Alumni

Ginger Andersen

Over her 14-year career in the planning field, Ginger has been responsible for planning, project coordination, and permitting for a wide variety of projects in numerous jurisdictions. Her experience includes single family residential, sewer infrastructure relocation, river bank protection, commercial development, recreation camps, large residential subdivisions, utility resiliency, lot splits, lot line adjustments, emergency permitting for protection of critical infrastructure, and new agricultural development to name a few. At Stantec Consulting Services, Inc, she provides permit support and project management for projects from start to finish; due diligence through construction. She has successfully obtained entitlements for her private and public agency clients from local, state and federal agencies throughout California in the inland and coastal zones, including the Counties of Santa Barbara, Ventura and Los Angeles, the Cities of Santa Maria, Goleta, and Lancaster, and the Army Corps of Engineers, Regional Water Quality Control Board, California Department of Fish & Wildlife and California Coastal Commission, amongst others. Notably, Ginger was responsible for obtaining all regulatory permits and on behalf of a local sanitary district for the septic to sewer conversion project for the Rincon Point, Sand Point Road and Sandyland Cove communities in Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties.

Geoff Bradley

Geoff has over 25 years of professional public and private experience working with a variety of architectural, planning, development firms and public agencies. Prior to the formation of M-Group in 2006, this included 10 years of public sector experience with Bay Area planning and redevelopment agencies. Through M-Group, Geoff has engaged with over two-thirds of the jurisdictions in the Bay Area. His work includes downtown revitalization, major commercial, mixed-use, transit oriented projects, as well as updates of General Plans, Specific Plan and Housing Elements and Zoning Codes.

Geoff is a results-oriented planning professional with a strong design background in architecture, urban design and landscape architecture. He is highly motivated to work to improve our natural and man-made places with an ability to combine innovative ideas with pragmatic solutions, and work with a wide variety of stakeholders on achieving community goals. Geoff has a passion for improving cities through urban planning.

Geoff holds a B.S. in City and Regional Planning and a M.S. in Architecture, from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Geoff also attended The University of Sheffield in England for one year studying Urban Studies and Landscape Architecture.

John Donahoe, Vice Chair

John Donahoe has served as Director of Planning and Entitlement for Stanford University Office of Real Estate since 2008. John’s primary responsibility has been to oversee the entitlement process for Stanford’s development of residential and commercial projects located in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. Notable projects include Stanford/Redwood City, a 1.5 million square foot office campus for Stanford employees in Redwood City, and Middle Plaza, a 215-unit apartment mixed-use project geared for Stanford faculty coupled with 140,000 SF of office space located in Menlo Park, CA.

John has over 35 years of professional planning experience in both the public and private sectors throughout Northern California.  His work includes designing residential communities, office campuses, and mixed-use projects. John has authored several significant specific plans, including the Evergreen Specific Plan in San Jose and the Glen Loma Ranch Specific Plan in Gilroy, CA. John has also served on a variety of committees related to affordable housing issues, and currently sits on the Gilroy General Plan Advisory committee.

John holds a B.S. in City and Regional Planning from Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo. John is the father of two, and lives in Gilroy, CA with his wife, dog, and cat.

Ryan Gohlich

Ryan Gohlich currently serves as the Assistant City Manager for the City of Beverly Hills, and has worked in various planning and management capacities for the City since joining the organization in 2007. In his current role he has significant involvement in the daily management of citywide operations, and has primary responsibility for the City's Public Works Department, Community Development Department, and Real Estate portfolio. Ryan maintains a close working relationship with the City Council and focuses his efforts on ensuring the highest standards for the City's public services, quality of life, and business attraction and retention. Prior to joining Beverly Hills, Ryan started his career with the consulting firm of Crawfor Multari & Clark Associates in San Luis Obispo.

Ryan earned his Bachelor of Science in City and Regional Planning from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership from Woodbury University. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners, and when he's not managing city operations you can find him coaching little league or spending time in the mountains with his wife and two kids.

Paulo Hernandez

Paulo is a proud native of Guadalajara, Mexico – subsequently raised in Palo Alto, California.  After graduating from Cal Poly, Paulo worked as a public-sector Planner in the Counties of San Luis Obispo and San Mateo.  His last tenure in the public or quasi-public sector was working with the San Jose Redevelopment Agency as part of a team responsible for the redevelopment of the City Downtown Core.

He is currently a principal-owner in two private-sector real estate development consulting firms.  His land planning consulting firm, located in Downtown San Jose, is primarily focused in representing property owners through all aspects of development – from land acquisition through issuance of building permits.  His other firm, located in Santa Clara, specializes in representing School Districts with all aspects of real estate management and development.

