Guest Blogger: Nick Addamo
Urban Planner
CDM Smith

Urban planning is an overwhelmingly exciting, rewarding and fast-paced profession. Planners are exposed to a myriad of dynamic work environments both in the public and private sectors, where innovation, passion, thoughtfulness, energy, creativity, and dedication is in high supply. In cities, big and small, urban planning presents challenging projects, intriguing findings, and diverse scenarios in which to work. Co-working is an essential component of urban planning, and a planner’s ability to collaborate effectively with clients, peers, colleagues, and the public can ensure a successful and rewarding end-product – whether it is a land use proposal, street design, neighborhood plan, transit route, or another project deliverable.

Urban Planning’s Many Focuses Need Bringing Together

What is urban planning? It depends on who you ask. The field is chock full of different focuses and disciplines, including land use, zoning, transportation, public space, housing, economic development, engineering, urban design, sustainability, and more. Different urban planners have honed different skills throughout their academic and professional careers, and these individual skills need to be synced and built upon, as any given project will likely require components from all of the above. Perceptions and interpretations of a place may differ between planners, making meaningful and consistent knowledge sharing and communication over the life of a project – both in the office and in the field – key for long-term success. A project team that consists of diverse people, viewpoints, experiences, and knowledge leads to a collaborative process that may present challenges but paves the way for a process that is thoughtful, well-rounded, and comprehensive.

Cities are Complex – Walk the Walk before you Talk the Talk

Working in and with urban areas is complex by nature. Like most modern work environments, cities are dynamic, complicated, and ever-changing. In order to grasp and understand these complexities, co-working among urban planners is critical, but cannot solely exist within the confines of the office. Getting out of the office and into the field early and often, in person, ensures that a team is well-versed and familiar with all aspects, opportunities, constraints, and unique conditions of a project area – conditions that may not be noticeable from simply looking at Google Earth or still photographs. Many urban planning projects take months or years to reach completion, and planners must stay apprised of critical changes to the built environment that may affect a project’s form, function, relevance, or implementation.

Whether the scale of a project is an intersection, street, neighborhood, or larger district, making time to walk and explore the area as a team proves useful in future tasks. Speaking, thinking, and planning based on firsthand experience and knowledge is critical. Being savvy and wellversed in local context is an essential part of developing a successful plan, and is also very well received by clients, the public, and other groups an urban planner may interact with.

Firsthand Knowledge and Experience Lies within the Community

Urban planners must get to know a city to conduct an informed planning process. Getting to know its people is just as important, if not more. Urban planners don’t just co-work with office colleagues – they co-work with those who will be the eventual end users of the project once implemented. Few know a city better than those who live in the community and experience it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Understanding the lived experiences of the public is essential. Conducting research via face-to-face communication with the public sheds light on countless aspects of urban life that may not be immediately visible. Public meetings, design workshops, stakeholder interviews, and other forms of engagement and interaction with a city and its people yield gold mines of information for urban planners to gather and put towards a plan or project.

Robust and inclusive public outreach aims to meet people where they already are, rather than making them come to you. Setting up booths in the park on a weekend, at farmers’ markets during lunch hour, at a bus or train station during rush hour is a great way to pursue a collaborative and accessible planning process. The city-dwellers with the most vital knowledge and information to share may not have time to go to a formal public meeting at City Hall at 6:00pm – meeting, engaging, and conversing with people while they are living life and experiencing their city can allow for candid, authentic context, giving urban planners an advantageous look into local life. Urban planners and designers tasked with an effort may be skilled in their profession, but without firsthand knowledge from residents, even the most well intentioned plan will fall short and be a disservice to the community it is intended for.

Nick Addamo is a Hartford resident and urban planner at CDM Smith, a global consulting firm with local offices in East Hartford and New Haven.

“It is inspiring every single day seeing these kids engaged, learning and getting exited” – Matt Conway, RiseUp

Hello, Innovators!

On March 16th, I had the pleasure of chatting with Matt Conway, founder and executive director of RiseUp Hartford. RiseUP provides young adults from urban communities with the tools and guidance they need to achieve their potential and become the future business and community leaders of tomorrow. Matt and I discussed what the program means for the City and an amazing story about a young lady who pushed him every chance she had and is now on her way to becoming a lawyer.

Katelyn: Matt, welcome we are very happy to have you. Why don’t you tell our viewers about RiseUP and what they do for the City?

