, I’ve heard from multiple people that my post where I included some questions to ask and traps to avoid when considering this career field has helped them decide on planning school and also have a better balance of their career

I’ve noticed several of you unsubscribing, before you do, click on this link if you just want notifications once a week, with a link to content from the prior week. I’m still determining a hard date for that (truly weekly) recap.  And do nothing if you don’t mind seeing me in your inbox 3-5 times a week, as I increase the frequency that I share jobs and content from The Black Urbanist platform.

Tomorrow afternoon, I’ll be releasing two podcast episodes from Ashley Dash and Gisla Bush on moving around to make a career (and how that shapes our black urbanism) and on getting more people to become planners, especially black women, respectively. Be sure to bookmark the RSS feed,  the special podcast release email,  Radio Public or your other favorite podcast platform.

I’ll see you tomorrow with a podcast announcement unless you click the button, otherwise, I’ll see you next week with more jobs and links to those podcasts.

Please forward this to anyone who needs this. And if you’re new here, come over and let’s get to know each other better.

Also, this platform doesn’t have a paywall,  but I still need to eat. Buy me a meal via PayPal or Cash App, or many meals via Patreon.

Jobs, Weekly Newsletter

Jobs and Opportunities as of October 8, 2018

Interior of the Boston Opera House September 2018

Good morning folks! This is the fourth Jobs, Opportunities and Funding Weekly and it’s October 8, 2018. I’m feeling as golden as this room I snapped in Boston a couple of weeks ago. In fact, said room is the room where it happens. And because I don’t want to miss my shot or for you to do the same, here’s a list of jobs and opportunities for the upcoming week. (NOTE that there were three significant additions, hence why I’ve changed the date on this post and that there’s a new email that’s been sent out with a new date).

…But before we get started with new jobs, these jobs from previous weeks are still open.

Rockingham County, NC 
SieX 1 and 2
US PIRG
Bicycle Colorado
livingLAB Detroit
Marin County (CA) Bicycle Coalition
All those jobs in Boston!

Meanwhile, Jessica Roberts sends us these jobs

  • The City of Long Beach is hiring an Advance Planning Officer. Long Beach, CA. Source: LinkedIn. Salary listed.
  • SMART is hiring a TDM Technician with a strong focus on youth including SRTS activities. Apply here. Wilsonville, OR. Source: emailed to me. Salary listed.
  • Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition is hiring a Santa Clara County Advocate. San Jose, CA. Source: emailed to me. Salary listed.
  • DRCOG is hiring an Outreach Specialist and a Planner III. Denver, CO. Source: TRANSP-TDM list serve. Salary listed.
  • Foursquare is hiring a Hospitality and Commuter Outreach Coordinator for the goDCgo project. DC. Source: TRANSP-TDM list serve. Salary not listed.
  • VIA is hiring a Director of Innovative Services. San Antonio, TX. Source: TRANSP-TDM list serve. Salary not listed. (Note, friend of the platform Lanzell Harper also works for this agency).

And this coming Friday, October 12 at 12 noon PDT (but available on demand after), Jessica will be doing a webinar called Transportation Seminar: Transportation Behavior Change…Now With SCIENCE!. Click on the name of the webinar to register and learn more.

Barb Chamberlain, longtime friend of the platform and champion for equity has offered to connect folks with informational interviews for all jobs listed below with the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) and notes that any in Seattle will work down the hall from her in their offices in Pioneer Square and will work closely with public transportation and urban mobility/access issues.  Reach out here if you’re interested in having her recommendations before you apply for these positions.

Abigail Moriah of New Commons Development in Toronto passes on this opportunity from her colleagues at Options of Homes. If you are a Canadian national, have the ability to obtain a drivers license and have a good sense of what the salary range for this kind of position would be, this could be a perfect fit. Please direct all applications and inquiries to careers@optionsforhomes.ca Please reference
“Development Manager” in the subject line.

Not interested in leaving the States just yet, but going to a colder and more northern state?Henry Pan sent me a note after the original dispatch went out on Sunday night and wanted me to add this transit assistance program coordinator job in the Twin Cities, that closes tomorrow (October 9, 2018. Note also that he’s not with the agency or planning to become part of it soon). It’s a temporary position for one year and it does require a drivers license, something that seems a bit ironic and also a bit exclusionary, especially for a job in a major metro with carsharing and ridesharing options. Maybe in light of the nature of the position, you could negotiate a car share or rideshare allotment and offer to add it to your final report, noting all the areas that you absolutely had to take rideshare or carshare. I am pleased to see that this position has pledged to not let prior justice system interactions interfere with the potential to hire.

Harvard Graduate School of Design’s Loeb Fellowship applications for the class of 2019-2020 are open and will be until January 1.

And an additional RFP/RFQ  I saw after I hit send–The NAACP is starting the process for rebuilding its headquarters in the spirit of embracing climate and environmental justice. While their procurement timeline has started, you have time to put together a team and put in a proposal. Learn more and get started with the process.

One more addition since original publication of an academic nature– Dr. Mark Pendras of the University of Washington, Tacoma Urban Studies Department is seeking a colleague to teach community-based urban planning on the tenure-track. More information, including the application process, is here. Dr. Pendras is also the chair of the search committee and you can direct questions to him.

And finally, if you want to add jobs, the best way to do so is to email me at kristen@theblackurbanist.com, to tag me on your job posts on LinkedIN (I’m at Kristen Jeffers, share it in The Black Urbanist Facebook group, or tag me on any tweets or social media posts where you see this job. Priority for inclusion is the Thursday prior to the weekend before I send each email. While I’ll shoot to release the email on Fridays, sometimes it won’t be out until Sunday like this one.

