The Blakely Center’s Board of Advisors helps the Center set priorities, provides advice, and aids in raising money and managing operations. The board meets annually, but provides counsel and other help throughout the year in individual consultations with staff.

Edward J. Blakely, Chairman

Edward J. Blakely, the Center’s namesake, is a distinguished educator and researcher on urban and suburban issues. He is the Chair of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Sydney, and was recently appointed Executive Director for Recovery and Development Administration for the City of New Orleans. Blakely was born in San Bernardino and educated at San Bernardino High School, Valley College and the University of California Riverside, where he quarterbacked the undefeated football team. He subsequently earned a master’s degree in Latin American history at UC Berkeley, an MBA in Organization Management at Pasadena Nazarene College and a doctorate in Education and Management at UCLA. Before his post at the University of Sydney, Blakely was Dean of the Robert J. Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy at New School University in New York City. He also served as Dean and the Lusk Professor of Planning and Development for the School of Urban Planning and Development at the University of Southern California and Professor and Chair of the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California at Berkeley. He held academic positions in teaching, research, administration, and policy development for more than 25 years. Blakely served as a policy advisor to the mayor of Oakland, where he was also a mayoral candidate, and as advisor to the Los Angeles Public School District. In addition, he has served on a number of task forces and commissions at the local, state, national and international levels. He has been on the boards of directors of the American Planning Association, the Nature Conservancy, Environmental Science Associates and SE Corporation.

Ronald O. Loveridge, Vice Chairman

Ronald O. Loveridge has been the Mayor of the City of Riverside since 1994 and is active in regional governance. He has or currently serves on several boards, including the Southern California Association of Governments, the South Coast Air Quality Management District, the Western Riverside Council of Governments, the California Air Resources Board and the National League of Cities. He also was the 2003-2004 President of the League of California Cities. Before becoming mayor, he served four terms on the Riverside City Council. Loveridge earned a Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University and is a professor in Political Science at UC Riverside. He also has taught courses in American politics, public opinion, mass media and local leadership in California.

Rick Bishop

Rick Bishop is the Executive Director of the Western Riverside Council of Governments. With more than 20 years of intergovernmental planning experience in both the public and private sectors, Bishop has directed and assisted in developing countywide programs that address federal, state, regional and local mandates on local governments in a variety of areas, including growth management, congestion management, air quality and integrated waste management. He is regularly called upon to monitor, participate in and provide recommendations to elected officials regarding the development of regional growth management, growth forecast and regional transportation planning strategies and air quality activities. He has authored several planning documents utilized by jurisdictions in Southern California, including model transportation demand management ordinances, smart growth studies, and general plan growth management element templates. In 2003, Bishop spearheaded efforts to establish The Transportation Uniform Mitigation Fee (TUMF), a transportation fee program for western Riverside County that was adopted by all 15 jurisdictions in the WRCOG region. The fee program will accomplish $4.8 billion in transportation improvements during the next 20 years, and is the largest multi-jurisdictional fee program in the United States. Bishop also has developed and instructed a variety of courses in Geography and Environmental Studies at colleges and universities in Southern California.

Jane Block

From the early 1970s, when she helped form the Box Springs Mountain Conservation Association, Jane Block has been one of the most persistent and successful community organizers in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Block’s interests have centered on women’s issues, children and the environment. She is the founder of Alternatives to Domestic Violence and chaired the Riverside County Commission on the Status of Women. She was the moving force in the campaign to save the Santa Rosa Plateau. She has served on the boards of the Riverside County Child Care Consortium, the UCR Women’s Resource Center, the Riverside Land Conservancy, the Inland Empire Clean Air Partnership, the Western Riverside County Multi-species Habitat Conservation Plan Advisory Committee, the California Development Disabilities Area Board, the Youth Strategic Action Team and the Riverside County Commission on the Future of Education. She was given Riverside County’s Distinguished Volunteer award in 1993 and the Southern California Association of Governments Donald G. Hagman Regional Citizen award in 1994.

John Husing

John Husing has spent 42 years studying the city and county economies of Southern California, with a specialty on the Inland Empire. This research began while he was working on his doctoral thesis at Claremont Graduate University in 1964. He is considered a leading authority on the impact of the goods movement industry on the region. He also has an extensive understanding of the political process after managing more than 100 partisan and non-partisan campaigns. He uses his extensive knowledge of the region and his political experience to explain the economy to business leaders and policy makers throughout the Southland. His firm, Economics & Politics, Inc., is a major source of economic and logistics industry information for public and private entities. His forecasts and economic information are detailed in the Inland Empire Quarterly Economic Report, which he has written for 19 years. He also is a columnist for the Riverside-based The Business Press. In August 2006, Husing was listed by the Los Angeles Times magazine as one of the 100 most powerful people shaping life in Southern California.

Norm King

Norm King is the Director of the William and Barbara Leonard Transportation Center at Cal State San Bernardino. He previously was the Executive Director of San Bernardino Associated Governments, the transportation planning agency and council of governments for San Bernardino County. A graduate of Claremont McKenna College and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, King had served as city manager for Claremont, Palm Springs and Moreno Valley. He serves on the Advisory Council of the Public Policy Institute of California. King has served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the ICMA Retirement Corp., a financial services firm which provides deferred income programs to 800,000 state and local government employees. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. He served as president of the 8,500-member International City/County Management Association. Both of these organizations provide a forum for political issues as well as supporting local government administrations. King was awarded the 1993 Management Leader of the Year Award by the University of California Riverside. He was also chosen the Outstanding Senior Administrator of the Year for 1992-93 by the American Society for Public Administration, Inland Empire Chapter. King’s articles on the management and economics of local government have appeared in several professional journals and books.

