Pashek+MTR Reflections on 2025
Intern Experience: Lola Hodgins
Over the past few months we have been pleased to have a new addition to our planning team, intern Lola Hodgins. A 2025 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, Lola has taken on various roles during her time at Pashek + MTR. We sat down with Lola to find out how her internship was going so far.
Kara: We try to have our interns work on a variety of projects and activities at Pashek + MTR. What kinds of things have you been involved in so far?
Lola: As a Planning Intern, I have worked on a variety of projects, namely Implementable Comprehensive Plans for municipalities in both Southwestern P
ennsylvania and Western New York State. Since Planning is such an interdisciplinary field, I get to do many fun tasks (fun to me anyway!), such as designing branding and websites, research, using different ESRI tools, interviewing stakeholders, and more. Besides that, I have been helping with branding and mapping for various active and public transportation plans around Allegheny County. This has been especially exciting to me because in college, my friends and I had a group chat called “Future Transportation Planners of America.” Now, that is true!
Kara: Has anything surprised you or been different than what you expected?
Lola: One thing that surprised me was how writing style is a key part of our planning work. In our Implementable Comprehensive Plans framework, we try to convey the information in a way that tells a story and that is easy to digest, using plain language, not technical jargon. This is so that every person reading the Plan can understand it, not just planners or politicians. In college, I was taught technical writing for Fancy Official Planning Documents, so it has been different from what I expected in school, but much more fun.
Kara: What are the aspects of the job that you find most interesting and rewarding?
Lola: The part of my job that is the most rewarding is going to public meetings and engaging with people. I love meeting new people and making their voices heard. To me, that is the most essential part of equitable planning, and being able to do it on a regular basis is a huge privilege. I always leave events and one-on-one interviews knowing I made an impact on not only the plan we are working on, but the people themselves.
Kara: What do yo
u see yourself doing five years from now?
Lola: What I would most love to do five years from now is very similar to what I do now! I would love to be a consulting Community Planner. I find it so fun, interesting, and rewarding. It is what I’ve wanted to do since my first year of college, and I’m so grateful to have a taste of it now.
Welcome Sarah Rizk!
Welcome Sarah Rizk to the Pashek+MTR planning team!
Sarah is an urban planner focused on resiliency planning and sustainable transportation in communities. She is passionate about finding the intersections between science, planning, and equity. She believes in the power of building local capacities through local knowledge and collaboration. Sarah has experience in the areas of GIS, climate resiliency, and consensus building. Her equity and climate focused work has greatly impacted the way she believes planning should be integrated into communities. She uses mapping and data-informed processes and thoughtful community engagement to influence her work.
Her educational background consists of an undergraduate degree in Environmental Science and a graduate degree in Urban and Environmental Planning. Prior to joining the team at Pashek+MTR, Sarah worked in environmental education and in the planning department at Pittsburgh Regional Transit. She has worked on a wide variety of projects including natural resource management, urban and community forestry communications, and transit-oriented development.
Proclamation Honors Jim Pashek for Work in Fox Chapel
On August 15th Jim Pashek was asked to provide Fox Chapel Borough council with an update on the Comprehensive Plan that we are preparing for the Borough. Little did he know it was a ruse so Council could present him with a Proclamation honoring his many years of dedicated service to the Borough.
Jim served on the Fox Chapel Park Commission for 14 years and volunteered for numerous activities from planting trees and picking up trash, to creating video grants to help fund new pedestrian-bicycle bridges, and writing grants for park improvements. He also donated his time as a planner and landscape architect to Pashek + MTR projects serving the Borough, such as the Hardie Valley Master Plan, the Joint Comprehensive Plan with O’Hara Township, and the McCahill Park Improvements.
The Park Commission members know him as a steady, dependable community service volunteer and friend who takes pride in his work and this community, and who is always ready to lend moral support or a helping hand when needed. Jim continues to make a significant positive contribution to bettering the environmental and community conditions of the Borough.
Congrats Jim for being honored for all your hard work to help make the Borough of Fox Chapel a better place to live! We at Pashek + MTR feel privileged to have the founder of our company be such an important role model, community volunteer, and leader.