Again, the goal with this list is that these are jobs you are either a point of contact for, either as a future colleague or hiring manager or can mentor applicants to producing a successful application. I may also pick out some of your social media accounts that are excellent resources for good leads and add anything of note that I think you should shoot for,  regardless of if there’s a lead from this list or in your own personal life.

I believe that while being a prepared or preferred candidate may not be a job guarantee, it will start the process of building a bigger group of mentors and friends for all of us throughout the industry and in the communities, we both serve and live.

Plus, I’ve heard from multiple people that my post where I included some questions to ask and traps to avoid when considering this career field has helped them decide on planning school and also have a better balance of their career.

Finally, I want to challenge those of you reading this who will write job ads or manage a hiring process in the future, to be clear about your salary and benefits. The current process I see for many jobs assumes that people know how much they are worth and it encourages far too much negotiation. Additionally, this gets into asking people to provide their salary history, which is illegal in New York City and several other states and cities. You may still have negotiators, but for those who are fine taking the first package they see, please consider offering as solid and helpful of a package you can. This also gives folks the opportunity on cover letters to note if they would be willing to take a pay cut, or even offer to write grants or do fundraising or find sponsors to make up salary gaps. Once this is saved for an offer letter, it takes that leverage away from your candidate to make a mutual decision to come work for your company for the salary and benefits you’ve provided.  While I will post your jobs anyway, I will not stop noting how unfair this is and how this is one small thing you can do, especially those of you who are looking for small things, to make the world better.

Other News From Me

Thanks to Planning Magazine, produced by the American Planning Association, for including The Black Urbanist Radio Show and my contributions to Third Wave Urbanism in their Planning Playlist this month both online and in print. And I’m literally editing two episodes now, that will release over the course of next week. Look for them in your RSS feed, in your podcast players, and on www.theblackurbanist.com/podcasts. Also, a special email with both episodes and summary will go out on their release date.

Don’t miss out on showing your support for black urbanists! Merch is available, along with a few other items I’ve designed via Print All Over Me. Especially for the winter holidays. I ordered my first set at the beginning of August and didn’t receive it until the end. I chose this vendor because it allows me to wholesale products and also I can get a slightly higher take of the proceeds. Plus, this all happens while paying fair wages to people who are creating the products. So I don’t mind the wait knowing that this vendor is doing what it can to provide quality service and a good working environment. Are you or someone you know a vendor, especially a vendor of color, of promotional products with quicker turnarounds, wholesale fulfillment capability, and a solid work environment? Please let me know and I would love to discuss with you how we can work together.

That’s all for now. Look out for the podcast episodes later this week and another job dispatch on or shortly after October 12, 2018.

Never heard of me before this post? Come over here and let’s get to know each other better.  This platform doesn’t have a paywall,  but I still need to eat. Buy me a meal via PayPal or Cash App, or many meals via Patreon.

Jobs, Weekly Newsletter

Jobs, Opportunities and Funding as of September 27, 2018

Good morning folks! This is the third Jobs, Opportunities and Funding Dispatch. And yes, it’s really September 27th, 2018 and you get a bonus in that you get two emails this week. Partly because I was traveling over the weekend and I’m moving back to DC today and will be adjusting to my new space before working at the coffeehouse over the weekend. Baltimore, we had a good time and I look forward to many visits. But it’s time to make this commute make sense and not make me think (and that’s putting that lightly), as I’m doing in the picture leading this dispatch. Speaking of commutes, maybe one of these jobs or opportunities is worth commuting to…

First of all, Jessica Roberts sent out a few more jobs this week as well, many that have close dates tomorrow (Friday, September 28, 2018).

The City of Boston is hiring two Active Transportation/Vision Zero Planners. Boston, MA. Source: National Center for Biking and Walking. Salary code listed; perhaps you can find out what that corresponds to.

The Pima County Health Department is hiring a  Program Manager (Bike and Pedestrian Safety Program Manager). Tucson, AZ.  Source: National Center for Biking and Walking. Salary listed. 

The City of San Antonio is hiring a Pedestrian Mobility Project Manager. San Antonio, TX. Source: National Center for Biking and Walking. Salary listed.

Wake County is hiring a Program Coordinator III. Wake County, NC. Source: National Center for Biking and Walking. Salary listed.

Investing in Place is hiring a Policy Advocate and a Policy Analyst. LA, CA. Source: National Center for Biking and Walking. Salary not listed.

U.S. PIRG is hiring a Transportation Advocate for their national 21st Century Transportation program. Washington, DC. Source: National Center for Biking and Walking. Salary not listed. 

Bicycle Colorado is hiring a Development Director. Denver, CO. Source: TRANSP-TDM list serve. Salary not listed.

Living Lab Detroit is hiring a Mid-Level Landscape Architect and Project Manager. Detroit, MI. Source: sent to me. Salary not listed.

The Marin County Bicycle Coalition is hiring a Pedestrian & Bicycle Safety Education Lead Instructor. Fairfax, CA. Source: National Center for Biking and Walking. Salary not listed. 

Plus, a longtime friend of the platform, Kimberlee Archie, tagged me on LinkedIN with a great opportunity to come to Asheville and work in her department as a Training Consultant for Diversity and Inclusion. The job’s really tempting to me, as I think the world of anything North Carolina mountains or cities in mountain valleys period, but I think you’ll really like it if that’s you too.

And Facebook group member Patrice Brady sent along not just one, but two Planner II positions for the City of Columbus, Ohio with an emphasis on historic preservation. Bachelors degree with two years of relevant experience or masters degree with one year of experience is required. You can send your application materials to the attention of or reach out to Tamara Sanford with questions.