Matt: RiseUp was founded four years ago as a youth development and mentoring program. Since then we have worked with youth in Hartford and developing deep relationships with their communities, families, and schools. We’ve begun transitioning taking those youths we haveworked with and starting to build social enterprises with them. You may have seen a few posts about Herbs of Vison online that is just one of the social enterprises we work on as a group. They are actual revenue generating companies that our youth are involved in here in Hartford.

Katelyn: In our conversations, you told me a wonderful story about a young lady who you worked with who is now on the path to be a lawyer.

Matt: I met Trisanna in 2012 when she was graduating from Weaver High School. When I was giving the presentation at Weaver, she gave me the hardest time. She was eloquent in her questions and very challenging which is good. Long story short we end up being best friends after talking and I helped move her into college all four years, she is graduating with honors and heading to Law School in the fall.

Katelyn: It is nice to see that from start to finish these kids are coming up and being successful.

Matt: And Dane, who came into RiseUp at the same time is in Innovate Hartford’s business development class. Knowing that he is doing amazing things and learning every day is great.

Katelyn: How are things with Herbs of Vision. I know some of the kids were here when we did our inaugural networking event.

Matt: One of the challenges when we jumped into Herbs of Vision it was very trial by error. We saw this great opportunity to do something amazing with the greenhouse at a school. We dove in and started planting the seeds and selling them. One of the challenges was the food safety laws and all of those things that go with commercially distributing food. What the kids did was brainstorm other ideas on how to get our sprouts into homes. While we still have the greenhouse and greens and are giving those away we have now pivoted to the Herbs of Vision Sprout at Home Kits. The kits are hydroponic technology jars that you can grow sprouts in two to four days right in your kitchen and it has enough nutrients to last you an entire week.

Katelyn: That is great especially for urban/city living. For someone who doesn’t have access to a garden or even a roof top but wants fresh herbs, they can have one of those kits.

Matt: Right and we have a kick starter campaign going right now where you can purchase one. We will get them shipped. It’s exciting because when you ask someone if they know what a sprout is, honestly most people don’t know. One little sprout is jammed packed with nutrients, more than the full head of broccoli.

Katelyn: What has been your favorite part so far of the process?

Matt: It’s has been working with the kids. It is inspiring every single day seeing them engaged, learning, selling, getting excited. I learn something from them every day which is another benefit.

Katelyn: Any other info about other projects that fall under the RiseUp umbrella?

Matt: Yes, we also have Clean Vision which is a car detailing an apartment cleaning service. There is also Ice Cream for a Dream which is in partnership with Abdul Muhammad his group at the My People Clinic. We are looking to add more entrepreneurs and startups to our umbrella to create more jobs for kids.
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“Hartford has been critical to our global growth”- Michael Cantor

Hello, Friends!

In the March 9th addition of Barside Banter, we chatted with Michael Cantor, philanthropist, entrepreneur and very successful lawyer. Below are some of the important topics and questions Michael answered curing his segment with us.

Katelyn: How did you end up where you are today?

Michael: I am a lawyer and often you don’t think of lawyers as being entrepreneurs but I am as much an entrepreneur and business person as I am a lawyer. I focus on trademark and patents. I came out of law school in 1983 and our world has changed so much since then. We have a global economy based on innovation and entrepreneurship which has been a big change since the 60’s and 70’s. The thought changed from brick and mortar to IP which pushed the economy. It was a great time to be a patent lawyer. Technologies, at that time, were expanding exponentially. To be success full I needed specific engineers. Over the course of technological changed and so did my staffing. I now needed an analog engineer, digital people, software engineers, etc. To support global growing companies, I needed to grow myself so I could grow others with very specific skills. We set down the path of growing to support and grow our clients, in the mid-90’s we had seven to nine lawyers. Today we have over 120 lawyers, five offices around the country including Korea.

Katelyn: What drove you to be a patent lawyer?

Michael: I was a chemical engineer undergrad at the University of Connecticut and I had never heard of patent law back then. But then, again, no back then really talked about intellectual property. I had a friend who was a chemical engineer graduate student who mentioned this field to me and I was intrigued, However, I didn’t picture myself 20-years from then wearing a yellow hard hat and being at a refinery. I didn’t think that was for me. This was intriguing, it sounded neat to me. SO, I went to law school straight from undergrad.

Katelyn: Where did you go to law school?

