Officers and Staff
Chairman of the Board – Christopher J. Duerksen
Christopher Duerksen, Esq., is managing director of Clarion Associates of Colorado, LLC, a land use consulting firm with offices in Denver, Fort Collins, Chapel Hill, Chicago, Cincinnati, and Philadelphia. He has represented local governments, nonprofits, and the private sector in a variety of land-use and zoning matters and specializes in development code revisions, growth management planning, historic preservation, natural resource and scenic area protection strategies, airport-area development, and market development strategies. A co-founder of The Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute, Mr. Duerksen has written and spoken extensively on land use issues in Colorado and nationally. He has authored many books and articles on land use and conservation issues, including Takings Law in Plain English, Aesthetics, Community Character, and the Law, and True West: Authentic Development Patterns for Small Towns and Rural Areas and speaks extensively across the United States on those subjects.
He is a former elected member of the city council in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and directed the Gateway/Stapleton Development Office for the City of Denver prior to joining Clarion.
President – Thomas J. Ragonetti, Esq.
Thomas J. Ragonetti, Esq., is a senior shareholder and director of Otten, Johnson, Robinson, Neff & Ragonetti, P.C., a leading commercial law firm in Denver, where he specializes in land use, government regulation, urban and real estate development, and construction law. He represents private and public sector clients locally and nationally in matters involving complex governmental approvals and large scale development and construction and is active in civic matters including the same issues. Mr. Ragonetti has degrees in law from Harvard Law School and in City Planning from Cornell University. He is an adjunct professor in the School of Architecture and Planning, University of Colorado at Denver, where he teaches Growth Management, and an adjunct professor in Sturm College of Law at the University of Denver, where he teaches Land Use Planning. He is President of The Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute and has served on the Colorado Land Use Commission. Mr. Ragonetti frequently chairs and speaks in continuing legal education and planning programs devoted to land use, development and related topics.
Vice President of Academic for Academic Affairs – Federico Cheever »
Executive Director – James van Hemert, A.I.C.P.
James van Hemert, A.I.C.P., is the Executive Director of the Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute. His areas of expertise include community master planning, conservation subdivision design, town center planning, local government development review, and contextual planning in the Rocky Mountain West. He has a wide range of planning and community development experience in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors and has worked in the Toronto region, the Philippines, Mississippi, and Colorado. Recent experience includes serving as Planning Director for the City of Southaven, Mississippi and as a planning manager and Chief Planner for Douglas County, Colorado. He co-authored with Chris Duerksen True West: Authentic Development Patterns for Small Towns and Rural Areas, published by APA Press in the spring of 2003.
Program Coordinator
Heather McLeod