Paulo holds a B.S. in City & Regional Planning, from Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo.  He presently works and enjoys his life between the San Francisco Bay Area and sunny San Diego.  Oh, and yes, Paulo speaks Spanish fluently, which makes his life a lot more colorful.

Dave Javid, AICP, LEED AP

Principal + Founder, PLAN to PLACE

 As the founder of Plan to Place, a community engagement and communications firm founded in 2016 based in Marin County, Dave has over 20 years of experience leading a diverse range of award-winning community-based planning initiatives. His roll as a project manager on visioning, corridor, strategic, and specific plans as well as placemaking projects, has equipped him with invaluable insights into the complexities of balancing client objectives with community expectations. By designing and implementing tailored outreach and engagement strategies, Dave has cultivated strong relationships with key community leaders,  fostering partnerships and facilitating constructive dialogue that have resulted in successful policy outcomes. Notable projects for which Dave has directed the engagement strategy include: Diridon Station Area / Google Downtown West Plan in San Jose; San Carlos's Eastside Innovation District and Northeast Area plans; Marin Countywide Objective Design and Development Standards; Berkeley's Racial Equity Lens Tool; North Berkely + Ashby BART Zoning Study; General Plans for South San Francisco and Petaluma;  Downtown San Mateo Specific Plan; and housing elements for multiple jurisdictions across the Bay Area, including the Town of Corte Madera, which recently received both the Northern California and State APA Award for Public Engagement. Dave is a proud alumnus of Cal Poly SLO, having received a Master of Arts in City and Regional Planning in 2004.

Pamela Johns

Mrs. Johns is a professional planner with over 25 years of progressively responsible experience in community planning, urban design, and community engagement in both public and private sectors. She has managed a wide range of planning projects, including policy and regulatory planning documents (general plans, specific plans and zoning codes), urban design projects (downtown and corridor plans), and community outreach (visioning, workshops, surveys). Mrs. Johns has also supervised large teams of staff, managed client contracts, developed business strategies and financial plans, and partnered with other managers and shareholders in corporate planning. She currently serves as Community Development Director for the City of Folsom overseeing planning, housing, engineering, building, and code enforcement services and initiatives.

Johns holds a bachelor’s degree in city and regional planning from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo and studied urban design at Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic. She serves on the boards and committees of several professional, academic, civic, and non-profit organizations in the Sacramento region.

Lesley Lowe

Lesley is the Transportation and Environmental Planning Manager at Stanford University. She has a demonstrated history of working in urban planning, environmental awareness, CEQA, transportation planning, and sustainability. Lesley is part of Stanford’s award-winning program to reduce vehicular traffic to campus, which is one of the most comprehensive in the country. As part of the Stanford team, she is engaged in conversations with local communities, transit agencies and major employers in the Bay Area regarding regional and local transportation and land use issues. She also supports Stanford’s land use, including university and community design projects involving Stanford facilities or lands.

Prior to her time at Stanford, Lesley worked in environmental and transportation consulting, preparing environmental documents for large scale projects and planning documents throughout California. She holds a Master’s in City and Regional Planning from Cal Poly (2000) a Bachelor’s in Geography from Humboldt State University (1998). She is a Certified Transportation Planner with APA. Lesley lives in Fremont, CA with her husband and two daughters.

Steve Lynch, Chair

Steve Lynch is Director of Planning and Entitlement for Sand Hill Property Company, a Silicon Valley focused real estate holding and development firm. Sand Hill’s portfolio of stabilized investments and development projects includes shopping centers, mixed-use communities, office complexes, affordable housing, and hotels. Steve is involved with management and planning of several large-scale office projects (Redwood City, Mountain View), a new mixed-use town center (Vallco Fashion Mall Cupertino), mixed-use office/residential corporate campus (San Jose), as well as other retail and office properties in the South Bay area.

Prior to his time with Sand Hill, Steve worked in the public sector as a city planner for 16 years. This experience includes time with the Town of Los Gatos as Assistant Planner, City of Sunnyvale as Senior Planner, and City of Santa Clara as the Planning Division Manager. Steve is also proud to say he worked in the City of San Luis Obispo as the planning intern during his graduate studies in the MCRP program.

He holds a B.A. in Political Science from UC Berkeley (1993) and a Masters in City and Regional Planning from Cal Poly (2000). Steve has been a member of the American Planning Association since 1998 and is a current member of the American Institute of Certified Planner since 2002. He lives in San Jose with his wife Grace and two boys.

