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Jen Price, senior planner, Sycamore Consulting
Job: Senior planner, Sycamore Consulting, Decatur
What I do: If you have an opinion about Georgia traffic, Jen Price wants to hear it. As senior planner at Sycamore Consulting in Decatur, Price, 31, seeks and gets public involvement in various transportation projects around the state.
"It's the opportunity for the public to be involved in a transportation project," she said.
Many times, the Georgia Department of Transportation requires public hearings to assess the impact of a project, which can range from widening a street in Savannah to adding truck and toll lanes to congested stretches of I-75 and I-575 through Cobb County.
It's not as simple as just holding a meeting and listening to comments, Price said. She and her colleagues develop a public involvement plan to make sure all the people and businesses affected by a project get a chance to have their say. They look at the area's demographics -- whether there are non-English speakers and the community's education levels and access to public transit -- and tailor their approach to the public hearings.
They also study growth and traffic patterns in the area as well as the environmental impact.
The result is a plan for how many meetings will be held, where they will be held, what format and focus the meetings will have, and how to get the word out, right down to the fliers announcing the meeting.
Once the meetings have been held, Price summarizes and responds to the public's comments. And the project isn't always a done deal when it's presented. She said that all comments become part of the record and that changes have been made to accommodate public concerns.
"If there's a public outcry against an alternative, they start over," she said. She was involved in one project in which the public was not at all happy with a road realignment. It was redone.
"When dealing with government, especially transportation projects, people remember projects that wiped out whole neighborhoods," she said.
What got me interested in this: Price has an engineering background, but late in her undergraduate program she was exposed to zoning and land-use regulations during a class project. She developed an interest in planning and realized that engineering was not a good fit for her, she said. She admits that she's now "a public involvement nerd."
Best part of my job: "Meeting the people," Price said. "A lot of work goes into the meeting to make it work. It's like getting ready for a big dance."
When it's finally over, it's "a 'whew!' moment," she said.
Most challenging part: "Environmental justice, looking at underserved populations -- including the elderly and minorities -- and tailoring public involvement to these communities." Atlanta is changing so dramatically that there are always pockets of people to whom Price said she must reach out.
The worst feeling, she said, is when she's gone through a lot of work and preparation for a public meeting and only five people show up.
What people don't know about my job: "The degree of planning, coordination and organization it takes to plan successful public-involvement opportunities often goes unrecognized," she said.
She added that planning for public meetings starts months in advance and that these meetings are highly regulated, so "the pressure is on to make sure everything is done to the letter of the law."
What keeps me going: "I love this office," she said. While she has worked in both the public and private sector in planning, she said Sycamore's president, Elizabeth Stepp, has been a good teacher and coach.
Preparation needed for this job: "This job requires many skills you don't need to go to school to get," Price said.
For public involvement, she said a person needs to like to deal with people, even those who may be angry or upset about a project. "I'm talking to folks all the time," she said.
You also need at least a bachelor's degree, usually with a social science or policy background, and many people in her field have master's degrees in planning. Price has bachelor's degrees in mathematics and civil engineering from Florida A&M University and a master's in planning from Florida State University.
She worked for the city of Charlotte and for a private consulting firm in Philadelphia before joining Sycamore about a year ago.
- By Karl Ritzler, for ajcjobs. Got an interesting job that you love? E-mail your story to jobseditor@ajc.com.
