2025 Education Symposium

8:00am—8:30am / Breakfast
Included in registration

8:30am—9:30am / Session 1
Professional Ethics (1 Ethics CEU)

  • Director of People & Culture / Senior Principal, Bolton & Menk

    Mr. Martini is a Senior Principal Engineer with Bolton & Menk, where he has professional responsibilities that include serving as City Engineer for several communities. Over the course of his career, Mr. Martini has been active in organizations that promote the value of licensure and the protection of public health, safety, and welfare.  He has served in many leadership positions for the Minnesota Society of Professional Engineers (MnSPE), including President in 2011-12 and 2022-23 and the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE), including President in 2019-20.  Mr. Martini currently serves on the Minnesota AELSLAGID Board of Licensure.

9:45am—10:45am / Session 2
MN Wild — Natural Systems & Comprehensive Planning in the Twin Cities (1 CEU)

  • Senior Planner, Met Council

    Shawn is a Sector Representative with the Met Council, and provides assistance to communities in the comprehensive planning process. He leads natural systems policy implementation and technical assistance at the Met Council. He previously worked as a planner and project manager with the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization, and as a long-range planner with the City of Bloomington. Shawn has a Masters in Landscape Architecture from the University of Illinois.

  • Steering Team Member, Metro Conservation Network

    Gina Bonsignore is a natural resource planning and design professional with thirty years of experience working collaboratively with agencies, non-profits, stakeholders, private sector clients and citizen groups to preserve, protect and enhance natural systems in urban, suburban and rural environments. Gina is an ASLA member and a licensed landscape architect in the state of Minnesota.

11:00am—12:00pm / Session 3
Landscape Architect as City Doctor: Treating Urban Ailments Through Insights and Interventions (1 CEU)

  • Executive Director, Destination Medical Center Economic Development Agency

    Patrick Seeb is executive director of Destination Medical Center Economic Development Agency (DMC). Located in the Mayo Clinic’s hometown of Rochester, Minn., DMC is the state’s largest public-private economic development initiative. It aims over 20 years to transform Rochester into a global destination for health and wellness by catalyzing more than $5 billion in private investment. Seeb leads a team responsible for attracting private development, deploying innovative public investment and applying 21st century city design practices to achieve DMC’s vision.

    Prior to joining DMC, Seeb was executive director of the Saint Paul Riverfront Corporation, where he was responsible for the multibillion-dollar transformation of the city’s downtown.  At that time, he also was president of Grand Excursion, Inc., a four-state, 400-mile, 50-city riverfront planning, education and promotion program.  

  • Director of Community Engagement and Experience, Destination Medical Center Economic Development Agency

    Jamie Rothe is the Destination Medical Center (DMC) Director of Community Engagement and Experience. Jamie has held multiple roles since she joined the team in 2013. Currently she is responsible for development and implementation of the community engagement and experience strategies for the DMC initiative. 

    DMC is a one-of-a-kind 20-year economic development initiative the largest in Minnesota’s history. The $5.6 billion plan focuses on Mayo Clinic and, Rochester downtown growth focusing on continued position of a global destination for health and wellness. 

    Recent project work includes leading the development of Mayo Clinic’s Discovery Square Development Plan and developing the methodology and implementation of DMC and City of Rochester’s Business Forward Strategy. 

    Prior to working on the DMC initiative, Jamie worked for Mayo Clinic focusing on solving for complex problems by creating and implementing change management and communications strategies. 

    Jamie holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in business management and a Master of Business Administration from Augsburg University in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

  • Equitable Development Coordinator, Destination Medical Center Economic Development Agency

    Wafa Elkhalifa is the Destination Medical Center Equitable Development Coordinator. Wafa is responsible for coordinating collaboration between DMC EDA and other community organizations and businesses in Rochester to help advance affordable housing initiatives, grow community co-design efforts, and assist the implementation of DMC EDA’s strategies through an equity lens. She is responsible for fostering relationships in the Rochester community through equitable engagement, and capacity building.

    Wafa has her undergraduate in organizational communication from the University of Minnesota. Wafa’s personal passions include growing the inclusion of diverse perspectives by creating pathways for democratic participation in the decision-making of policies and procedures. She is on the board of the First Homes Program, and a member of the Cradle 2 Career Leadership Table.

