About Us

The Congress for the New Urbanism, CNU, views disinvestment in central cities, the spread of placeless sprawl, increasing separation by race and income, environmental deterioration, loss of agricultural lands and wilderness, and the erosion of society’s built heritage as one interrelated community-building challenge. In response, CNU promotes walkable, mixed-use neighborhood development as an environmentally, socially and economically responsible solution to the challenges of community building. CNU engages our multidisciplinary members in reforming industry practice. Read the Charter of the New Urbanism

CNU Colorado is the statewide chapter of CNU. Since 2009, we’ve been dedicated to sharing and growing our intellectual capital, provoking ideas & discussion, and celebrating urbanism in Colorado.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Theresa Wynn, CPSM
CNU Colorado President
twynn479@gmail.com
Terracon Consultants, Inc.

Theresa is a passionate new urbanist with suburban roots. She has a Master’s in Critical Studies from the University of Southern California and a Bachelor’s in Film from Cornell University. Her interest in New Urbanism was sparked by Jeff Speck’s critically acclaimed book Walkable Cities: How Downtown can Save America, One Step at a Time. Her goal is to engage everyday citizens in the dialogue and practice of New Urban development. Currently, she serves as chapter president.

Katherine Correll
CNU Colorado Vice President
director@downtowncoloradoinc.org
303-282-0625
Downtown Colorado, Inc., www.downtowncoloradoinc.org

Kat is an innovative and creative strategist, who serves as a resource choreographer for local governments, non-profits, and private businesses hoping to achieve more with less. Born and raised in Denver, Colorado, Katherine has worked with development initiatives in Denver, New York, Chicago, Camden, and the Former Soviet Union. Her focus on strategic planning and management focuses on building viable and sustainable private, public, and non-for-profit institutions and programs. Katherine received her master’s degree in Public Administration from Rutgers University and her bachelor’s degree in Politics with a Minor in Urban Studies from New York University.

Matthew Bossler
CNU Colorado Secretary
matthew@shiftplandesign.com
SHIFT Planning and Design, LLC. / SmithGroup

Matthew Bossler’s 15 years of experience in planning, landscape architecture, ecological design, and urban design synthesize in practice at SHIFT Planning and Design, LLC. The core philosophy of SHIFT is to develop planning and design solutions that allow our regions, cities, small areas, and properties within them to evolve in order to meet future needs. Regionally, Matthew advises land management agencies on land use, open space, and green infrastructure strategies. At the city scale, Matthew advises decision-makers and guides community groups to form urban planning solutions that set the stage for quality urbanism. Through vigorous community engagement, constructive community dialogue, SHIFT organizes public processes that allow stakeholders to envision corridors, neighborhoods, and transit-oriented developments, and actualizes these visions through 3D modeling, design standards formulation, and planning documentation. At the site scale, Matthew offers property owners, developers, and project partners rapid urban design and development scenario modeling, conceptual site plans and yield studies, as well as complete landscape construction documentation, including everything from urban plazas to naturalized riverfronts.

Solomon Geigle
CNU Colorado Treasurer
solomon@bluematch.com BlueMatch

Solomon is a hands-on entrepreneur with a background in residential real estate. He is especially interested in the environmental and social equity benefits of New Urbanist principles when put into action. Solomon believes New Urbanism is best implemented when the entire community is engaged in the conversation. With his business background and a degree in Global Studies from the University of Minnesota, he brings a unique perspective to CNU Colorado.

Alexander Person III
CNU Colorado Board Member
alexander.person@smithgroup.com
303-407-8745
SmithGroup

Alexander doubles as an urban designer and architectural project manager at SmithGroup. His experience in architecture, urban design, and community development has continuously evolved his understanding of the built environment and its relationship with humanity. In every design and implementation strategy, he strives to make buildings, towns and cities more livable. Working in both rural and urban communities he has come to understand architecture as only a vertex of a larger social, economic, and cultural network and champions new urbanist principles at all scales of real estate development, urbanism and building construction.

Gregory Leichty, PLA
CNU Colorado Board Member
gleichty@mvvainc.com

Greg’s interest in landscape architecture began at a young age during his time spent farming with his family and neighbors in Southeast Iowa. He brings a broad knowledge-base and almost a decade of experience designing and implementing landscapes to the projects that he works on. He has developed an affinity for problem-solving, which he uses to bring unique solutions to landscape and urban design projects. Greg has played an integral role in the design and construction administration for the Port Lands Flood Protection project in Toronto, Ontario.

Greg was drawn to the principals of New Urbanism early in his career, and finds the framework to be an effective tool to understand and communicate the benefits of building complete neighborhoods and cities connected with safe, multi-modal transportation. Greg firmly believes that great cities are our best tool in the effort to mitigate the effects of climate change, improve quality of life and health, among numerous other benefits compared to the status-quo. In addition, Greg is driven to help create great cities to help reduce development pressures on our wild landscapes and agricultural lands to preserve those landscapes for the benefit of future generations.

Abe Barge, AICP
CNU Colorado Board Member
abe.barge@denvergov.org

Abe Barge, AICP is a Principal Planner with the City of Denver. He has over ten years of experience drafting community plans and regulatory implementation strategies, including consulting work for communities around the country, such as Pittsburgh, PA, Fort Lauderdale, FL and Tacoma, WA. Abe is currently developing design standards and density bonus systems for areas around Denver’s downtown and new rail stations. He has a Master’s in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Colorado Denver.