Also, if you missed the earlier dispatch from this week it’s here.

And finally, if you want to add jobs and opportunities the best way to do so is to email me at kristen@theblackurbanist.com, to tag me on your job posts on LinkedIN or other social media networks, share it in The Black Urbanist Facebook group, or tag me on any tweets or social media posts of job.

The goal with this list is that these are jobs you are either a point of contact for, either as a future colleague or hiring manager or can mentor applicants to producing a successful application. I may also pick out some of your social media accounts that are excellent resources for good leads.

I believe that while being a prepared or preferred candidate may not be a job guarantee, it will start the process of building a bigger group of mentors and friends for all of us throughout the industry and in the communities we both serve and live.

Plus, I’ve heard from multiple people that my post where I included some questions to ask and traps to avoid when considering this career field has helped them decide on planning school and also have a better balance of their career.

Have a great week and I’ll see you here on or shortly after next Friday, October 5th.

P.S. I Am A Black Urbanist and I Support Black Urbanists T-Shirts are here! $20+ shipping via Print All Over Me. So far it’s just the green, black and white colors of the brand, but coming soon I hope to offer colors to help you represent your specific city, sports team, organization or colors you like.

Never heard of me before this post? Come over here and let’s get to know each other better.  This platform doesn’t have a paywall,  but I still need to eat. Buy me a meal via PayPal or Cash App, or many meals via Patreon.

Jobs, Weekly Newsletter

Jobs, Opportunities and Funding as of September 25, 2018

Welcome to the second The Black Urbanist Jobs, Opportunities, and Funding Weekly. Today is September 25, 2018.

In case you missed opening the last email and the one earlier that week that announced the coming of said email, this is the reboot and revamp of my weekly dispatch.

You’ll still get announcements and recommendations about and from me, but the focus of this email/ post is going to be me making sure you know of some great opportunities in the land use and planning world.  There’s always a version of this linked at www.theblackurbanist.com/job-board and I will do my best to make sure that this hits all the major social media sites as well. Please forward to your friends!


To add your job, opportunity, or scholarship to this list, please shoot me a direct message on Twitter or Instagram @blackurbanist, tag your job posting or send via DM on LinkedIn or email me at kristen@theblackurbanist.com with a clear link to your announcement, whether or not you can be a recommendation or resource about the opportunity and if the link doesn’t include it, the close date, salary and compensation information, materials required to apply and to whom any cover letters need to be addressed. If you want to make the weekly cutoff for next week’s list, it needs to be in by midnight on Thursday, as I will be waking up on Fridays to do this list, with the goal of releasing Friday, Saturday or Sunday of each week. Travel and exhaustion kept me from sticking to that this week, but hopefully soon, I’ll have some help of my own to keep this ship running (and catch any typos).

Before we add some new opportunities this week, let’s get started with some of the older ones.

The Rockingham County, NC Planning and Inspections Director position is still open. Marcus Slade is still your contact, his email (note the correction from last week) is marcus_slade@outlook.com.

Same with the SieX Director of Communications and Director of Finance positions. Again, these could be remote positions, but it’s preferred that you’re based in their Downtown DC (Farragut Square) office space. Also, this is a startup, so salary and stock options are dependent on fundraising. However, if you’re in a place where you could take on a position building a startup company, especially with time spent in DC and possibly traveling to other areas, feel free to apply.

And now a few new ones.  First, the latest job leads from Jessica Roberts. Thanks again to her for pulling together this transportation heavy list. Last week’s list is here.

The North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG) Transportation Department is hiring a Senior Transportation Planner (Bicycle and Pedestrian Planner). Arlington, TX, Source: APBP list serve. Salary listed.

The City of St. Petersburg is hiring a Planner I to focus on Active Transportation and Complete Streets. St. Petersburg, FL. Apply here. Source: APBP list serve. Can’t tell if salary is listed.

Portland Community College is hiring a part-time Transportation Ambassador. Portland region, OR. Source: emailed to me. Salary listed.

San Diego State University is hiring an Assistant Professor: City Planning/Innovation. San Diego, CA. Source: emailed to me. Salary not listed.

The City/County of San Francisco is hiring a Transportation Planner IV. SF, CA. Source: Twitter user @sbjinsfo. Salary listed.

Go Triangle is hiring a Travel Services Associate. Durham/Raleigh, NC. Apply here. Source: TRANSP-TDM list serve. Salary listed.

North Seattle College is hiring a Transportation Coordinator. Seattle, WA. Source: TRANSP-TDM list serve. Salary listed.

Justin Garrett Moore, of NYC Planning, BlackSpaceNYC, AICP, and a litany of other related things, has one of the best LinkedIn pages for looking for jobs and opportunities in this space. Definitely, bookmark him and Jessica for jobs and opportunities. I’m going to share this particular job from his page, as it’s really compelling.

Please share with the francophone urbanist network:

Surbana is looking for young urban planners for their new technical office in Kigali. Selected candidates will support our local coordinator in implementing projects in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Key requirements:

Graduated in Urban Planning, Geography, Urban Design, Environment Engineering or similar.

Minimum 1-2 years experience in Regional or Urban Planning, Urban Design, Strategic Planning.

Fluent written and oral French and English languages.

Availability to move to Kigali, Rwanda, for a long-term assignment.

Excellent knowledge of GIS, CAD, Photoshop and Illustrator, Office Package.

