Program Staff
 |
Jody Kass, Executive Director, co-founded and directs New Partners for Community Revitalization. Jody is responsible for managing the overall organization and the day-to-day activities of NPCR, including fund raising, operations of the board of directors, and conceiving and implementing a broad range of program activities.
Prior to NPCR, Jody was Vice President of the nonprofit NYC Housing Partnership, where she worked from 1989 to 2001. During her 12 years at the Housing Partnership, Jody helped coordinate the construction of over 16,000 affordable housing units, representing over $1.5 billion in private investment in 50 low income communities around New York City. Working with dozens of builders, Jody managed the extraordinary regulatory issues that arose on development projects in the Partnership New Homes Program, Neighborhood Entrepreneurs Program, and Partnership Plaza/ANCHOR Neighborhood Retail Program. Her expertise covers coordinating the intersection of regulatory, financing and marketing issues; hazardous materials issues; sewer, highway and building permits; landmarks, archaeology, and historic rehabilitation tax credits; lead-based paint and asbestos issues; and zoning, and other land use and environmental approvals. Jody managed the Partnership’s Cooperative Sponsor role in the EPA-funded NYC Brownfields Economic Redevelopment Initiative beginning in 1996, and she served on Governor Pataki’s Superfund Working Group from 1998-99. Jody also created and coordinated the Pocantico Roundtable for Consensus on Brownfields and co-led the Brownfields Coalition, an association of over 100 diverse organizations who came together in support of the legislative proposal that emerged from the Pocantico Roundtable.
Email Jody at jodykass@npcr.net.
Laura Truettner is the Deputy Director at NPCR. A geologist by training with over 20 years experience in environmental consulting, Ms. Truettner has managed NPCR’s project work since 2005 through two key programs, the Brownfields START-UP Program and the NY Metro Brownfield Redevelopment Fund Program (Metro Fund Program). She also participates in NPCR’s policy work and has prepared reports on environmental insurance and federal and state site assessment grant programs and is actively working on initiatives to enhance the EPA Brownfields grant programs.
Through NPCR’s START-UP Program, Ms. Truettner is involved in brownfield redevelopment projects in all five boroughs. She provides hands-on technical expertise to both for-profit and nonprofit development teams working to advance community supported redevelopment projects. Her expertise includes evaluation of schedule and costs for and technical assistance on investigative and remedial programs; RFP development; technical service provider contracting; regulatory programs and the coordination of remediation and construction on redevelopment projects.
Ms. Truettner led the public-private consulting and legal team that in 2004 developed the internal procedures for the Metro Fund Program, which include environmental underwriting guidelines, procedures for monitoring remediation loans and an early warning system that requires close monitoring of project costs and schedule and includes flags that trigger external action. Ms. Truettner is currently involved in strategies for improving and enhancing the program.
Prior to joining NPCR, Ms. Truettner worked as an environmental consultant to private industry for sixteen years, first with McLaren/Hart and later with ERM where she managed their NYC Office. Ms. Truettner directed a range of petroleum and hazardous waste site investigation and remediation projects in New York, New Jersey and Michigan that were conducted under State and Federal Superfund, ISRA and NYSDEC Spills regulatory programs. She was responsible for project strategy, design of soil and groundwater investigation programs, management of field teams and contractors, data interpretation, report preparation, project budget and schedule compliance and regulatory agency negotiations. Ms. Truettner left ERM in 2000 and while obtaining a Masters Degree in Urban Planning at NYU began work with NPCR’s former Co-Director Mathy Stanislaus as a technical advisor to community groups. Over the last six years she has worked with the Newtown Creek Monitoring Committee, the Hunts Point Monitoring Committee and the Gowanus Community Stakeholders Group, on the mitigation of community impacts from large, multi-year, urban infrastructure construction projects.
Email Laura at ltruettner@npcr.net.
John W. Fleming currently serves as NPCR’s BOA Policy Director. In this capacity he coordinates NPCR’s training program and conducts outreach to NPCR’s CBO constituency in NYC. He also assists with the development of NPCR’s policy agendas in Albany and NYC. He was recently asked to lead NPCR’s new BOA Assistance Program which will provide critical services to NYC’s BOA grantees.
John has worked in the field of community development and planning for over 15 years. He worked for El Puente in Brooklyn from 1993-2002 and his roles have included community organizer, project manager, program director and senior management. He helped to coordinate the Community Alliance for the Environment (CAFÉ) which opposed and defeated a city proposal to construct an incinerator in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. John was a founding faculty member of the El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice, NYC’s first public high school dedicated to human rights. He led the effort to secure a new building for the Academy in El Puente’s neighborhood of Williamsburg, an effort that first introduced him to the issues of brownfield re-development. John also served as the Southside Coordinator for the Williamsburg Waterfront 197-A Plan. During this period John served on the Boards of Director of the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance (NYCEJA).
From 2003-2006 John worked for the Pratt Center as the Project Manager of the NOAA funded Bronx River Waterfront Access & Planning Project, a project sponsored by Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice. The project entailed the conduct of feasibility studies of properties along the Bronx River for potential re-use. It also involved community stakeholder advocacy in the remedial planning for a Manufactured Gas Plant (MGP) buried under a local park along the Bronx River (Starlight Park).
From 2006-2008 John worked as a Research Associate with CIET International (Community Information and Epidemiology Technologies), an international NGO engaged in evidence based planning in various parts of the world. In this capacity he prepared scientific literature reviews for research projects on youth health risks among aboriginal communities in Canada, potential adverse effects of measles vaccinations in Lasbela, Pakistan and for HIV primary prevention trials in southern Africa. He attended CIET’s ADAPT (African Development of AIDS Prevention Trial Capacity) training held in Gabarone, Botwana (2007). While there he conducted a workshop called Resilience & Enculturation. John co-authored four peer reviewed articles with senior CIET officials.
Email John at jfleming@npcr.net.
Tawkiyah Jordan is currently working as NPCR’s BOA Technical Assistance Director/Community Liaison. In this role, Tawkiyah's work encompasses providing technical assistance to CBO's managing or interested in developing BOA's in their neighborhoods, working to inform BOA program policy through lessons learned in practice and helping to advance initiatives that link NYC, NYS and Federal brownfield and smart growth programs and how they might be implemented most effectively for local communities. Ms. Jordan has worked in the fields of community development and environmental planning for ten years. She has unique familiarity with the BOA program having worked with multiple CBO led BOA’s and playing a key role in identifying opportunities for New York City to become a more effective partner to BOA grantees in NYC. Prior to coming to NPCR, Ms. Jordan worked with Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice as the Director of Community Development and Planning. Her responsibilities included administration of the South Bronx Waterfront BOA, multiple environmental sustainability and/or brownfield remediation projects and all of the organization’s community organizing and outreach efforts. Ms. Jordan has also worked as City Planner for a mid-size community in Michigan. While there she staffed the city’s Historic District Commission, was responsible for project management on both transportation planning and economic development efforts and managed the city’s Neighborhood Preservation Program and Home Investment Partnership programs.
Email Tawkiyah at tjordan@npcr.net
©2009 New Partners for Community Revitalization
11 Penn Plaza, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10001
  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