Rod Kazenske
CNU Colorado Board Member
rodk@yardstickstudio.com

Rod Kazenske has over 40 years of experience in the design & construction industry. A design/build architect for much of his career, he now focuses on residential and equestrian architectural design and planning as a sole practitioner with his firm Yardstick Studio, LLC. Rod is also a member of his local neighborhood land-use committee and passionate about bringing the principles of new urbanism to our communities. His goals include continuing to develop a proactive unified approach to bring socially, environmentally, and economically responsible development to neighborhoods, through the direct collaboration of community members and multidisciplinary professionals.

Aviva North
CNU Colorado Intern
aviva.north@gmail.com

Aviva North is a graduate student in the Masters of the Environment program at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her focus area is Sustainability in the Outdoor Industry and the Outdoor Recreation Economy. Previously, she graduated with a degree in Geography from Mount Holyoke College. However, it was during a study abroad class on Sport Tourism at the University of Otago, New Zealand, when she realized her passion to community development and urban planning through a tourism lens. Currently, her career goals center around environmentally sustainable community economic development for tourism-dependent regions.

RECENT BOARD EMERITUS

Martin Postma
CNU Colorado
martin.postma@cityofthornton.net
303-538-7631

Martin Postma joined the CNU Colorado board as a representative of the public sector. Martin is a senior policy analyst at the City of Thornton and has extensive experience using the tools of economic development, city planning, and urban renewal to expand employment, improve the built environment, and enhance the lives of Thornton’s citizens. Martin holds a Masters of Public Administration, is a Certified Economic Developer, a LEED Green Associate, and an accredited member of the Congress for the New Urbanism. Martin is also a dedicated Rotarian, having led multiple international humanitarian missions focused on education, medical services, and citizen diplomacy. One of his most notable moments was speaking at United Nations headquarters about primary education in developing nations.

Cheney Bostic
CNU Colorado
cbostic@studioseed.org
Principal at studioseed

Cheney is the Principal and Founder of studioseed. With formal training as an architect, Cheney brings a unique skill set to the field of urban design and planning. She offers realistic planning solutions that are action-oriented, implementable and designed to code. Her passion lies in urban infill projects that respond to an existing context, corridor projects that seek to transform over time, and transit-oriented development projects that add value to underutilized land. An overarching goal in all of Cheney’s projects is a desire to increase quality of life for residents and inspire action.

Cheney is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners and a LEED Accredited Professional. She served for 9 years as the Vice President of the Congress for the New Urbanism – Colorado Chapter and co-authored the book Colorado Urbanizing in 2009. Cheney is a regular speaker at local APA chapter conferences.

Michael Copeland
CNU Colorado
mike.copeland@littleonline.com
303-892-1166
Little Diversified Architectural Consulting, Design Principal, http://www.littleonline.com

Mike is a multi-disciplinary design professional with a unique and valuable ability to seamlessly blend architecture with the landscape. With over 15 years of experience between the fields of urban design and landscape architecture, his expertise includes conceptual design and visioning, site planning, placemaking, and landscape design. His extensive background allows him to manage projects through the entire design process, on a wide range of project types, from concept to implementation.

As a Design Principal, Mike takes pride in his ability to collaborate with teams on creative, land development solutions, and has worked with a variety of clients including Hall of Fame Village LLC, Crescent Communities, Newland Communities, Brookfield Residential Properties, Rockefeller Group International, The St. Joe Company, The Greenbrier, The Town of Breckenridge and Vail Resorts.

Korkut Onaran, PhD, CNU-AP
CNU Colorado
Pel-Ona Architects & Urbanists http://pel-ona.com/

Korkut is an urban architect with a broad knowledge of development codes and regulation cultures, a subject he explored extensively through his practice, teaching, and research. Recently he has published the book titled Crafting form-based codes: Resilient design, policy and regulation. He formed Pel•Ona with Ronnie Pelusio in 2010. He has been teaching as an Assistant Professor Adjunct, in the College of Architecture and Planning, University of Colorado at Denver, since 1997. His teaching focuses on producing planning and design solutions for real world situations where students collaborate with local officials planning (click here for more info about his teaching experience). He was honored as the Mentor of the Year by AIA Colorado North in 2007. Also, he has been the president of the Colorado Chapter of the Congress for the New Urbanism since its formation in 2008.

FOUNDING ADVISORY BOARD

At the Chapter’s initiation, the Advisory Board supported the original Board of Directors by providing high level guidance on the work and mission of the Colorado Chapter.

Paul Crabtree
Crabtree Group

Mark Heller
Golden Urban Renewal Authority

Chuck Perry
Perry Rose LLC

Jed Selby
South Main Company

Peter Park
Lincoln Loeb Fellow, Harvard Graduate School of Design

Michael Tavel
Michael Tavel Architects

Marilee Utter
Citiventure Associates, LLC

Tim Van Meter
Van Meter Williams Pollack

Jeff Winston
Winston Associates

Deana Swetlik
Entelechy Design