Category Archives: Podcast

Episode 5 of the Defying Gentrification Podcast: Talking Atlanta and Baltimore Gentrification and Community Development with Derek Moore

April 26, 2024 Kristen Jeffers Leave a comment

On this episode of Defying Gentrification, I, your host Kristen Jeffers, talk to our first guest, Derek Moore, who came by to talk about their experiences with land use and gentrification. Stay tuned to the end to hear what I did after having this conversation! Plus our hot topic this week is how the remaining residents of Chinatown who are Chinese have to take a long bus ride to a grocery store that truly services them. I recorded that part at a store that serves the same role for me and reflect a bit on how that’s affected me over the years, as well as issue a call-to-action for the news site that it came from, as I usually do.

About our guest!

Derek Moore (he/they) is a Central West Baltimore-based Urban Planner and Non-Profit Development professional. He grew up in an Army family and has since lived in many cities across North America. Derek is a transportation advocate – co-founder of local urbanist group Friends of the Underground, Greening chair of Madison Park Improvement Association, and City and Regional Planning master’s student at Morgan State University.

Listen Below:

Reflecting on Atlanta and Baltimore Gentrification and Community Development with Derek Moore – Defying Gentrification

This week on Defying Gentrification, I, your host Kristen Jeffers, talks to our first guest, Derek Moore, who came by to talk about their experiences with land use and gentrification. Stay tuned to the end to hear what I did after having this conversation! Plus our hot topic this week is how the remaining residents of Chinatown who are Chinese have to take a long bus ride to a grocery store that truly services them. I recorded that part at a store that serves the same role for me and reflect a bit on how that’s affected me over the years, as well as issue a call-to-action for the news site that it came from, as I usually do.About our guest!Derek Moore (he/they) is a Central West Baltimore-based Urban Planner and Non-Profit Development professional. He grew up in an Army family and has since lived in many cities across North America. Derek is a transportation advocate – co-founder of local urbanist group Friends of the Underground, Greening chair of Madison Park Improvement Association, and City and Regional Planning master’s student at Morgan State University.Our hot topic reference article for this week — https://wamu.org/story/24/04/16/dc-chinatown-chinese-residents-leave-city-grocery-shop/The WAMU takedown that I somewhat reference — https://www.washingtonian.com/2024/04/19/why-did-wamu-close-dcist/An analysis and webinar on the lack of grocery stores in Black neighborhoods, focused on the Washington region (DMV) — https://ggwash.org/view/89226/premium-grocery-stores-are-missing-from-the-regions-high-income-black-neighborhoodsLearn more about Eden Center — https://edencenter.com/stores/(Note, they do NOT have an H Mart, but there is one nearby in Fairfax County, VA)Purchase from Kristen's Bookshop.org store and support the podcast!Never miss an episode, subscribe to our Substack or on LinkedInYou can also find Kristen @blackurbanist or @kristpattern.

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Apple

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Or search for us in your favorite podcast player. YouTube is coming, I promise!

Our hot topic reference article for this week — https://wamu.org/story/24/04/16/dc-chinatown-chinese-residents-leave-city-grocery-shop/

The WAMU takedown that I somewhat reference — https://www.washingtonian.com/2024/04/19/why-did-wamu-close-dcist/

An analysis and webinar on the lack of grocery stores in Black neighborhoods, focused on the Washington region (DMV) — https://ggwash.org/view/89226/premium-grocery-stores-are-missing-from-the-regions-high-income-black-neighborhoods

Learn more about Eden Center — https://edencenter.com/stores/

(Note, they do NOT have an H Mart, but there is one nearby in Fairfax County, VA)

Purchase from Kristen’s Bookshop.org store and support the podcast!

Never miss an episode, subscribe to our Substack or on LinkedIn

You can also find Kristen @blackurbanist or @kristpattern.

Podcast, Weekly Newsletter

Episode 4- The Urban Renewal to Gentrification Pipeline

April 19, 2024 Kristen Jeffers Leave a comment

On this episode of Defying Gentrification, I, your host Kristen Jeffers (she/they) clarify that gentrification is not a remedy for urban renewal, it’s the continuation of urban renewal, land theft and seizure, forced assimilation, and redlining.