Michael: University of Connecticut Law School. I am a UCONN guy. I have also been an adjunct professor there since the mid-90’s. I taught advanced patent law for many years.

Katelyn: You are a Connecticut born and breed.

Michael: That’s right. I live in West Hartford and my wife is a UCONN grad and she is the mayor of West Hartford. We are really involved in the startup community. I am chairmen of the board for CT Innovations, CI, an amazing state institution. We are a venture capital firm for the state of Connecticut. We have two missions. 1) Invest and make money and 2) create jobs.

Katelyn: What is your favorite success story? Whether it is working with CI or being a lawyer? What is the one thing that sticks out in your mind?

Michael: There are a lot. Because I am old, there is a lot there. But because I say I am an entrepreneur is because many outside lawyers who come in, they have clients they do their thing. I came into this firm with a sense of urgency and fire to grow the business. I did that from a very place to now a global power house. I have enjoyed it but its’ had its challenges and people don’t think of lawyer firms having issues. One example is when you grow to 120 you now have 350 employees. That takes a lot of capital just like a startup. That growth is never linear. So sometimes you hiring a lawyer plus an admin and you don’t see the return on the investment for say six to seven months. We’ve had cash crunches just like any other growing business that were devastating. I’ll never forget in 1999, during big phase in growth, my partner at the time and I had no idea how were going to meet payroll. I remember calling my wife and saying ‘what do we have in our savings account? What do we have in the bank? We need to empty it all and get it in here so we can meet payroll.’ Even though people say you’re a lawyer, well, I have been through it, I know what being an entrepreneur is like. Now, I work with a lot of startups it is a great think because I know what they are going through. I understand about staffing up and I know how hard that is. It is important every year to look at your staff and see who things are going who is working out and who isn’t. It is critical to a business’s success to fire people who aren’t working out. It is difficult but it needs to be done.

Katelyn: Right, because you must do what is best for the business. It is never personal, you want your business to grow and flourish. You want it to well and sometimes you have to trim the fat.

Michael: You do and not everyone makes the cut. Not everyone is right for this job. Sometimes you need stars and if someone is at 80% of where I need to them to be it just won’t work. Also, you need to be cognizant of the economic cycles. So, whether it was 2008 or at the end of 2000s we’ve talked to our clients and say what are your expectations? And if they say we are going to send you 60% less of what the business we sent you last year. Then we, as a firm, need to make cuts sooner rather than later. Payroll is 90% of our expenses and if we don’t keep payroll under control we will go under. And that’s how it is with so many startups.

Katelyn: Do you still consider your business your baby?

Michael: Oh, my God, yes. I still to this day have issues with cash flow. It keeps me up at night. I will say I love the sales part I love bringing in new client’s, I love keeping our clients happy. I go over all the world. I went to India to visit pharmaceutical companies we work with. I went from India to Korea, before that I was in China. I do a lot of visitation, pitches and I can tell you when I land a new client, even though I’ve been doing this for 30 plus years, the excitement I get when they say ‘we are going to hire your firm’ is the same as when you get an A on a paper. One thing I have learned is that you NEED the fire in your belly or things will go south. I know that you need to get out there. You won’t grow your business by sitting behind your desk. That is not how life works. You must get up and get out and knock on doors.

Katelyn: I read a newsletter from West Hartford and you talked about some of the things that CT needs, could be wi-fi or transportation to help fill the gaps for a lot of folks here. Moving along those lines, what do you think the city of Hartford needs?

Michael: I was the class optimist in high school and I am always an optimist. What I see percolating right now in Hartford that is exciting, even though people may complain that Hartford is expensive, compare to LA, New York, Boston, it is not. In fact, it is a fraction of the cost. IN my field, our clients, the in-house lawyers, they are trying to commoditize what we do. In order for us to give services, they need we need to be efficient. Hartford has been key for us in doing that efficiency. All of our backroom operations are here, 2/3’s of our attorneys are here. Hartford is so low cost compared to those other cities that I have been able to pay my attorneys wonderful salaries relative to CT. The quality of life here is really nice people who come here and work for our firm have a very balanced life style. We are family-friendly, I mean that for anyone. Do what you need and what to do as long as you keep our clients happy. And you can do that ij our firm. Hartford has been critical to our global growth. It is between two-cities, Boston and New York, the fact I can be in either city in under two hours is great and I am not paying to lease there. I think lots of other companies can take advantage of that.

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