What Bob Loves about Urban Planning

Bob’s technical expertise is researching, understanding, and evaluating the economic forces of urban development.
Bob’s passion is citizen participation in the planning and development of communities and neighborhoods. Helping people determine the future of their own places is what he likes to do most.

Bob’s Career

Bob has been a professional urban planner and economist for 44 years.

  • Assistant professor in the Urban Planning and Development (UPD) master’s degree program at Saint Louis University since mid-2018.

  • St. Louis consulting firm of Development Strategies for 30 years where he was a principal and part owner.

  • St. Louis consulting firm of Team Four for ten years where he was an associate. The research and planning division of Team Four spun off to create Development Strategies in 1988.

  • In the consulting field for 40 years, Bob worked for clients in 42 states.


St. Louis County Department of Planning

From 1976 to 1978, Bob worked in the Community Planning and Government Statistics divisions in St. Louis County.

Ochsner & Associates

Bob interned as a graduate student with the Kansas City consulting firm of Ochsner & Associates in the summer of 1975. He lived in the boss’s attic all summer!

SLU urban planning isn’t Bob’s first foray into teaching.

  • Adjunct instructor at Washington University in St. Louis since 2014 teaching real estate market and financial analysis for urban design students.

  • Instructor for real estate development since 2000 for certification candidates of the International Economic Development Council.

  • Senior faculty from 1995-2010 teaching economics in the Keller Graduate School of Management of DeVry University.

Bob has degrees in city planning and economics, but that isn’t all.

  • He earned his master’s degree in city and regional planning (MSCRP) between 1974 and 1976 at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville (SIUE). He majored in economics and public finance.

  • He earned his bachelor of science degree in business administration (BBA) between 1969 and 1973 at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He majored in business economics to prepare for a later urban planning degree.

  • Bob and his wife, Sue, are “Miami Mergers” - both attended Miami. Their college roommates married each other as well.

  • Bob grew up in Evanston, Highland Park, and Glencoe, Illinois, and graduated from New Trier High School (East) in 1969.
    Bob completed the nine-month Leadership St. Louis program (now part of FOCUS St. Louis) in 1987.

Odds and Ends About Bob

  • Varsity track team (middle distance) at Miami University

  • Assistant track and cross country coach at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville

  • Graduate assistantship at SIUE

  • Member of the Order of the Arrow of the Boy Scouts of America

  • Varsity track and cross country teams in high school

  • Senior class president in high school after three years on student council

  • Soccer, softball, basketball, and track coach for numerous elementary and middle school teams of my daughters’ schools.
    Bob’s license plates are “3-GIRLZ” in honor of his three daughters. Their oldest daughter has identical twin sisters. Bob and Sue also have three granddaughters.

  • They have lived in the Clifton Heights neighborhood of St. Louis since 1977, and in their current house (built in 1889) since 1982.
    Bob’s preferred hobbies include furniture making and refinishing, and renovating “this old house.”