The Top Thing I Learned as PIBC President
A Night that Captures the Future of Planning
If you want to feel optimistic about the future of planning, attend the Planning Institute of British Columbia’s World Town Planning Day Gala, as I did this past weekend, and look out at a room full of planners.
On Saturday night, PIBC celebrated both our newest members—freshly certified Registered Professional Planners—and those marking twenty-five years in the profession. Watching those groups together was like seeing the full arc of a calling. The spark of a new career meeting the steady glow of professional longevity. It reminded me of the essence of what keeps our field alive: renewal.
What I Learned as PIBC President (2023–2025)
After two years as PIBC President, the top thing I’ve learned is this: our profession renews itself, generation after generation.
When you’re in the thick of policy debates, housing crises, or the climate emergency, it’s easy to worry about burnout or disillusionment. The challenges are real, the expectations relentless. But again and again during my term, I was reminded that planning attracts people who care—deeply and persistently. Every meeting, every committee call, every mentorship conversation revealed fresh energy and ideas.
A New Generation, Ready to Lead
The planners entering the profession today bring systems thinking, technological fluency, and a fierce passion for inclusion. They arrive with eyes open to complexity and hearts open to collaboration. They want to shape cities that are not only livable but just, resilient, and kind. Their optimism is contagious.
At the Gala, our national Canadian Institute of Planners President, Lesley Cabott, spoke without notes and with deep emotion about how the country needs people with our skills and values—now more than ever. Her words rang true. In a time of global uncertainty, planners are uniquely equipped to hold competing priorities in balance and still move communities forward.
Wisdom Meets Innovation
Our long-serving members demonstrate what professional commitment looks like over the long haul: civic courage, ethical integrity, and steady, compassionate leadership through political change. They remind us that professionalism isn’t only about technical competence—it must encompass moral endurance.
The bridge between those two groups—the “new” and the “not-new” professionals—is where the magic happens. Wisdom meets innovation. Mentorship becomes legacy. That’s the rhythm of the profession: each generation renewing the next.
Gratitude for the People Who Keep Us Strong
As I closed my term this spring, gratitude was the prevailing emotion. Gratitude for the PIBC staff and volunteers who make the invisible visible—those who keep the committees running, the standards high, and the membership connected. Gratitude for colleagues who give their time, often after long days at work, to strengthen the professional fabric we all depend on. Gratitude for members who build trust, plan well, and lead with care in every corner of the province and Yukon.
If the top thing I learned is that the profession renews itself, the second thing is that it does so because of people who care enough to keep showing up—for two years, or twenty-five, or a lifetime.
That’s what gives me hope: not just the plans we write, but the planners who keep believing the future is worth planning for.