Arthur L. Littleworth

Arthur L. Littleworth is one of the preeminent water attorneys in the United States and senior partner at the law firm of Best Best & Krieger LLP in Riverside. He has represented major water users, water districts and agencies, and other governmental bodies with water issues. In 1987, Littleworth, a graduate of Yale Law School, was appointed by the U.S. Supreme Court to act as a special master in a case where the state of Kansas sued the state of Colorado over water flows in the Arkansas River. The court unanimously affirmed Littleworth’s findings. Littleworth has had wide experience in the planning and use of groundwater resources and in the marketing of water rights, representing a number of water districts and property owners. He is also special counsel to The Irvine Company with respect to future water supplies, water quality and environmental matters. He is co-author of the book California Water, published by Solano Press.

Tom Mullen

Tom Mullen is the Executive Director of the Western Riverside County Regional Conservation Authority. The agency is charged with implementing Riverside County’s Multiple Species Habitat Conservation Plan, the largest of its kind in the nation. In his two terms as a Riverside County Supervisor, Mullen’s greatest legacy may be the Riverside County Integrated Project, a three-pronged plan to simultaneously address transportation, habitat conservation and housing demands in Riverside County. His work earned him the 2003 National American Planning Association’s Award for Distinguished Leadership for an Elected Official. In 2003, Mullen entered the private sector, becoming Chief Executive Officer of Viresco Energy, a transfer technology company converting raw materials to alternative energy sources. He became the Conservation Authority’s Executive Director in 2005. He also serves on the board of the Inland Empire Transportation Coalition. A Nebraska native, Mullen began his career in the U.S. Air Force and also worked in law enforcement for 11 years with the Riverside Police Department and the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.

Mark Pisano

Mark Pisano recently stepped down as Executive Director of the Southern California Association of Governments, the nation’s largest regional planning agency. He had led the agency, which covers San Bernardino, Riverside, Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura and Imperial counties, since 1976. SCAG played a lead role in conceiving and implementing the innovatively-financed Alameda Corridor Plan, which greatly improved the efficiency of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach while aiding the movement of goods through Southern California. Pisano also served as Director of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Water Quality Planning Division. He is a leader and active participant in numerous civic and professional organizations, including: Resources for the Future, the National Civic League, the California School of Professional Psychology/Alliant International University and LINC Housing. He is the author of numerous speeches and articles on economics, transportation, water quality and governance. Pisano earned B.A. and M.A. degrees at Georgetown University.

Rutherford H. Platt

Rutherford H. Platt is a Professor of Geography emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He also is Senior Fellow, Institute for Sustainable Cities, CUNY, and Director, Ecological Cities Project. Educated at Yale and the University of Chicago, he specializes in public policy concerning urban land and water resources and natural hazards. Among many publications, he is the author of Land Use and Society: Geography, Law, and Public Policy (Island Press, 1996 and rev. ed. 2004), Disasters and Democracy: The Politics of Extreme Natural Events (Island Press, 1999). He has served as Editor of The Ecological City: Preserving and Restoring Urban Biodiversity (University of Massachusetts Press, 1994) and, his most recent book: The Humane Metropolis: People and Nature in the 21st Century City (University of Massachusetts Press and the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2006). He directs the Ecological Cities Project, a national program of research and outreach based at Umass Amherst. In 2002, he was designated as a Lifetime National Associate of the National Academies.

William Siembieda

William Siembieda heads the City and Regional Planning Department at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA. His research areas include urban and market analysis, large-scale land development and disaster mitigation planning. He conducted extensive research on the impact of public intervention on land markets in Mexico, and served as consultant on secondary mortgage market policy in Mexico, Nicaragua and Brazil. His applied work includes planning for new U.S. towns and master-planned communities, and disaster mitigation planning in Latin America. His recent research includes Southern California potential growth areas and sustainable land use, and urban management policy in San Francisco. He serves on the editorial board of CityScape, the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s national journal. He holds a Ph.D. in Urban Planning from the University of California, Los Angeles and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

John M. Wohlmuth

John M. Wohlmuth is executive director of the Coachella Valley Association of Governments. Before joining CVAG, he was an administrative officer with Mono County, and served in several managerial positions with the City of Palm Desert including Assistant City Manager and Director of Administrative Services. He also is a member of the State of California Salton Sea Advisory Committee. Wohlmuth earned a bachelor’s degree in Administrative Studies from the University of California, Riverside; and a master’s degree in Public Administration from California State University, San Bernardino.

Robert Wyman

Robert Wyman is a partner in the Los Angeles office of Latham & Watkins, acting as the firm’s lead counsel for Clean Air Act matters. He represents businesses and trade associations in a wide variety of sectors (e.g., aerospace, automotive, energy, land development, marine, petrochemical, printing and publishing) on regulatory and legislative matters involving national and regional efforts to improve air quality. He has designed several market-based programs, including the South Coast Regional Clean Air Incentives Market (RECLAIM), the clean air investment fund (contained in President Clinton’s Directive to EPA regarding the new ozone and fine particulate standards) and EPA’s clean air communities program. Wyman is a member of the U.S. EPA Clean Air Act Advisory Committee and has chaired three of that committee’s subcommittees and work groups, including the Subcommittee on Market Incentives and the Subcommittee on Linking Energy, Land Use, Transportation and Air Quality. He also represents the California Climate Coalition on the implementation of AB 32 (the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006). His law degree is from the University of Virginia.