Interested candidates are requested to send CV with relevant experiences and Portfolio to the following email address: enrico.morriello@surbanajurong.com

If you’re in need of career guidance, Gilsa Bush, A.K.A. GiGi The Planner, is offering her virtual career coaching sessions for free until September 30. Several people from around the world already have taken this opportunity to work with her. I got a chance to have a phone chat of my own with her earlier last week and she’s got a lot of good ideas and I’m thrilled to have her as a fellow planner-entrepreneur, not just focused on service provision, but on enhancing the practitioners and people involved in everyday community life, especially our youth! Again, she’s helping high school, college and early career folks especially figure out their place in the land use and planning world, but, she’s willing to talk to anyone who just needs advice.

In the same spirit, feel free to email or message me not just with job announcements, but any questions or advice. If I can’t answer it, someone in this network can.

Also, my guide on choosing a career in placemaking has helped several people decide on graduate school, career changes and just getting your life right. Take a look at it and let me know either on here on in person how much it’s helped you. I really appreciate that!

Other Things

— My online shop is finally open again! Kristpattern: A Black Urbanist Design is where you’ll be able to find merch that will help you tell the world who you are and who you support. Basically, anything I offer that’s not a service, but a handheld product will live here. Check out the new line of grocery totes.

I am a Black Urbanist tote, transportation patterned tote, humming bird and morning glory flower tote and I support Black Urbanist tote for sale in The Black Urbanist Shop via Print All Over Me for $36.00

Bookmark www.theblackurbanist.com/shop as well as www.theblackurbanist.com/job-board.

—The more journalistic and essay part of the site is set to completely relaunch next month, in honor of the site’s eighth anniversary. I am accepting submissions, with priority for folks who either want to cross-post content from your organization or site for further exposure or who are ok with me sending you a $50 grocery card for your efforts. I am aiming to pay writers more than their groceries, but if you’re an organization or person who wants to send a well-written op-ed, share some of your own blogs and op-eds or anything else that’s under “exposure”  or groceries and you’re ok with just that, share a Google Doc, Evernote Shared Note or something similar that we can co-edit in real time to theblackurbanist@gmail.com. We will discuss appropriate compensation and I will not run your piece until you are paid what you need!

—As you have seen if you follow my social media and at the top of this email, YIMBYTownand Boston were great! Thanks to the coalition of organizers, organizers committed not just to build new shiny things but committed to making sure everyone in Boston gets to live there, without threats and pressure. Video from my talk is forthcoming as we didn’t do a direct live stream and we need to do edits to sync my slides and my speaking.

Have a great week!

Never heard of me before this post? Come over here and let’s get to know each other better.  This platform doesn’t have a paywall,  but I still need to eat. Buy me a meal via PayPal or Cash App, or many meals via Patreon.

Jobs, Weekly Newsletter

Jobs, Opportunities and Funding as of September 15, 2018

Welcome to the very first The Black Urbanist Jobs and Opportunities Roundup. Today is September 15, 2018. For now, this will replace my weekly dispatch, but I’ll still include announcements and fun stuff at the very end. There’s always a version of this linked at www.theblackurbanist.com/job-board and I will do my best to make sure that this hits all the major social media sites as well. Please forward to your friends!

To add your job, opportunity, or scholarship to this list, please shoot me a direct message on Twitter or Instagram @blackurbanist or email me at kristen@theblackurbanist.com with a clear link to your announcement, whether or not you can be a recommendation or resource about the opportunity and if the link doesn’t include it, the close date, salary and compensation information, materials required to apply and to whom any cover letters need to be addressed. If you want to make the weekly cutoff for next week’s list, it needs to be in by midnight on Thursday, as I will be waking up on Fridays to do this list, with the goal of releasing Friday, Saturday or Sunday of each week.

So I have to give my mentee and longtime follower Marcus Slade a shoutout. He’s one of the first people I helped with resume prep and strategy for figuring out what sustainable life looks like for a black person from North Carolina who has an MPA in this space. When I wrote my post announcing just the new resources page, I got a direct message from him with this position, a Planning and Inspections Director, with the Rockingham County, North Carolina Planning Department.

This position appears to only require a bachelor’s degree, with COURSEWORK in planning, not a full masters of any kind or even a bachelor’s in planning, as long as you can prove that you can do the tasks on the job description. Also, there’s a rolling close date. However, the salary will depend on how much you know and do and can agree upon. I would make sure you research the minimum and maximum requirements for a planner in the Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point area and make sure you are comfortable with that range. Rockingham County is just north of Greensboro.

Oh, and yes, you’ll be working with Marcus. You can email him at marcus_slade@outlook.com with any questions, including how to submit using the form on the site, which looks to be the standard that many local governments use when applying to jobs.

Meanwhile, I also want to give another shoutout to Jessica Roberts, who’s done an excellent job rounding up transportation specific jobs over the past few months. Note, I trust her judgment on this list, that there are clear guidelines on how to apply when to apply by, and who to apply to. I’ll be including her roundup each week as well.

The Oregon DOT is hiring a Region 1 (Portland Metro) Active Transportation Liaison. Portland, OR. Source: emailed to me. Salary listed.

MORPC is hiring an Active Transportation & Safety Planner. Columbus, OH. Source: APBP list serve. Salary listed.

The City and County of SF are hiring a Senior Community Development Specialist I. SF, CA. Source: A Jobs Jawn. Salary listed.

The City of Bloomington is hiring a Transportation & Traffic Engineer. Bloomington, IN. Source: emailed to me. Salary listed.

National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) is seeking a full-time Program Associate for its Global Designing Cities Initiative (GDCI). Source: National Center for Biking and Walking. Salary not listed.

Phoenix Bikes is hiring an Executive Director and an Education Program Manager. Arlington, VA. Source: emailed to me. Salary listed.

MassDOT is hiring a Multimodal Planner. Boston, MA. Source: National Center for Biking and Walking. Salary listed.

