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May 8    Urban Ecology Solutions for Sustainable Communities
Dr. Nancy Rottle, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture, University of Washington College of Architecture and Urban Planning; Bob Spencer, Manager of Urban Watersheds Section, Seattle Public Utilities, City of Seattle; and Karen Luetjen, Executive Director of Seattle Tilth
Learn from academics and practicing experts on why urban ecology is so crucial to sustainable communities and what programs are effective to recreate and preserve this ecology. Hear about successful examples of making urban ecology a central tenet of creating sustainable communities.

Dr. Nancy Rottle, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture, University of Washington College of Architecture and Urban Planning
Associate Professor Nancy Rottle joined the Landscape Architecture faculty after over a decade of professional practice in the Pacific Northwest and a former career as an educator. Her interests center around the use of design as a means to create places that are culturally meaningful, ecologically healthy, and experientially resonant. She is concerned with making the connections between ideas, design, and the successful realization of vital, livable and regenerative places. She is particularly interested in the design of environments for ecological and cultural literacy, ecological treatment of water in design, and in issues and methodologies for preserving valued agricultural, historic, and middle landscapes.

Nancy’s interests are fueled by her experience working as a landscape architect and planner on projects ranging from large-scale preservation planning, such as the Mountains to Sound Greenway and Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve, to detailed design and construction, including the Cedar River Watershed Education Center and Rattlesnake Lake Park. Eleven of her fourteen years of professional practice were with the Seattle architecture and landscape architecture firm of Jones & Jones, where she worked on education centers, interpretive planning and design, national and local parks, historic preservation, and landscape restoration projects. Her experiences living and traveling in Britain and Europe continue to inspire and inform her design sensibility.

Nancy completed BLA and MLA degrees at the University of Oregon, after studying educational psychology at Fairhaven College and teaching for nine years. Prior to teaching at the UW, she co-taught professional development courses on Sustainable Design at Harvard, and Design Studios and Plant Materials at the University of Oregon. At the UW, she now teaches Design Studios, Graphic Communication, Sustainable Construction, and a Cultural Landscape and Interpretation Seminar, teaching in both the BLA and MLA programs. Nancy is a registered Landscape Architect in the State of Washington.

Bob Spencer, Manager, Urban Watersheds Section, Seattle Public Utilities, City of Seattle
Bob Spencer works on promoting and supporting decentralized storm water solutions for Seattle Public Utilities, with an emphasis on residential applications. In the last 14 years, he has worked for both King County and the City of Seattle coordinating volunteer restoration of riparian areas, providing educational workshops on diverse topics from native plants to residential best management practices, and supporting citizen stewardship of our aquatic resources from the Snoqualmie River to Puget Sound.

Bob headed the Creek Steward program at Seattle Public Utilities until 2008, when his work focus shifted entirely to green infrastructure technologies. This work includes monitoring the storm water flows of green roofs, stewardship support and education of the city's natural drainage system neighborhoods, and strategies for residential storm water control. He is currently working on the Lakewood RainCatcher project, which is piloting the installation of over 100 rain gardens and cisterns on residential properties in a combined sewer overflow basin in southeast Seattle.

Bob has a BA in Speech Communication from the Pennsylvania State University.

Karen Luetjen, Executive Director, Seattle Tilth
Karen Luetjen (pronounced LOOT-jen) serves as Executive Director of the Seattle Tilth Association, which has for 30 years provided hands-on training in organic gardening, conserving natural resources and supporting local food systems. Tilth maintains two demonstration gardens, a children's garden and it runs The Garden Hotline and the Master Composter program for Seattle Public Utilities. Programming takes place all over Seattle and a program partnership with the City of Issaquah will soon be announced.

Previously, Karen worked as an administrator in history museums, where she helped develop exhibits about the environmental history of our region, among other topics. She worked as Deputy Director for the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle, Director for the Marymoor Museum of Eastside History in Redmond (now the Eastside Heritage Center) and the Director of Public Programs at the Valentine Museum in Richmond, Virginia.

She has a MA in History Museum Studies from SUNY Oneonta, a BA in History & German from Washington University and was a Fellow at the Getty Leadership Institute in 1994. In her spare time, she attempts to practice what she preaches in her Greenwood garden.
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