Jim Pashek founded his practice on the cornerstones of quality, process, and creativity, with the goal of advocating for the environment, our history, and the people we serve through our projects. Jim has been an innovator in developing community-focused planning techniques, notably the Implementable Comprehensive Plan process. This unique approach results in greater public engagement and development of practical solutions for real community issues. One planning official referred to the Implementable Comprehensive Planning model as a “paradigm shift in comprehensive planning as we know it today.” Among our clients Jim is known for his skill in bringing people together and facilitating meaningful and productive conversations that lead to positive change in our communities.

Jim is frequently invited to conduct seminars on community planning, parks and recreation planning, sustainability, and accessibility for organizations such as American Planning Association at their national meeting, the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors, the Local Government Academy, and Pennsylvania Recreation and Parks Society. He has trained communities in meeting facilitation throughout western Pennsylvania and in Eastern Europe. He has authored several articles published in Pennsylvania Recreation and Parks and The Township Planner, as well as serving as a guest lecturer at several universities. He is trained as certified meeting facilitator through the National Charrette Institute (NCI).

Jim has received awards for planning excellence from the APA Pennsylvania Chapter, PA/DE ASLA Chapter and two Governor’s Awards for Innovative Planning. In 2015, he was honored with the Planning Leadership award from the APA – PA. Jim is a volunteer member of his Borough’s Park Board and is on the Board of Directors of Sustainable Pittsburgh. In his free time, he is writing a book on Implementable Comprehensive Planning.

Melissa “Missy” Marshall creates elegant and beautiful landscapes which can be seen at private and public gardens, parks, National Cemeteries, and campuses across the country. She has particular expertise in master planning for public landscapes, and a specialty in planting design, having worked with horticulturists, gardening societies, and public gardens throughout the U.S. Missy sets high standards for design, quality of work, and client service that every staff member of Pashek + MTR strives to meet.

Missy’s career has included a wide variety of clients and projects, but one of her specialties is public gardens. Her three decades of practice have included work at over 55 botanical institutions and 18 National Cemeteries in 28 states. Missy has played a key role in introducing the science and art of horticulture to public audiences, and has been instrumental in the evolution of public gardens from plant collectors to community leaders in landscape sustainability and wellness. Her work has successfully broadened the audience for public gardens by providing garden exhibits that welcome families, home gardeners, and people with disabilities.

In November, 2013 she was inducted into the Council of Fellows of the American Society of Landscape Architects, the highest honor bestowed by ASLA. In 2017 she was recognized by the American Horticultural Society with the National Award for Landscape Design. Additionally, Missy received the 2011 Award of Merit from the American Public Gardens Association, which recognizes an individual APGA member who has performed with distinction in the field of public horticulture. Missy has owned and managed a landscape architecture practice since 1999.

Nancy has devoted her design career to creating well-designed outdoor spaces that bring people together and improve their daily lives. Her years of experience successfully implementing a wide variety of projects allow her to smoothly guide clients through the design and construction process. She brings an in-depth knowledge of construction practicalities to the early stages of a project in order to deliver creative solutions on time and on budget.

Nancy’s award-winning designs include outdoor spaces at schools, parks, and health care facilities. She is skilled at working with architects and building owners to holistically integrate site and building design. In particular, Nancy is known for her expertise in developing beautiful, low maintenance plant combinations tailored to the particular conditions of each site. Nancy’s thorough and thoughtful approach considers future maintenance so that her designs remain successful for years to come.

Nancy has invested in the future of the landscape architecture profession by contributing to the establishment of the “Pashek, Lonnett, and Buerkle Scholarship in Landscape Architecture” at the Pennsylvania State University College of Arts and Architecture. The scholarship is available to Landscape Architecture majors who have a demonstrated interest in environmental issues.

Over the past 28 years, John’s work has established Pashek + MTR as a leader in the planning and design of parks, greenways, trails, open space, active transportation improvements, and walkable communities. He has managed over $20 million dollars of construction improvements in our region and has successfully assisted many of our clients in securing grants to fund their projects. John’s consensus-building approach builds community support for projects within communities. John is an expert adviser to clients on sustainable design principles and maximizing economic development opportunities of park and green space improvements.