DVRPC is hiring a Transportation Implementation Engineer. Various cities, NJ. Source: National Center for Biking and Walking. Salary listed.

McMahon Associates is hiring a Multimodal Transportation Professional. Boston, MA or Lincoln, RI. Source: National Center for Biking and Walking. Salary not listed.

U.S. PIRG is hiring a Transportation Advocate for the national 21st Century Transportation program. Washington, DC. Source: National Center for Biking and Walking. Salary not listed.

VHB is hiring a TDM Planner.  Watertown or Boston, MA. Source: National Center for Biking and Walking. Salary not listed.

The City of Boca Raton is hiring a Transportation Analyst. Boca Raton, FL. Source: National Center for Biking and Walking. Salary listed.

District Department of Transportation, (DDOT), Infrastructure Project Management Division (IPMD) is hiring a Supervisory Civil Engineer. Washington, DC. Source: NACTO jobs board. Salary listed.

She also forwarded me this notice from Becca Wolfson from the Boston Cyclists Union on the City of Boston’s initiative to hire 20 people across disciplines:

There has been a lot of advocacy that led to allocation of funds for the city to add these jobs. They’re intended to help the city of Boston more rapidly implement GoBoston 2030 — the latest transportation plan which includes buildout of the network of protected bike lanes, greenway paths, BRT, complete streets, policies around emergent transportation technology, as well as implementation of vision zero, and more. There is a mix of planners, engineers, policy folk and operations staff. All positions and a description of this significant hiring initiative can be found at this link:

boston.gov/transforming 

Finally, my Baltimore friend and colleague Eva Wingren forwarded from Bethany Quinn from the Street Investors Exchange (SieX), a new startup focused on increasing women and African-Americans in venture capital, their open Director of Communications and Director of Finance positions. These could be remote positions, but it’s preferred that you’re based in their Downtown DC (Farragut Square) office space. Also, this is a startup, so salary and stock options are dependent on fundraising. However, if you’re in a place where you could take on a position building a startup company, especially with time spent in DC and possibly traveling to other areas feel free to apply.

Likewise, I myself am looking for volunteers to serve as a joint advisory and editorial board. As I begin the process of growing this site into a full platform, I could use some awesome folks that are great with thinking through finances; engineers, researchers, and planners who are great at technical advisory and finally writers. Be sure to fill out the reader’s survey and let me know how you would like to contribute.

***Other Things***
Still praying and hoping for the best over those who are in the path of Florence. Yes, we get these things in North Carolina and on the coasts, but they’re never easy to bear, especially when damage is involved and routines are interrupted. Also, please take the right safety precautions and make the right decisions for you and your loved ones when it comes to this storm. I would follow WRAL for local coverage.

My Congressional Black Caucus Annual Leadership Conference Panel went great, the live stream is here.

Finally, for those in the Boston area, it’s not too late to see my keynote at YIMBYtown on Saturday morning September 21 at 9 a.m. at Roxbury Community College- register at www.yimby.town.

Never heard of me before this post? come over here and let’s get to know each other better.  This platform doesn’t have a paywall,  but I still need to eat. Buy me a meal via PayPal or Cash App, or many meals via Patreon.

Essay, Kristen's Mind, media, mental health, migration, Money and the City, Moving and Migration, placemaking, planning, Politics of Place, urbanism

Are There Really Too Many Planners in Certain Metro Areas?

Recently, I was made aware of and responded to this series of threads on Twitter, that among my colleagues in the D.C. area, there’s a concern over how many practitioners of place,  especially planners, exist in the metro area and how many folks want to be planners by name, versus just doing the work in many different aspects of the field.
 
I’ve heard this before, from planners and related advocates, architects, engineers and others who do community work of all races and from all other regions of the U.S. I’m not surprised and I do know why I hear this so much.
 
I’ve talked about it before, but as I’ll mention in the final section, I want to shift my thoughts and takes back to this site, where I own the server space and have plenty of room to link to things. 
 

Why There’s Merit in the Too Many Planners Argument 

First,  few clients exist in need of architecture and building services as well as transportation planning and operations, that don’t already have existing contracts and people they use. Even for general environmental planning, or acceptance of environmental injustice, there’s a drought. Your client base/employment options are limited greatly.
 
The one most people are aware of are government entities, which have all kinds of requirements to ensure fairness and equity in the awarding of work contracts to firms, but sometimes can be cumbersome and create competitive environments. Also, for legal reasons, which yes, have merit, you have to be careful what you talk about and who you talk to when it comes to these competitions. Which can be hard when most of the people you compete with were at one point studio classmates or internship cubemates. Or even better, roommates or lovers. Plus, if you elect to work in-house with a government entity, you have other ethical considerations and gag orders, which again, are often necessary. Finally, some things, like public transit, just make more sense to be governed by you know, the government and for their privatization to be regulated, if there’s privatization at all.
 
Or, you work with private for or non-profit developers, without government funding, some who are in the business to create things that make our world better and some are in the business to take from others and make gobs of money from themselves. Now for-profit doesn’t always mean capitalist monster, just like non-profit doesn’t always mean charitable and for the people. Many places need to build or renovate homes, build or renovate transportation systems and honestly, build or renovate a lot of other pieces of the built environment or society. However, there’s even a limit there to how much people can build and operate.
 
Speaking of the nonprofits, you could be or work with an advocacy group with a dash of service provision, but you’re often getting your money from government grants, private grants or private banks, so there’s not that much difference from what I mentioned above. There’s also a size issue, some contracting firms might as well be power brokers, while others like me are just small shingles.
 