And on my street corner this week, I urge Black women to answer the call for liberation, especially when we are given positions of power, and to do our best to not let it kill us, and honor the memories of those that we have lost to the system despite being in its power structure.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/defying-gentrification/id1738831138

https://zencastr.com/z/q6Z8hDYY

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Here are some of the things I referenced on the episode:

The Assembly article on Yolanda Hill shuttering her organization helping childcare facilities to receive federal funds so her husband could look more Republican as he runs to be the first Black governor of North Carolina. — https://www.theassemblync.com/politics/yolanda-hill-mark-robinson-nonprofit/

Dr. Ruha Benjamin’s full remarks at Spelman College — https://youtu.be/j_12_E3LAeg?si=nQi9Rl39Wv0L3Gzz

ABC News report on the legacy and the tragedy of Dr. Antoinette Bonnie Candia-Bailey — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFUfKVI53fs&t=1s

My tweet on the depression that comes from reading bad news for a living, even when you have supportive people helping you do so — https://x.com/blackurbanist/status/1780308203768590823

The full article from the Inclusive Historian’s Handbook on urban renewal — https://inclusivehistorian.com/urban-renewal/#:~:text=Urban%20renewal%20is%20the%20process,HUD)%20grant%20and%20loan%20program

History of the Warnersville neighborhood — https://www.greensboro-nc.gov/departments/planning/learn-more-about/historic-preservation/heritage-communities/warnersville#:~:text=Named%20for%20Pennsylvania%20Quaker%20Yardley,them%20available%20to%20%22freedmen.%22

The Amendment Podcast episode on Representation for the Cherokee Nation — https://19thnews.org/2024/04/errin-haines-the-amendment-podcast-kim-teehee/

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Purchase from Kristen’s Bookshop.org store and support the podcast! Also, the Rothstein’s book is called Just Action, not Just Law.

Never miss an episode, subscribe to our Substack or on LinkedIn

You can also find Kristen @blackurbanist or @kristpattern.

And on Mondays at noon, you can ask me anything about gentrification live

https://streamyard.com/watch/vskhv7F2FHKw

Podcast

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

October 15, 2018 Kristen Jeffers 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

October 15, 2018 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—

https://radiopublic.com/the-black-urbanist-radio-show-8XMJj1/ep/s1!412c5

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And we’re on your other favorite podcast players.

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.

Podcast

The Black Urbanist Radio Show Episode 8–Ari Theresa, D.C.-Native Community Lawyer

July 22, 2018 Kristen Jeffers

This episode I traveled to sit on the stoop of Stoop Law, Ari Theresa’s community-based law firm. In this episode, we discussed his recent newsworthy turn, what kind of wealth communities really have, overcoming our childhood boredom and what he will always rep about being from D.C.

Learn more about Stoop Law at www.stooplaw.com and you can follow Ari on Facebook by searching his name Ari Theresa or on Instagram @aristotle.theresa.

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https://soundcloud.com/kristen-jeffers/the-black-urbanist-radio-show-episode-8-ari-theresa-dc-native-community-lawyer

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Podcast

The Black Urbanist Radio Show Episode 7–Dr. Richard Ezike– D.C. Based Transportation Equity Researcher and Fellow Wolfpacker!

May 11, 2018 Kristen Jeffers

Dr. Ezike and I started our conversation with the usual “elevator pitch” introduction, then because I could, I wanted to talk about N.C. State University, where we both did our undergraduate studies, because I could and because this episode is coming out on the eve of me attending my cousin’s commencement ceremony from N.C. State, and a lot of other folks’s graduations as well.

Also, we discuss our towns where we grew up, the merits of Ann Arbor, Michigan where he did his graduate study, how D.C. is basically an adult college town, and not just for those who went to universities there and finally, we get back to the very important work he’s doing right now, making sure all voices are heard and considered if and when we bring autonomous vehicles (a.k.a driverless cars) to the market.

You can find him @drrcezike on all the major socials (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), just like you can find me on all the major socials @blackurbanist.

And here’s his more formal bio from the Union of Concerned Scientists and that blog post he mentioned on the show about new mobility and transportation equity, a report of his on transportation equity from his time at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and how the F.A.S.T Act will affect African-American communities.

Richard Ezike is the Mobility and Equity Kendall Science Fellow with the Clean Vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. His interests lie in the intersection of equity, accessibility, and providing opportunity for every person to a robust transportation system.

