.jpg "Melissa D. Taylor photo")
Director of Strategic Long Range Planning
Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Agency
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Melissa Taylor is the Director of Strategic Long-range Planning in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She oversees big-picture plans and programs for the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Regional Planning Agency. She holds a Master of Science Degree in Environmental Science from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and has been in the planning profession for 23 years. The last 15 of those years have been spent directing federal transportation planning and programming for the region’s bistate MPO. She is recognized nationally for creative and innovative approaches. She serves as a voting member AMPO's Technical Committee and previously received AMPO’s Individual Staff Achievement Award for Leadership. In 2015, the TPO was awarded the Transportation Planning Excellence Award from FHWA and FTA for her work in Community-Sensitive Performance-based Planning. Additionally, her work has been cited as best practice by FHWA, Transportation Research Board, and Transportation for America. Early in her career, APA cited her as the catalyst to the Chattanooga's award for Bicycle Planning and Implementation. Most recently, she and her staff have received commendations for virtual public engagement including the use of ESRI’s ArcGIS HUB and Story Maps. Melissa finds it critical to keep pace with changing technology and forward-thinking approaches in the profession.
Wednesday, April 26, 2023
2:30 PM – 3:15 PM CDT