Basically, if you’re new to the idea of planners/architects/engineers/contracting, all these firms operate and build like law firms and attorneys as well as media outlets and journalists. We also have lawyers in our clubhouse too and they can tell you what their lives have been like as they’ve seen a shortage in labor and emphasis on big versus small especially over the last 10 years. And this site, if you haven’t already picked that up is a journalistic outfit ;).
 
The next big argument against a growing class of capital p planners is the public will of the citizenry.  Some well-meaning folks, as well as your usual villains in many jurisdictions and metro areas, fail to provide adequate funding, maintenance and even just the creation of adequate transportation, housing, environmental quality, and education systems. For that, I do suggest that more people with a good grasp of land use planning, construction, and operations, run for elective office and approve budgets that fund these things, as well as go to public meetings, especially ones that offer you the chance to pick budget items to fund or for items that are in active stages of construction or pre-construction, where changes can be made.
 
Then there’s human prejudice, marginalization and power dynamics unrelated to land use and planning, that still affect the profession. This encompasses the lingering hurt and harm done to those of us who started as enthusiasts or hobbyists of architecture or transportation systems, as well as the marginalization of community groups or communities period, especially black, brown, queer and poor groups.
 
Plus, some groups just don’t talk to each other or talk over each other. I can’t tell you how many arguments, especially online, would be solved if the two entities would do a thorough review of the bodies of work and life experiences that have been shared, on the internet, as well as in offline resources. Not just professional work, but considering how lived experiences affect how people see the world, especially the environment which we all battle over.
 
All this gets wrapped up into how we interact and I think that to go forward, we have to address this elephant.

How This Affects Me Directly

This conversation hits me so much because it’s directly related to why I’m going through a tough time. 
 
In doing my reader’s survey, I learned that many of you started following me (or at least those of you still paying attention enough to fill out my survey), in or after 2014. Since that’s the case, you may have only realized in passing how much the loss of my dad in 2013 has reshaped almost every aspect of my life. I think that taking a detour into what brought me to this post today, which has been discussed in other parts of the site before, is valid because some of you have yet to peruse the archives!
 
When he was living, my dad was a very an active force on how I approached the built environment. From him teaching me how to ride and care for a bike, to me going along on some of his electrical contracting jobs and sometimes to the school buildings he helped maintain, to the way he never met a stranger and how proud he was of my achievements (my degrees were on HIS resume), he had a very outsized presence in my life and loved being part of my online stories and life.
 
He also understood what it’s like to struggle with the ups and downs of having a professional services business, and also needing a job to pay benefits. He went through open discrimination on the job. When I would cry about my own similar issues, instead of just leaving things as that’s the way it is (and he would say that in a Walter Cronkite voice impression), we would scheme about how to change and fix it. Neither of us would accept no for an answer and we didn’t accept that just because that’s the way it is, that’s the way it should stay. Then, all of a sudden, 50% of him was gone due to a major accident in 2010 and finally, all of him was gone over Memorial Day weekend of 2013.
 
Not having my parent to debate the ways of the world unconditionally with, lurched me into a state of trying to find that in other family members, friends and colleagues. It, along with the awareness of middle-class, suburban Black American police shootings and other random racialized violence and incidents, plus microaggressions that ballooned in my post-graduate school, post-2013 working environments drew me into the state of rage that James Baldwin so eloquently illustrated. It also fuels, much like Baldwin, my want and love of travel and moving away from bad situations.
 
Additionally, my mom and several other family members with similar experiences of racism and business-making are more private people and that’s why I share very little of them on here. While I love how connected the Internet makes us, I’m a firm believer in respecting privacy and that some things will always remain secret.
 
However, I wouldn’t have felt the need to move so much, if one, there were other options professionally to fix the mistake that got me fired from my design services firm in Greensboro in 2014 and the dating life I’ve not really had anywhere, especially given my sensitivity to partners, namely male, respecting my brain and ambitions. Plus, political work often leaves you with more enemies than friends and such a critical analysis of what’s wrong with society, it’s very difficult to see and embrace what’s working right. I’m dealing with the opposite of what my colleague Chuck Marohn has shared recently. There’s very little of the negative I don’t see, I just don’t comment on everything and clearly, this website has been stringing cobwebs as I just realized this is my first full blog post that isn’t a newsletter copy I’ve written in 2018.
 
When I left North Carolina for Kansas City in 2015, I felt like I was giving up on North Carolina, as I discussed in great detail last year. I felt like I couldn’t be a die-hard supporter of the betterment of my home state without being in said state. On the other hand of the lack of urbanist media focus on North Carolina, alternatives to car transportation, alternatives to certain kinds of single and multi-family housing, and the issues mentioned above,  made me believe that I couldn’t do what I wanted to do in North Carolina.
 
I brought that baggage with me to Kansas City, along with the pull of a partner who lived in what I considered the optimal environment for urbanist debate and planning, as it had some of the functions that we all advocate for, as well as again, a class of folks who love to debate and talk about it constantly. I would no longer get teased or harassed for only talking about this at the expense of other things. (Mind you, doing anything, including being an urbanist, in excess, is a recipe for disaster).
 
So when I left Kansas City for D.C. in 2016, my goal was to establish myself in that greater collective of urbanist minds thinking through solutions on a national level.
 
However, as has been well documented, this moving back east plan backfired.
 
I’ve barely made any real money, wrecked my credit and ability to have credit lines, barely had health insurance and healthcare and of course, the relationship that was the foundation of my move to D.C. broke down. Somehow I’ve managed to scrape by, but it’s taken me moving all around and thankfully, folks still finding value in these kinds of writings on the sense of place and the experience of being out in the world. That and finding a flexible barista gig that will finally come with full benefits. And before that, having a community up in Baltimore that took me in when things got really tight and tough in D.C.
 
