Tricia Kessler

Chief Strategic Officer, Senior Planner

Ms. Kessler is Chief Strategic Officer and Senior Master Planner with The Urban Collaborative (UC). She served in the U.S. Air Force as a Civil Engineer officer on active duty for eight years, and retired from the Air Force Reserves after 12 more years. She has over 30 years of military planning experience. As an assistant professor at the Air Force Institute of Technology teaching architecture, planning, and combat engineering, Tricia began participating in Air Force planning assistance teams, creating Area Development Plans (ADPs) worldwide. She has been a part of the UC since its inception in 2006.

Throughout her planning career, she has been a planner, facilitator, or project manager on over 80 planning charrettes worldwide. She managed a five-year effort at Fort Hood that resulted in a new Vision Plan, 11 Area Development Plans, Area Development and Execution Plans, and Sustainability Component Plans, reuse plans for the Carl Darnall Army Medical Center and Post Exchange, and a new Memorial Park Master Plan. Projects for all four military branches and municipal efforts have led to expertise in sustainable planning, form-based coding, force protection, and airfield operational planning issue. She earned her Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Notre Dame and completed Squadron Officer School at Maxwell Air Force Base. Her projects have won over 25 planning and design awards.

Ms. Kessler lives in Beavercreek, Ohio, adjacent to Wright Patterson Air Force Base, with her husband, where they raised six children.