12:-00pm—1:00pm / Lunch
Included in registration

1:00pm—2:00pm / Session 4
On Collaboration: LA Advocacy in AE Firms (1 CEU)

  • Director of Landscape Architecture, HGA

    Kathleen is the Director of Landscape Architecture at HGA.  With 28 years of experience in both private and public organizations, Kathleen is passionate about creating spaces that create a deeper connection between people and their environment. Her design approach focuses on preserving the most valuable aspects of the landscape while enhancing areas that need the most care. Drawing from her diverse background she brings a well-rounded perspective to her projects, preserving the most valuable aspects of the landscape. Whether designing parks, plazas, or natural spaces, Kathleen is committed to crafting inviting, resilient landscapes that inspire people to enjoy and engage with the outdoors.

  • Senior Landscape Architect, LHB

    Nikki Schlepp, PLA, ASLA is a Senior Landscape Architect at LHB bringing a background in studio art, theater, and teaching to her role. Her multi-disciplinary design approach promotes creativity, curiosity, and collaboration. With two decades of experience, Nikki excels in the public sector, partnering with communities and public agencies across Minnesota on planning, parks, education, affordable housing, commercial, and government projects. She is passionate about advancing regenerative design solutions. Her most recent projects include "The Heights” carbon-free community in Saint Paul, the Carleton College Student Housing Expansion in Northfield, and Avenues for Youth supportive housing in North Minneapolis.

  • Senior Project Landscape Architect, Bolton & Menk

    Anna Springer is a senior landscape architect at Bolton & Menk. Anna has over 12 years of experience working with communities, client groups, stakeholders, and a wide range of multi-disciplinary collaborators on a wide range of project types. With an emphasis and focus on parks, Anna seeks to understand and meet the recreational and social needs and desires of the people in the communities she serves by helping plan, design, and implement projects that are beautiful, restorative, and earth-positive. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Urban Forestry from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Minnesota.

  • Director, Coen+Partners

    Laura is an Urban Infrastructures Studio Director at Coen+Partners, where she leads the office’s integration of BIM to manage the design and documentation of complex urban projects across the world. She maintains a focus on human interactions with space and place, believing that successful site design should be functionally elegant. Laura draws inspiration from her background of theatrical design, where every element on the stage is imbued with meaning, and from her Bachelor of Arts in German, where every story is filled with symbolism. Laura is the current co-chair of WxLA-MN.

2:15pm—3:15pm / Session 5
Embracing the AI Revolution — Transforming City Planning Practices (& Thinking about Ethical Implications of AI) (1 CEU)

  • Senior Planner, Bolton & Menk
    Jane Kansier, AICP, is a senior urban planner with more than 40 years of experience in the public and private sectors. She has worked in city and county planning, city administration, and public transit and has extensive experience in land use, zoning, and development review. Although semi-retired, Jane continues to help communities with planning services. Jane served as a Professional Development Officer for the Minnesota chapter of the American Planning Association for 13 years, and was also the recipient of the 2022 Lynn Jorgenson Leadership Award from the American Planning Association, and the MN APA 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award honoree.

  • Senior Planner, Bolton & Menk

    Nathan is a Senior Planner at Bolton & Menk, the City Planner for Newport, MN, and a consulting planner for communities around the Twin Cities metro. His responsibilities include daily planning services and coordinating large or complex development reviews, managing the development of planning studies and reports, and assisting in comprehensive planning and updates. In a decade of municipal planning work, Nathan has developed a great understanding of what makes for good public review of challenging development projects. Nathan’s passion for the field stems from how rewarding he finds it to see the impact of planning on our everyday lives.

3:30pm—4:30pm / Session 6
Keynote Speech: Impressions (1 CEU)

  • Partner, Snøhetta

    Michelle Delk is a Partner with Snøhetta and leads the Landscape Architecture practice in the Americas. As a passionate advocate and designer of the public realm, her work is evocative of a foundational premise shared with Snøhetta: to create places that enhance the positive relationships between people and their environments. Michelle encourages innovative approaches to collaboration that are nonhierarchical and trans-disciplinary. Both aspirational and pragmatic, she seeks to discover and expand the urban landscape vernacular, striving to express the subtleties of place through the incongruities of memory, environment, and social perceptions. Michelle is a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Laurie Olin Professor of Practice at the University of Pennsylvania, a board member with the NYC Urban Design Forum, and a member of The Cultural Landscape Foundation Stewardship Council. She actively supports a variety of landscape advocacy organizations, curatorial projects, and academic institutions.