Additionally, in many cities, including the ones in my home state, as well as the greater Kansas City region, we are a very culturally in-tune people and in cities where rail, bike-share, and enhanced bus services are available, we do park our cars and use those services. We also know how to park our cars and walk down our one-two main streets. And yes, there may only be a couple, but they are well utilized. This happens across class and race lines as well. I had to learn this the hard way as well, that I’ve been way too pretentious for my own good, in assuming that other cities would never be capable of the urbanity I so wanted from them.
 
Finally, having traveled and worked in so many states and the District of Columbia, I’ve found that every state and the District has some form of discriminatory or structural issue that causes marginalization. Plus, migration as a whole creates multiple cultural awareness and needs to balance one’s personality with one’s environment.

So What Now?

I hope that with this post, it’s clear, to both new and old followers and colleagues, exactly why I decided to leave North Carolina, come and go from Kansas City and come and go to the Greater Washington/Baltimore region, as well as travel often and broaden my ideals of land use and environmental thought, planning and doing. 
 
Additionally, this is how I would like to address the elephant of too many planners in too few places.
  • Acknowledge that all cities are different, and have different land use and planning needs, therefore creating many urbanisms/rualisms/placeisms, etc. Also, I’ve debated replacing my references to urbanism, with placeism. Placeism is the concern with all aspects of land use and natural environments, urbanism focuses mostly on the densification of those environments.  Dr. Lisa Schweitzer has a great breakdown of how she uses the terminology and echoes things I’ve said in this post and in prior posts. I also invite anyone who is unfamiliar with the urban to rural transect to get to know more about that and use that to help as you advocate formally, design and build things and especially in these online arguments where people want to create a utopia in ten tweets. Also, feel free to engage ways that the transect is limiting and build upon this to establish a standard of broadening how we talk about the environments we inhabit. Coming to terms with the differences in terrain and resources is also helpful if you’re in the field in a jurisdiction that doesn’t have some of the infrastructure you want and need, to start productive conversations with people about that, that may yield the support system that you absolutely need to not go crazy like I did and jump off the proverbial cliff. Finally, let’s get out of the habit of saying X person or groups of people suck for having to drive or having to live in a cul-de-sac or only being able to  shop at Walmart, when we need to be yelling at public officials, proposing new ordinances and maybe suing dishonest developers for creating this environment. Everyone shouldn’t have to be a planner to make sure we don’t get mistreated as citizens.
  • You don’t have to be a capital p planner, capital a architect, capital d developer, capital e engineer or some other bold-faced title to make it in this world, but it makes it easier if you have a history of discrimination or marginalization to have this layer of professional knowledge. This was the core of the most recent tweets, that you don’t have to be a planner to make a difference. However, we need to absolutely acknowledge that for some folks, especially from marginalized and disrespected backgrounds, it’s not so much that they need to have the job title, but the security of the letters next to their name or a paper certificate to be taken seriously. Let’s also make sure we stop making people feel the need to over-credential just to get paid what they are worth or recieve job and project assignments on which they will be excellent. 
  • If someone says they want to launch a career in a land use and planning related field, offer to sit down with them and launch out a plan. You can plan a career and not get afoul of reporting requirements for government grants or even threaten your own job and space in the profession. I will say that in one conversation where I heard there were too many planners in D.C. and I was one of them, this person gave me some excellent book recommendations and jobs to consider. The tweet stream I reference also has good ideas of how other jobs can still allow you to make places better and stronger.  Additionally, I’ve added a resources section to this site and developing some offline resources to help you and others make the right decisions about where to plant yourselves in the greater land use world. In the meantime, my short guide on figuring out your career in this world. Also, don’t be as stubborn as me and not listen when people do offer to help until it’s almost too late.
I wrote this post because I wanted to spell out in more than 250 characters tied into multiple threads, how much this subject of who does what in the land use and planning world, affects me. I feel like so much is lost in the current environment of Twitter and Facebook, where we value hot takes and yelling at the choir of our individual Facebook groups, over the long-form solution making that even venues like this often don’t meet.
 
I also want to establish a standard for myself and our profession going forward. That we all sit at a big table,  and there’s room for all of us, as long as we come to sit there with mutual respect and the mind that we will push for solutions, even if that solution is to do nothing and let things be. No one is perfect all the time, but no one is beyond reproof, restitution or forgiveness either.
Finally, this site is about to look very different and will no longer just be me sharing ideas and resources. I’m looking forward to returning in a few weeks with new things that I believe will help us all become better at what we do. In the meantime, introducing my Resources page and my job/opportunities b

Never heard of me before this post? come over here and let’s get to know each other better.  This platform doesn’t have a paywall,  but I still need to eat. Buy me a meal via PayPal or Cash App, or many meals via Patreon.

 

Weekly Newsletter

Weekly Newsletter for Week of August 12, 2018– Do I Really Know You?

This week’s song has me spinning around. Plus, the name of this newsletter is inspired by my 2018 Reader’s Survey. Please fill it out and let me know who you are, how I’m doing and if you’d like to pitch in to keep the lights on over here.

Kristen Jeffers stands on a mountain at Chautauqua Park in Boulder, Colorado in July of 2018I am borderline obsessed with airports

Many of you know me as someone who is obsessed with passenger rail and rail operations period. However, to be honest, as much as I want Amtrak to get its stuff together and for more options like Brightline to come online, and the fact that my main set of professional photographs is sitting in a literal train station (that came back from its own death), I am actually a spotter.

A spotter is a lover of airplanes. I’m not sure if that extends to the airport and the flying experience, but for some reason, I still like flying.