John has been asked to write and lecture on a large range of parks and recreation topics. He presents at state-wide Pennsylvania Annual Greenway and Trails Summits, and PRPS Annual Conferences and also serves as a guest lecturer for Slippery Rock University’s Department of Park, Recreation and Resource Management, PA DCNR Bureau of State Parks, and PA DCNR Bureau of Forestry. He is on the Technical Committee of Envision Downtown, a public-private partnership advancing mobility and livability in Pittsburgh’s central neighborhoods through creative infrastructure design.

John has particular expertise in bicycle and pedestrian transportation planning. Under John’s leadership, Pashek + MTR was part of a team securing a contract with PennDOT to advance policies and implementation of pedestrian, bicycle and active transportation in the Commonwealth. John has successfully worked with PennDOT to respond to community input and incorporate bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure into their projects.

Sara’s design practice is focused on community revitalization and sustainable site design. She develops creative solutions that respond to the historical, cultural, and environmental context of each particular community or site while incorporating sound planning and design principles and sustainable site solutions.

Sara has worked on a wide range of scales and project types, including park planning and design, community planning, trail design, sustainable site design, green infrastructure, school campus planning and design, play space design, streetscape design, bicycle and pedestrian planning and design, green roofs, and urban design.

Sara has established Pashek + MTR as a leader in sustainability, both in our design work and our daily operations. Under her leadership, the firm has won the Pittsburgh Green Workplace Challenge two years in a row. She has served as a panelist and a speaker at several sustainability workshops. In addition, Sara is the Secretary of the Board of Directors of Grow Pittsburgh, a non-profit whose mission is to teach people how to grow food and promote the benefits that gardens bring to our neighborhoods. She is also on the Trail Management Committee of Trail Pittsburgh and volunteers at the Animal Rescue League.

Kara designs landscapes that connect people with nature in their everyday lives, with particular expertise in landscapes for children and sustainable site design. Her professional design career includes work with public landscapes throughout the U.S., including botanical gardens, schools, National Cemeteries, and public parks.

A love of gardening and the outdoors led Kara to pursue a career in landscape architecture. She has been the lead designer for several nature-based play spaces, including the Hort Woods Child Care Center at Penn State. She has also designed outdoor environments for children with special needs. Her work has included bioretention areas and porous pavement systems for clients such as the Missouri Botanical Garden, Fallingwater, and the City of Pittsburgh. Her work with the Department of Veterans Affairs includes projects at 18 National Cemeteries.  She is active with the Pittsburgh Green Infrastructure Network and the Green Building Alliance and has presented at the American Public Gardens Association’s annual conference and American Horticultural Society’s Youth Gardening Symposium. Kara often leads multidisciplinary project teams, serving as the main contact for clients and consulting team members.

Jenni Easton, a senior planner at Pashek+MTR, shares leadership in advancing the firm’s community planning work. As senior planner, she guides communities through the implementable planning process to realize the visions for their communities.

Working with municipalities to facilitate comprehensive plans, zoning ordinance rewrites and targeted regulatory amendments, Jenni’s approach reflects leading-edge best practices. Her planning practice focuses on the relationship between the physical design of neighborhoods, communities and regions and the social and economic issues they experience.

Jenni is passionate about evaluating and retooling the local regulatory frameworks that shape the built environment. She helps communities change the ground rules for development, giving them tools they need to enable and incentivize the investments they envision.

She combines a fine arts background with advanced training in data and policy analysis. This combination allows Jenni to organize and clearly communicate complex concepts. Her concise analysis and robust illustrations make her work easy to digest, and clients appreciate that she provides both granular details and big-picture context. Her experience in administering ordinances as a contract zoning officer is clear in the practical, internally consistent way she drafts regulatory language.

In a previous role as a housing and community development consultant, Jenni served as primary author of housing market studies, fair housing assessments and similar projects for cities, counties and regional partnerships across 12 states. She has presented to national audiences on transit-oriented development and assessing affordable housing need.

Heather has served as Parks and Recreation Director in Marshall Township, Allegheny County for 17 years. Her strong municipal background adds breadth and vitality to Pashek + MTR’s ongoing commitment to our parks and recreation clients.

Heather is experienced in developing and implementing park and recreation philosophies and policies, planning, and grant writing and administration.  She successfully secured grants through many sources including DCNR, DEP, DCED, PennDOT, Port of Pittsburgh, Pirate Charities, and The Pittsburgh Foundation. Clients quickly recognize and immediately benefit from her exceptional abilities to create and implement recreational programs, manage budgets, and oversee recreation operations, parks and maintenance.