Prior to joining UCS, Dr. Ezike taught chemistry at Northern Virginia Community College, and served as a transportation fellow for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, where he studied opportunities for improved access to transit for African Americans. Dr. Ezike has also worked as an environmental consultant and a patent analyst. His doctoral research focused on developing catalysts to reduce dangerous emissions of nitrogen oxides from diesel-powered cars. Additionally, he worked on developing catalysts to convert carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide to potential alternative fuels.

Dr. Ezike earned his B.S. in chemical engineering from North Carolina State University, and his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Michigan. He serves on the Riders Advisory Council of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority and on several advisory committees for the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.

And finally the Brookings article on the future of work and the Center for Global Policy Solutions article on the same thing, but with a larger transportation focus.

Listen via Soundcloud

https://soundcloud.com/kristen-jeffers/dr-richard-ezike-dc-based-transportation-equity-researcher-and-fellow-nc-state-wolfpacker

Libsyn (note, this is set to autoplay, hit pause, to well, pause)

Or on Radio Public, where your listens help pay me and keep the show going.

I’m also pretty much anywhere you can find podcasts and adding myself to more players daily..

Podcast

The Black Urbanist Radio Show Episode 6– Nedra Deadwyler of Atlanta’s Civil Bikes on Coming Back South, Biking as Healing and Food

April 30, 2018 Kristen Jeffers

We talk a lot in the industry about the sense of place. But what about the sense of home?

We sat in Nedra’s home in Atlanta, Atlanta proper, on the East side, and we talked about growing up southern, getting out and why we’ve come back to our homes.

Also, we touch on her inspiration for bikes, who gets to come home, The Chef and the Farmer, The Cooking Gene and food. Lots of food.

Learn more about Civil Bikes and participate in one of their Atlanta-based tours.

Listen On of the Following Platforms

https://soundcloud.com/kristen-jeffers/episode-6-nedra-deadwyler-of-atlantas-civil-bikes

And your other favorite podcast players. My current one is Radio Public, but that’s because I can get money off listens there.

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Baltimore, Bicycling, Black Experience, Podcast

The Black Urbanist Radio Show Episode 5–LaKeisha Henderson of Baltimore’s Bike and Brunch Tours on Cycling, Childhood Influences and Career Building in Design

April 18, 2018 Kristen Jeffers

It’s my pleasure this episode to present the conversation I had back in the early winter with LaKeisha Henderson of Bike and Brunch Tours.

As I said on the audio, we met thanks to the power of the internet and since then, we’ve worked on helping each other out as much as we can to take both of our ventures to the next step.

We talk about our childhood influences on our careers, cycling and what’s made us choose how we’ve structured our careers.

Here’s more about LaKeisha from her official bio:

LaKeisha is an architect, planner, creative problem solver, and founder of Bike & Brunch Tours. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Virginia Tech and Masters Degree from Morgan State University’s City and Regional Planning program. During her 15 plus years of experience in the architecture and planning profession she sought to simultaneously translate these skills into ways to support her community. Bike and Brunch Tours was borne out of her love for her community in West Baltimore, desire to see its history and legacy preserved and uplifted, and to counter negative stigmas with positive references and experiences, and connect with others doing the same.

Over the course of her nearly 20 years living in the community, LaKeisha has noticed the disparity of perceptions between those outside the community and the story of the community told by its residents. This was made even more apparent in her personal experiences as a member of the community, in the death of men like Freddie Grey, and the disconnect between resources and solutions provided in contrast to the resources needed. As mass demolition, with no clear post demolition plans, leveled block by block of the community while speculation grew from outsiders she wanted to do something. This something became Bike & Brunch tours. Bike & Brunch Tours offers group tours and private tours to everyone from the solo visitor to reunion, conferences, or corporate groups.

The tour gives riders the opportunity to get to know and engage with Baltimore City and its African American community on a more intimate level. Beyond tours the company builds bridges to connect the cycling community, local organizations, businesses in the community featured in the tour, build relationships with other cycling groups. It also aims to increase the number of people biking in underrepresented communities and make cycling a normalized and accessible mode of transportation for everyone. The company’s event, Maintenance & Mingle, where Happy Hour meets bicycle maintenance brings together people from the bicycle community, adjacent community organizations, and aspiring bike riders. Through cycling she hopes to help build greater respect for and preserve the legacy of forgotten places, promote engagement with the community as partners not saviors, gets people moving and active…preferably on bikes, encourage supportive cycling infrastructure in under resourced communities, offer a fun time, and …of course have brunch.

