26privateconsultant.pdf

The

Private

Consultant

in

Public

Planning

Interviews

with

Glenn

Harbeck

and

George

Chapman

r

'Carolina

Planning

invited

Glenn

Harbeck. aprivate consultant,and

George

Chapman,

a publicplanner, togivetheirviews onthe role ofthe privateconsultantinthe practice ofpublicsectorplanning.

Harbeck

is

currentlya consulting plannerwith apracticefocused

on

community

involvement basedplanning.

He

holds

a Master's of Regional Planningfromthe University of NorthCarolinaat Chapel Hill.

Chapman

is Director

of Planning forthe Cits ofRaleigh.

He

also holds a

Masters

of Regional Planning from the University of North Carolinaat Chapel Hill. These interviews appear

below

infacing columns.

Interview* with

Glenn

Harbeck, Private Consultant:

How

much

of

your

work

is

done

for public

agencies?

Almost

all, if

you

include non-profits and uni-versities together with city, county, and state

gov-ernments.

Most

of

my

work

iswith citiesand

coun-ties. It's probably

90%

cities and counties and

10%

innon-profits,publicuniversities,stategovernment, and private companies.

Do

you

think

private

consultants

are

more

common

in public

planning

now

than

they

used

to

be?

Why

or

why

not?

It varies tremendously from agency to agency.

Some

communitiesregularly

employ

consulting plan-ners, while other communities

employ them

much

less often. If

you

look atthe

number

ofcallingcards

intheback of Planning magazine,

you would

haveto

say

more

on average.

Many

ofmy

client

communi-tieshire

me

becausethey'resobusyputting outfires

thattheyreallydon'thavetimeto giveproper atten-tion tolong rangeissuesorstrategicplanningissues

kindofa"where are

we

headedas anagency and asa

community."

Also,

some

public agenciesarefeeling

pressure to do

more

with a smaller staff, and rather

Interview with

George

Chapman.

PublicPlanner:

How

often

does

your agency

deal

with

private

consultants?

We

handle relatively few private consultants in

theplanning department.

We

may

doas

many

asthree

to five in a year. That varies greatly depending on

the

work

program.

We

typically retain private

con-sultants for very specialized kinds of work. There might be a consultant to do the design

work

on the

layout and format of publications we're doing, and

we

currently have a consultant studying a series of

signage proposals for the

downtown

area, but

we

rarelyuse consultantsto doland useplanningwork.

It's almost all done by the staff. I

would

think

you

would

find a smaller agency

more

likely to hire a

consultantto assist

them

with acomprehensiveplan

or area plan orsomething ofthatnature.

Do

you

use private

consulting

planners

more

or less

now

than

you

did in the past?

What

have been

the

trends

over

time?

It's pretty

much

stayedthe same,but Ithink

we

probably use

them

for different purposes

now

than

we

have in the past.

We

probably use private

than add

on

anotherpermanent staff position, they

are inclined to hire outwardtoa consultant

My

first

full-time job out ofgraduate school

was

inthe area

oflong range planningandpolicyanalysis.Speaking

fromthatexperiencefifteenortwentyyearsago,even

then

you

were often pulled offyour responsibilities

asa long range plannertohelp fightthecurrent

plan-ningfires.

And

Idon't thinkthe situationhaschanged

all that

much.

How

would

you

describe

the role of the private

consultant

in public

planning?

If

you

look at the role ofthe private consultant

from the public planning agency's perspective, I'm

oftentimes viewed as an extension ofthe stafffora

particular project foraparticular period oftime.

On

the other hand, I'm also viewed as an independent

advisor or outside expert

by

the public at large.

Whether

that'sthe realityofitornot, that isthe

per-ceptionthatoftentimes thepublichas. Iview

my

job

asprobablyabout9/10the formerand 1/10 thelatter

Ireallypreferto

work

asan extensionofthe staffand

be partofthe team.

What

are the

advantages

of

being

a private

consulting

planner?

Having

worked

in both public agencies as well

as in private practice, I

would

say that the primary

advantage isnot being

hampered

bytheconstant

de-mands

and interruptions that a publicagency office

can experience.You'renotworkingquite as

much

in

the fishbowl.

You

still havethe

same

obligationsto

the

work

that

you

dointhefishbowl, but1don'tthink

you're viewed as being quite as accessible all day

long with

phone

calls and people just dropping in.

