The Federal Planning Division is proud to present an expanded program for the 2025 Annual Training Workshop with the theme “Collaborative Planning for a Healthier Tomorrow.”
We are excited to announce the 2025 Training Workshop Opening Keynote, Angela D. Brooks, FAICP, on Tuesday, 1 April 2025! Angela Brooks is the president of the American Planning Association (APA) and brings to the APA Federal Planning Division a unique and informed perspective on the future of Planning. Ms. Brooks is also the Director of the Illinois office of the Corporation for Supportive Housing. She currently serves on the Chicago Board of Zoning Appeals, the Illinois Affordable Housing Advisory Commission, and is co-chair of the national Housing Supply Accelerator helping communities meet the housing needs of residents. Brooks is a native of Seattle and a graduate of Jackson State University, where she received her Bachelor of Arts in Urban Studies, and the University of New Orleans, where she received a Master of Urban and Regional Planning. An active member of APA since graduate school, Brooks has held numerous leadership positions in the Housing and Community Development Division, Planning and the Black Community Division, Diversity Task Force, Washington Chapter, and co-chair of the Housing Policy Guide. She is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. and The Links, Incorporated.
The Virtual Package Registration is now closed. If you registered for the Full or One Day Workshops or the Virtual Package, you should have received an email with a login to view the session recordings. Please contact info@fpdtrainingworkshop.com if you did not get the login email.
We hope to see you at the 2025 Training Workshop!
Sara C. Bronin was confirmed by unanimous consent by the United States Senate in December 2022 to serve as the 12th chair of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation. A Mexican American, she is the first person of color to serve in this position.
Prior to her confirmation, Chair Bronin spent her career as a professor and public servant. Her interdisciplinary research in the areas of property, land use, historic preservation, and energy has focused on how law and policy can foster more equitable, sustainable, well-designed, and connected places. She has published five books and treatises and dozens of articles, book chapters, and shorter works on these topics. She also founded the National Zoning Atlas, which aims to translate and standardize information about how zoning regulates housing in around 30,000 jurisdictions nationally.
While chairing the ACHP, she is on leave from her tenured position at Cornell University, where she serves as Professor in the College of Architecture Art & Planning, Professor in the Rubacha Department of Real Estate, an Associate Faculty Member of the Law School, and a member of the Graduate Faculty in the Field of Architecture. At Cornell, she founded and directs the Legal Constructs Lab, serves as a faculty fellow of the Atkinson Center for Sustainability, and is an affiliate of the Cornell Center for Social Sciences. She has also held visiting positions at the Yale School of Architecture and the University of Pennsylvania Kleinman Center for Energy Policy.
Among other nonprofit service, she has served as an advisor to the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Sustainable Development Code, served on the board of Latinos in Heritage Conservation, and founded Desegregate Connecticut. In addition, she chaired Preservation Connecticut and led the nationally recognized efforts of the City of Hartford to draft and adopt a climate action plan, city plan, and zoning code overhaul. In addition, Chair Bronin has consulted for public and private entities, including on zoning reform, project construction, and litigation strategy.
Chair Bronin received a J.D. from Yale Law School, where she used her Harry S Truman Scholarship for Public Service. She received an M.Sc. in Economic and Social History from the University of Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar. She received a B.Arch. and B.A. in the Plan II Liberal Arts Honors Program from the University of Texas at Austin.
Chair Bronin is a seventh-generation Texan, born and raised in and around Houston. She is the daughter of a public school teacher and civil engineer, and she grew up working in her grandparents’ Mexican restaurant.
As a Partner at FD Stonewater, Norman Dong plays a leading role within the firm’s third-party advisory and principal development platforms with a primary focus on federal, state and local government real estate transactions. As the former Commissioner of the GSA Public Buildings Service, Mr. Dong managed the nationwide asset management, design, construction, leasing, building management and disposal of approximately 372 million square feet of government-owned and leased space. In addition, Mr. Dong served as Acting Controller at Office of Management and Budget, where he was responsible for Federal real property management, and as Chief Financial Officer of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In addition to his
Federal experience, Mr. Dong has held leadership positions at the state and local levels of government, including Deputy Mayor for Operations and City Administrator for the District of Columbia. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a Master’s degree from the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Prior to her appointment as Director of the DC Office of Planning (OP), Anita Cozart served as Deputy Director of Community Planning and Design, her second tour of service at OP. In that role, Ms. Cozart oversaw OP’s work on neighborhood planning and urban design. Her teams have spearheaded the recent Comprehensive Plan update, commenced the next generation of neighborhood plans, and developed the Streets for People program to activate downtown public spaces and support economic recovery. As Director, Ms. Cozart looks forward to advancing implementation of the Comprehensive Plan, community plans, and zoning and preservation initiatives that support District goals around COVID-19 recovery, housing equity, resilience, civic resources and racial justice.
Ms. Cozart has a history of public sector work primarily focused on Washington, DC. She previously served at OP as a Neighborhood and Citywide Planner and Chief of Staff. Prior to her return to OP, she served as a managing director at PolicyLink, where she led place-based, equitable development initiatives in cities across the United States. She brings to her current work at OP a decade of experience utilizing a racial equity lens with community planning, housing, transportation and infrastructure policy.
Ms. Cozart holds a Master of City & Regional Planning from the University of California, Berkeley and a Bachelor of Science in Civil & Environmental Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh. She is a proud resident of Ward 5, where she lives with her spouse and children.
Elliot Doomes serves as the Commissioner of the Public Buildings Service at the U.S. General Services Administration.
As PBS Commissioner, he manages the nationwide asset management, design, construction, leasing, building management and disposal of approximately 360 million square feet of government-owned and leased space across the United States and six territories.
Doomes joined GSA as Regional Administrator for the National Capital Region in January 2023 after nearly 20 years of experience in the House of Representatives. In Congress, Doomes was the key liaison on GSA matters for both our House Authorizing and Appropriations Committees where his principal responsibility was to advise Committee Members on GSA’s real property activities.
Doomes began his career in the office of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC). His signature staff work included passage of the Federal and District of Columbia Real Property Act of 2006, which executed a complicated land exchange between the District of Columbia, GSA, the National Park Service, and the Architect of the Capitol that has enabled hundreds of millions of dollars of economic development within the District of Columbia.
Doomes graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta, GA, with a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and earned a Juris Doctorate from the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C.
Clark Mercer is Executive Director of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG). In this role, he is responsible for the nonprofit association’s overall administration, supporting the Board of Directors and policy committees, and representing COG before a variety of government, business, and other stakeholder organizations.
Mercer is an executive leader with more than 20 years of experience in the public, private, and civic sectors, including serving as a Chief of Staff to Virginia Governor Ralph Northam.
Born and raised in Alexandria, Virginia, Mercer received a Master of Public Policy degree from The George Washington University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale University.
The 2024 Training Workshop Tracks will address a broad range of topics, including the Planning discipline, professional development and training, technologies, and more. Sessions will examine how challenges and requirements are being addressed through plans and projects at federal sites, and how local, regional, or federal initiatives can achieve greater impact through interagency collaboration and partnerships. The following tracks represent high priority topics for the federal planning practice based on survey results from previous FPD Workshops.
APA Federal Planning Division
205 N Michigan Ave
Suite 1200
Chicago, IL 60601