Heather has been an integral part of the Pennsylvania Recreation and Parks Society’s annual conferences, serving in various leadership capacities over the last 12 years. As the Co-Chair for the PRPS Conference in 2010 and 2016 and received a Presidential Citation. She also received two Excellence in Programming Awards and an Excellence in Recreation Publication Award.  She is also a committed volunteer with the Moraine Preservation Fund (MPF), serving as the president, vice president and currently, the treasurer of the organization’s board of directors. She has been actively involved with the MPF since 1993.

Eric honed his skills in project management, construction documentation, and construction administration at Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates and then at The Central Park Conservancy in New York City.

At MVVA Eric played an integral role in the planning, design, and construction of a 350-acre upstate New York residential estate. He also led the construction documentation and construction oversight phases for the Novartis Pharmaceuticals campus expansion project in central New Jersey, which required close collaboration with architects, engineers, ecologists, and arborists.

As the Design Production Manager at The Central Park Conservancy, Eric played a key role in the development of construction documents for nearly $18 million in Park improvements during his tenure. In addition, he led the development and implementation of office-wide CAD standards and contributed to the development of office-wide filing structure.

Since moving in March of 2018, Eric has enjoyed exploring Pittsburgh’s vast network of parks and diverse neighborhoods.

Elaine’s work with Pashek + MTR includes park and landscape master planning, comprehensive planning with cities, towns and counties, sustainable site design, landscape design, and urban design. Elaine facilitates conversations with clients and community members that draw out important insights and information. Her thoughtful approach and warm and positive attitude makes her a valuable member of our team and a resource for our clients. Her design work reflects an understanding of the potential users of the space and to provide places that connect people with nature and with each other.

Elaine’s career in public service began with two years in the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone, and she continues to serve the public interest with her park design and community planning work. Before pursuing landscape architecture, she had a successful career in print and multimedia journalism, which is evident in the skillful way she communicates with clients and stakeholders. In her role as a member of her community’s Parks Advisory Board, Elaine advocates for sustainability improvements such as incorporating stormwater management into parkland and green space.

Max works on a variety of projects including site design, park master planning, GIS mapping, and comprehensive planning. His focus on sustainability and inclusivity are apparent in his approach to each new project. Max’s diverse background and extensive travel provides a wealth of experiences that influence his work.

Prior to joining Pashek + MTR, Max worked as a Park Planner in Champaign, Illinois. In addition to playground design, construction coordination and master planning, Max introduced GIS as a planning and operations tool to the park district. He began inventorying the park district’s assets and utilities, and developed a district wide tree inventory that has become a highly-utilized work management asset for their arbor team.

Before studying Landscape Architecture, Max served for 10 years in the U.S. Army and Pennsylvania Army National Guard. His service took him all around the United States, South Korea and Eastern Europe, sparking a love for travel and a fascination with the built environment. As a civilian, Max spent an additional year exploring Europe while living in Zagreb, Croatia.

Heather’s prior experience as an interior designer gives her a unique perspective to view a project from multiple angles and influences her work by creating spaces that merge the built environment with the natural world.   In her current role she assists the firm in site analysis, design development and construction documents for projects ranging from educational campuses to community planning. 

Prior to joining Pashek + MTR, Heather spent several years as an Accessibility Specialist and has extensive experience working with the ADA standards.  In addition to performing audits of park facilities she has experience integrating accessible design ideas seamlessly into the landscape, allowing all users to interact with the space in the same, inclusive way.   She has helped incorporate accessibility into a variety of projects including playgrounds, walking trails, golf courses, and sports stadiums.

Heather is a member of Humane Action Pittsburgh,  which works to make Pennsylvania a humane state for animals through legislative efforts as well as advocating for veganism and reducing plastic waste which can end up in our waterways.

Keely is an energetic and passionate designer who is excited to work on a diversity of projects.   She has a deep appreciation of the beauty of plants which is often reflected in her planting designs.

Her background in horticulture provides an invaluable knowledge on plant selection and care requirements.  Keely’s prior experience in landscape management provides her with an understanding of the day to day demands that come with various landscapes.

Her skills include digital rendering and graphic design using Adobe Suite, three-dimensional modeling with SketchUp, and drafting with AutoCAD.   She also enjoys utilizing her artistic skills in photography, sketching, and painting within her work.

