Our staff includes planning experts, each with his/her own unique mixture of education, training, and experience. We are all dedicated to providing the highest quality service to our clients.

Technical Consultants

Ed Goldman, Strategic Marketing Consultant

Ed has served as public information officer for the cities of Lakewood and Sacramento, and as assistant director of the University of California, Davis Medical Center. As a strategic marketing consultant since 1982, he has assisted city, county, and state governments, water and redevelopment agencies, and statewide associations in successfully delivering their messages to stakeholders, and, more importantly, in eliciting candid comments from community and business leaders, citizens, and interest groups. As an assistant professor and lecturer, he has taught journalism, public relations, marketing, and broadcasting at five California colleges. A former reporter, he is the author of three books and more than 4,000 magazine articles, and is a monthly columnist for Sacramento Magazine.

Jim Pepper, Senior Associate
Full Resume

Jim has over 45 years of professional experience as an architect, planner, and educator. He has worked on a wide range of planning and design projects. This varied and extensive experience provides Mr. Pepper with broad expertise, particularly since both his academic and professional work integrates the primary environmental design professions of architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, and city planning. Jim’s professional emphasis shifted from an early career in architecture to environmental planning in the 1970s, and, since the early 1980s, master planning, site planning, and urban design. He holds Master’s Degrees in City Planning and Landscape Architecture from UC Berkeley, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture from Montana State University, Bozeman.

Michael Seaman, Senior Associate
Full Resume

Michael has 39 years of experience in land use, environmental planning, and public policy. He has worked at all levels of government and in the private sector. He created the Smart Communities concept, an economic development strategy for the New Economy that became an international model for global economic competitiveness. Michael is an expert on Smart Communities and related issues, including community networking, community technology centers, telecommuting and new ways of working. He holds a Master’s Degree in Landscape Architecture and a Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture from UC Berkeley, and a Master’s Degree in Urban Planning from San Jose State University.

Al Sokolow, PhD, Senior Associate
Full Resume

Al is a Public Policy Specialist, Emeritus, at the University of California Cooperative Extension. He specializes in community governance, policy, and politics in small and rural communities, farmland and land use policy, local government finance and organization, state-local relations, California politics and public policy, and community leadership. He holds a PhD and Master’s Degree in Political Science, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism, from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.