Also, if you’re reading this before April 21st, it’s not too late to register for the first Bike and Brunch Tour of the season.

The show is live on Radio Public, TuneIn, Apple Podcasts,

SoundCloud,

https://soundcloud.com/kristen-jeffers/the-black-urbanist-radio-show-episode-5-lakeisha-henderson-of-bike-and-brunch-tours

Patreon , Stitcher and at its hosting home on Libsyn,

or you can plug in the RSS feed into whatever podcast reader you’d like. (right click and copy the link location if you want to listen that way). I am actively adding and working on getting approval in other places.

Radio Public and Patreon also provide ways for you to support me financially. And on the other platforms that allow it, rating and reviewing also helps me get heard by more folks.

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Baltimore, Black Experience, Podcast

The Black Urbanist Radio Show Episode 4–Taffy Gwitira–Baltimore Food Justice and Transportation Advocate

April 2, 2018 Kristen Jeffers

Join me this episode as I talk with another Baltimore friend, Taffy Gwitira, on food justice, transportation justice and real life on the African continent. And, yes, there are Wakandan elements to the actual continent of Africa and there have been for a while.

Learn more about the co-working space where I’m a resident (as of April 2018) and she’s on the board of–www.http://baltimore.impacthub.net/

Learn more about the conference we attended together in Nashville and the National Complete Streets Coalition.–https://www.completestreetsconference.org/

You can listen via:

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(which helps pay for the production of the show)

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https://soundcloud.com/kristen-jeffers/episode-4-taffy-gwitira-baltimore-food-justice-and-transportation-advocate

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or on TuneIN, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts and wherever else you can plug in the RSS Feed.

And if you want to keep up with episode releases, as well as what I’m doing outside of the show (conferences, workshops, links I find interesting and necessary to read) subscribe below:

Baltimore, Podcast

The Black Urbanist Radio Show Episode 3: Jerome Horne of IndyGo and NUMTOT

March 18, 2018 Kristen Jeffers

https://soundcloud.com/kristen-jeffers/episode-3-jerome-horne-of-indygo-and-numtot

When I recorded this episode with Jerome Horne, once we got done talking, I knew this had to be my first new episode of the show in about 4 years.

We talked about identity, Baltimore, Indianapolis and music and you’re welcome to listen in.

You can find out more about the IndyGo Transit Plan at www.indygo.net/transitplan

You can find Jerome by searching for Jerome Alexander Horne on Facebook, @jahorne on Instagram and @horne_jerome on Twitter.

I’m @blackurbanist on Instagram and Twitter and The Black Urbanist on Facebook.

For more episodes and places to listen to the show, head over to the main podcast page. Also, for notifications on when episodes are posted, you can subscribe, listen and donate to keep the lights on Patreon or to my Mailchimp newsletter below:

And even though this is technically episode one of a new round of shows, I’m honoring the original shows and continuing the original numbering.

The Black Urbanist

Category Archives: Podcast

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

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

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The Black Urbanist Radio Show Episode 8–Ari Theresa, D.C.-Native Community Lawyer

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The Black Urbanist Radio Show Episode 7–Dr. Richard Ezike– D.C. Based Transportation Equity Researcher and Fellow Wolfpacker!

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The Black Urbanist Radio Show Episode 6– Nedra Deadwyler of Atlanta’s Civil Bikes on Coming Back South, Biking as Healing and Food

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The Black Urbanist Radio Show Episode 5–LaKeisha Henderson of Baltimore’s Bike and Brunch Tours on Cycling, Childhood Influences and Career Building in Design

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The Black Urbanist Radio Show Episode 4–Taffy Gwitira–Baltimore Food Justice and Transportation Advocate

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The Black Urbanist Radio Show Episode 3: Jerome Horne of IndyGo and NUMTOT

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A Black Queer Feminist Urbanist Resource created and curated by Kristen E. Jeffers

Reflecting on Atlanta and Baltimore Gentrification and Community Development with Derek Moore – Defying Gentrification

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A Black Queer Feminist Urbanist Resource created and curated by Kristen E. Jeffers