Alex is passionate about creating engaging, thoughtful, and sustainable designs. Her goal is to establish stronger communities and environments for the next generation by promoting nature-based, healthy outdoor environments. She has a strong work ethic, good design thinking, and a drive to create well-conceived, high-quality crafted solutions.

Her background consists of an Undergraduate Degree in Architecture and a Master’s Degree in Landscape Architecture. This combination provides her with the unique perspective to merge the indoor and outdoor environment and provide wholistic solutions to her projects.

Prior to working at Pashek + MTR, Alex has experience with large scale urban projects, terrace designs, housing developments, and university projects. As well as assisting in client/community relations, she provided thoroughly detailed and thought-out concepts from schematic design through permitting. Because of the intricacy of her previous work, she has a proficiency to see how the small details contribute to the larger picture.

In addition to her previous work in large scale projects, she has experience creating ‘outdoor learning environments’ for childcare centers, public and independent schools, community centers, and neighborhoods. Alex used a research-based design approach to establish hands-on, compelling, and immersive natural environments where children and families could learn and grow. Additionally, through this work, she learned effective design through a community-based process by leading workshops to provide consensus-based design solutions.

James is an energetic and thoughtful planner. He is passionate about sustainability, placemaking, and urban affairs. James is fascinated by the ways the planning process can be used to address a community’s most complicated problems. He is constantly working to find creative and place-based solutions for his client communities. James has experience in policy analysis and stakeholder management developed during his time working in public affairs.

Prior to joining Pashek+MTR, while living overseas, James developed a keen awareness for the role that transportation and the built environment play in impacting the ways a community is perceived. He applied this international perspective to his dissertation at the University of Cambridge which examined automobile use and transportation policy in Pittsburgh through a framework of place-sensitivity. James is also an accomplished athlete, competing at an elite-level while rowing at Cambridge and Wisconsin. Some of his accomplishments include representing the United States at the Under-23 World Championships and competing in The Boat Race.

An active member in the community, James is a volunteer rowing coach in his spare time. He also recently founded a river trash clean-up program on the Monongahela River at Hazelwood Green.

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 undergraduate degrees in Environmental Science, Global Studies, and GIS, 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.

Jess is a rising senior studying Communications Design and Literature at Carnegie Mellon University. As the Communication Design intern, they create all kinds of things—project branding, plan documents, posters, flyers, postcards… the list goes on!

Jess is passionate about telling both visual and verbal stories, and specializes in hand-lettering and custom typography. Their work at Pashek+MTR combines these passions, allowing them to tell stories about the places we design for.

Prior to working at Pashek+MTR, Jess has worked as a design intern at Carnegie Mellon University Press. They’ve also done freelance design and lettering work for Netflix, Critical Role, and the University of Michigan, amongst others.

When they’re not designing, you’ll likely find them reading, journaling, practicing guitar, or playing Dungeons & Dragons.

Tricia specializes in construction documentation, stormwater management, and erosion and sedimentation control.  She has worked on site projects of all types and sizes throughout her years at Pashek + MTR.

Tricia’s skills include site and land use inventory, schematic design, grading, master planning, and construction documentation.  Her work spans commercial development, parks and recreation facilities, schools, and streetscapes.  Her all-around skills make her a valuable team member in the development and preparation of site design and recreation projects.

Outside of the office, Tricia enjoys spending time with her husband and three kids and their many activities.

Since joining the firm in 2005, Matt’s role has been to organize and develop base mapping and construction documents for a wide range of projects. His organizational skills, tech-savviness and cool head in the face of a deadline helps our team meet and exceed client expectations.

Matt creates drawings for site analysis, master planning, design development and construction documents using AutoCAD software and other information technology. Our team relies on Matt to keep our hardware and software running smoothly. He helps reduce the carbon footprint of our office by biking to work almost every day.

Since joining the firm in 2000, Amber has advanced our firm’s digital graphic communication capabilities and developed innovative techniques for producing plan renderings, 3D digital models, and technical illustrations. Our landscape architects rely on Amber to help convey our ideas clearly and compellingly. Her work has been used in numerous capital campaigns and outreach efforts to build support for master planning and site design projects.

Amber continually works to learn and take advantage of updated software capabilities to allow us to produce high quality documents more efficiently. In addition to her skills with graphics software such as Adobe Creative Suite and Sketchup, Amber is also adept with AutoCAD and has helped our firm adopt various CAD techniques that allow us to coordinate our construction documents more efficiently and effectively. She is also skilled at hand sketching and rendering.