GIS Lab Spotlight
Hi folks, this is Nick from the P+MTR GIS lab! Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of helping a community redraw its voting ward maps—a job, I thought, that was reserved for political think tanks. But after years of GIS training, classes, certificates, and finally a GIS Professional certification, I felt equipped to tackle the task.
The municipality tasked me with analyzing the new decennial census data release to examine how the community is changing and whether redistricting its ward boundaries would be necessary. This involved a thorough analysis of the data, which required more than a simple factfinder export. I used Microsoft Access, ArcGIS Pro, and Excel pivot tables to properly join the census data to the geospatial block shapes, test configurations and make recommendations that served local goals. But that’s all inside baseball.
Next came visualizing the results. I believe that all maps and reports should be intuitive and easy to follow for readers of all levels. I stare at maps All. Day. Long. but most people aren’t cartography fanatics like myself… I chose an analogous color palette that would distinguish all nine wards from one another but not clash with each other. Each ward color corresponded to population bar graphs that supplemented the maps.
The result was a simple yet effective document that clearly tells a story with graphics and communicates the recommendations effectively. At Pashek+MTR, we’re about not only providing analysis and recommendations, but making each map, graph, and report tell a story for all people to understand.
If you’d like to understand and visualize data about your community, Pashek+MTR offers services to help break down and illustrate vital information. Change is happening in your community, and we can create a clear picture of what data tells us about how your community functions, relevant existing conditions and trends, its demographic make-up and other insights that will support informed policy decisions that directly impact citizens.
“Off the Shelf and Into Action” Promo Video
Watch authors and planners Denny Puko and Jim Pashek discuss how the implementable planning approach came to be and how planners can make plans more engaging and achievable.
Visit https://www.offtheshelfandintoaction.com/ to watch the introduction video and to purchase your copy of Off the Shelf and Into Action!
The book is available in paperback and is priced at $30, plus shipping and handling. Proceeds from the book sales will be donated to the APA Pennsylvania Chapter for scholarships and training.
Jim Pashek Co-writes Groundbreaking Community Planning Book
After successfully introducing and growing Implementable Comprehensive Planning in Pennsylvania, we are excited to announce that Denny Puko and Jim Pashek are releasing a guide to their groundbreaking approach!
“Off the Shelf and Into Action, How to Create an Implementable Comprehensive Plan” is a 127-page book that describes the five keys to creating an Implementable Plan . Additionally, it includes case studies and successful examples of the approach in PA communities. According to Pashek, Off the Shelf and Into Action is “the culmination to date of our thoughts as we rolled up our sleeves and engaged in the sometimes messy work of helping communities address their concerns.”
The book will be available in paperback and is priced at $30, plus shipping and handling. Proceeds from the book sales will be donated to the APA Pennsylvania Chapter for scholarships and training. “We didn’t write the book to make money,” said Puko. “We wrote it to provoke new and different thinking about planning.”
Purchase the book at https://www.offtheshelfandintoaction.com/ .
Welcome Nick Sisco!
We are excited to announce that Nick Sisco will be joining Pashek + MTR as a community planner! Nick will join Adriana Bowman, Jenni Easton, Elaine Kramer, and Jim Pashek in advancing the firm’s work in community planning.
Inspired by Ian McHarg and as both an outdoor thrill-seeker (climbing and whitewater kayaking) and passionate urbanite, Nick envisions communities that can balance both the built and natural environments while meeting the needs of all residents (human or otherwise). He specializes in GIS analysis, cartography, and graphic design. He believes that complex concepts and data can be easily translated through minimalist design aesthetics.
Nick has over five years in the planning profession in the public, private, and federal sectors. He has conducted planning efforts in communities across the US and in Germany. He has a breadth of experience in the fields of green infrastructure and resiliency planning.
Nick holds a Master of Community Planning degree from the University of Cincinnati; a Bachelor of Science degree, Major: Geology and Environmental Science, Minor: Geography, from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; and a GIS Certificate recognized by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. He holds certification through the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) and is currently pursuing his Geographic Information Systems Professional (GISP) certification.
When not at work, you can find Nick climbing at Seneca Rocks, WV, kayaking the Lower Youghiogheny River, or at a concert near you.