It might be because I’m only five feet four inches tall. It might be because I got to fly first class on my return flight from Los Angeles, which on Alaska Airlines meant both of my bags flew free, I got to hang out and eat and drink in the airline lounge and I got to watch movies for free. Oh and just before our red-eye landed, I got a smoothie shot.

Even when I have to book my own travel and fly like a normal person, I pick airlines like Southwest that despite their abolishment of peanuts, make the experience a good one for everyone on board.

Then it comes down to the airport experience. My perfect mix is an airport that offers ample pre and post-security options. Right now, the only one I know of that does that well, besides maybe Sea-Tac and Denver is Atlanta. I know Atlanta’s a bear to get in and out of, especially when you have to switch flights. However, for options between airlines and even Delta’s connections, you can’t really beat it. Plus, your friends and family can hang out with you at one of five restaurants or in a nice sunny atrium. Pre-Check feels like Pre-Check and the regular lines are bigger, just like the Delta carousels. I do wish all the other ticketing areas were more spacious, but baggage feels just as good.

Oh and finally, all the terminals are connected post-security. It doesn’t feel like jail (Yes, MCI, I’m talking about you).

I remember how afraid I was to fly on my first flight, at the age of 20, to a summer program not unlike what I did with my Maynard 200 cohort, but for pre-law students of color at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida. I remember that the flight was only 30 minutes, longer than it took us to drive from Greensboro to Charlotte so I could board the flight. My parents got permission to go back with me to the gate since it was my first time.

On the plane, I strapped in my toy Big Bird and one of my program-mates, who’d just made a flight connection, gave me a hard time about it. He was also cute and somehow the bird eroded some of my chances for other connections.

I also remember being scared that my ears would fall off and it would feel like a roller coaster. None of that happened on this flight and while it’s happened (the roller coaster part, I still have ears), nearly 100 flights later, I feel like a pro. Still, being booked in first class because of one, flight delays and two the fact that I was working with someone who could make that happen was priceless.

And this, my friends, is why I’m a spotter.

Also, as I wrote this to go out via Mailchimp, I heard about the other Alaska Airlines incident. As someone who struggles with their head sometimes (but has not considered that option), here’s a comprehensive list of places you can call if you feel like using a plane the way that person did.

More on why I was flying, my recommendations and other things going on with me as you scroll further.

My Life as a Professional Urbanist

2018 Inagural Maynard 200 Cohort and Friends at Google Boulder July 2018

While all of my recent time on the road wasn’t for business, much of it was. I really can’t thank the staff at the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education enough for making me one of the first entrepreneurs in their Maynard 200 cohort of media managers, makers, and entrepreneurs.

As I’ve mentioned already, I’ve wanted to so much more with this platform, but I’ve needed support. While I’ve figured out how to make a website, post on social media and travel over the years, I often get worn down and then I get depressed and then no writing or podcasting or anything is done.

Plus, I am starting a new part-time job, that in addition to my paid travel, will take up a lot of time. And doing my Maynard 200 coursework so that I can be proficient and ready to take advantage of the opportunities that I’ll have when we return to Los Angeles in December.

Speaking of Los Angeles, thanks to the Ahmanson family for having me at their sympoisum on the future of the American Dream last week. I look forward to seeing video from that and presenting to all a version of my remarks there at a future event.

Like this year’s YIMBYTown or the Congressional Black Caucus Annual Leadership Conference.

Also, for the first time in four years, I’m doing a readers survey! Tell me who you are and what you’d like to see on the site.

Personal Urbanism, Shoutouts, and Recommendations

One of the first things I complained about when I moved to Kansas City was the sheer lack of food. Now mind you, we sat in one of the nation’s historic stockyards. It’s also called the Heartland, partly because it’s the middle (or the heart) of the country and we sit in the nation’s breadbasket. 

What I came to realize that what I was missing in the early days was comfort food. Comfort food up to that point meant Biscuitville, Cookout, Harbor Inn, Mayflower, Grey’s Tavern, Dame’s Chicken and Waffles, SnackBar (RIP), CharGrill, Beyu Cafe, Cafe Europa.

What I had yet to learn was that there’s a Cafe Europa in KC too, along with Joe’s Kansas City, Winsteads, Bob Wasabi, CharBar, The Filling Station, Ruby Jean’s Juicery, Pork and Pickle, Chez Elle’s, Affaire, Tom’s Town, The Rieger, Christopher Elbow, Waldo Pizza, Eggtc., China Feast, and the Costco food counter.

The other thing I had yet to learn is that what makes comfort food and comfort meals so comforting, is the people that surround them. And as I read out both of those lists, I think of moments in which many of those meals were shared with friends and family. Memories were made over and over again. Or, simply, it’s a solo date, where the tastes swirl in your belly and make you content in your own body, a self-care ritual, a simple joy.

Also, this is going to make this newsletter Goopesque, but I enjoyed flying first class on Alaska. And walking down Pearl Street in Boulder. And staying at the Ace Hotel in Downtown LA, where I got to take a tub bath!

Music-wise, I’m enjoying Jason Mraz’s latest, coming a little late to Leon Bridges latest and can’t wait for more St. Paul and the Broken Bones singles, like the one I linked at the very top. Listen to all my favorite songs of 2018 thus far.

Twitter‘s always the best place to see what links I think are noteworthy and read what I think, but I’m going to keep including the best right here.

One Last Thing

Yes and yes.

That’s all for now. Remember, if you want to get this newsletter in your email, please share your information here:

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This platform doesn’t have a paywall,  but I still need to eat. Buy me a meal via PayPal or Cash App, or many meals via Patreon.