Martin Magaña

Mr. Magaña has over 28 years of professional experience in both the public and private sectors. He has worked for environmental firms specializing in environmental planning and design work in preparing multiple general plans, zoning ordinances and specific plans. He has also worked for Lennar Homes in obtaining approval of all architectural, landscaping and engineering plans for residential subdivisions.

In the public sector he worked for the cities of Watsonville, San Jose, La Quinta, Cathedral City and Desert Hot Springs where he has gained valuable experience in planning, design, economic development, budgeting and policy analysis. He became City Manager for the City of Desert Hot Springs in 2013, where he was instrumental in assisting the city recover from near bankruptcy.

Mr. Magaña volunteers as a speaker at an Environmental and Sustainability Expo in the Coachella Valley, which brings together middle and high school students, university professors and green industry leaders to learn more about environmental sustainability.

Mr. Magaña currently serves as the Transportation Director for the Coachella Valley Association of Governments (CVAG) in Palm Desert, California, where he is responsible for managing a multi-million-dollar transportation program for the Coachella Valley.

Mr. Magaña holds a B.S. degree in city and regional planning from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo and a M.P.A. degree in Public Administration from California State University, San Bernardino.

Dawn Marple

Dawn Marple is a Principal Planner at Provost & Pritchard Consulting Group and has 20 years of planning experience, during which she has worked for and with a number of public agencies throughout the San Joaquin Valley. This includes the cities of Fowler, Tulare, Fresno, Visalia and Wasco. Her experience includes preparing and reviewing all levels of environmental documents in accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). In addition, she has extensive experience with general plan updates and entitlement processing. Ms. Marple has a consistent history of providing quality service for her clients while completing projects on time and within budget.

Rachael Raynor

Rachel Raynor is a Senior Planner at RRM Design Group (RRM), based in Santa Barbara, CA. Rachel is a land use planner and primarily works on private entitlement projects throughout the State, and often applies various applicable State legislation to the permitting process to help expedite or streamline the process. However, she also dabbles in long range planning efforts that range from development standards, on-call assistance for planning staff, authoring specific plans, facilitating outreach during Housing Element or other project’s community outreach process. Rachel, along with the RRM team has been tracking the changing State legislative environment and is passionate about better understanding these laws to inform clients and as they relate to projects and advocates for change and progress, primarily in the South Coast of Santa Barbara’s permitting environment. Rachel is a Cal Poly SLO City and Regional Planning Alumni and when she is not doing planning work, can be found outdoors!

Lisa Ring

Lisa is president of a planning, environmental and land use consulting firm, LOR Planning & Environmental Consulting, LLC, in San Mateo CA.  Lisa brings more than 20 years of professional experience in planning, design review, entitlements and environmental review working both in the public and private sectors. Her work includes management of large office, mixed-use, residential, institutional and transit oriented development projects, with a strong background and knowledge of the CEQA process.  Most recently she has focused on providing land use consulting services in the development of transit oriented, urban infill projects.  This includes project management, strategic land use planning, and securing of entitlements for private sector clients. She is strongly motivated to work collaboratively with varied stakeholders and particularly enjoys working on complex projects with community involvement.  She excels at identifying opportunities and bringing together stakeholders in the planning process for projects that achieve and exceed community expectations.

Lisa is bilingual in Spanish and English, which has been a benefit due to the varied and diverse populations where she has worked. She holds a B.S. in City and Regional Planning, from Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo.  She lives in San Mateo, CA with her husband, son and two dogs.

Heidi Vonblum

Heidi Vonblum has 20 years of experience in both public and private land use and environmental planning and law. She is currently the Planning Director for the City of San Diego. Prior to joining the Planning Department in 2018, she served as a Deputy City Attorney in the Land Use Advisory and Litigation Units in the San Diego City Attorney’s Office. Ms. Vonblum obtained a Bachelor of Science in City and Regional Planning from Cal Poly – San Luis Obispo, and a Juris Doctor from the University of San Diego School of Law.

Dave Yocke

Dave is a Cal Poly SLO City and Regional Planning Alumni and is currently the Vice President of Acquisitions for SummerHill Homes, a private homebuilder in the San Francisco Bay Area.  He has over 17 years of experience working in the private sector managing both entitlements and acquisitions for many residential communities throughout most Bay Area counties.  He utilizes his planning background every day in his search for new opportunities, reviewing various municipal codes, General Plan documents and striving to be on the forefront of new State Bills that may open opportunities for developing much needed housing.  In his free time, Dave enjoys coaching his young kids in various sports and traveling as much as he can with his wife and two sons.