That

was

clearly

some

of

my

experience workingin

public agencies. It's just a question really ofdaily

productivity versusthe

number

ofinterruptions.

I

would

like to talk about one otheradvantage

Many

timesthe clients that I'mworkingwithare

car-rying "baggage''with

them

when

they

go

intoa

pub-lic meeting, whether they

want

to or not. I use the

word

baggage in quotes,

meaning

that

many

public

planners are putin the position of havingto sayno,

and

when

you

say no you're going to

make

some-body

unhappy.You're eithergoingto

make

adevel-assistinginpolicy planning. Inthe pastthey

may

have been

more

activeinthepolicyplanningarea,butour

staffis

now

more

gearedtohandlingthepolicy plan-ningandrelatedactivities. Therearefewerlong range

planning studies

now

underway

than there were in

the past, andso ourneedto supplementthe staff ca-pacity isless.

On

theotherhand,

we

would

still rely

on a consultantfora highlytechnical or highly

spe-cialized kind ofanalysis that

we

wouldn't have the staffcapacityto do.

How

would

you

describe the role of the private

consultant

in public

planning?

Today,

we

look atprivateconsultants as

supple-ments to our stafffortechnical capabilities that

we

do not have in-house. Forinstance,

we

would

use a

consultant for the development ofa

computer

pro-gram

or

some

software to perform an analysiswith.

The

consultants are

more

likely tobe specialists of

some

typeasopposedtogeneral planners.

They

might

be economists, they might be

GIS

specialists, they

mightbe urbandesigners, but they're notlikelytobe

general planners.

Forinstance, we've hiredconsultants todo

eco-nomic

base studies.

We've

hired consultantsto help

usinthelayoutandfonnat ofthe design ofthe

com-prehensive plan

—

they'realmostlikepublishing

spe-cialists, if

you

will.

We've

used consultants to

de-sign our

GIS

system

The

Planning Department has

used consultantstodevelophistoric district

nomina-tiondocumentation. Right

now

we

havea consultant

undercontract to design asystem ofsignageforthe

downtown

area, agraphics system basically

What

are

some

of the

advantages

of

working

with

outside

consultants?

Fortheadvantages, again, I'd breakthe

consult-ants roles into

two

basic types ofroles.

One

would

offertechnicalassistanceandtheother

would

supple-ment

our professional capacity, and by that I

mean

just to handle workload.

The

biggest advantage of

professionalplanningassistanceistostretchyourstaff

capacity

when

you haveaworkload peakkindof

situ-ation.

We

occasionally

do

that,

and

as

we

are

downsizing and as other agencies are downsizing I

oper

unhappy

who

has grand plans for a particular project,or

you

may

make

the neighborhoods around

aparticulardevelopment unhappy. You'reoftentimes

caught in the middle ofa difficult situation, and throughno faultofyour

own

asa publicsector plan-ner

you

endup earningthat"baggage"'with you.

And

I don't

mean

that in a negative

way

at all I'mjust

sayingthat thatisa circumstancethata publicsector

planner has to deal with. I often see the publictreat

thepublicsectorplannerunfairlybecausetheagency

itself

may

have a perception in the

community

as

havingaparticularagendaorhaving beentookindto

developers orwhateverthecasemightbe. It'snofault

ofthe individualandit'sreallyno faultoftheagency,

its just the public's perception.

When

you're

mak-ing tough decisions every day you have to say no

occasionally, and

maybe

that's a disadvantage of

working

inthe publicsector.

What

are

the

disadvantages

of

being

a private

consultant?

They

areprimarily relatedtotime. Inthe

advan-tages section I said that you're constantly being

in-terrupted as a public sector planner. Well, as a

pri-vate sector consulting planner you also have time

problems, but they're problems of a different kind

and they're mostly related to time

away

from your

family oryourpersonallifeandfriends.You're

wait-ing in airportsor spendingconsecutivenightsin

ho-telsormotels, or you'redrivingatnightbetween

com-munities, or

you

may

just be keeping up with the

books orpreparing forconferences or presentations.

Those

kinds of continuous

demands

on time can

stretch an ordinary 40 hour

workweek

into an

aver-age 55 to 65 hours perweek. This is time doing the

extra

work

to keep apractice

up

to snuff. That's not

todiscountthe factthat

when

I

was

inthepublic

sec-toragency

we

certainly didhavealotofnight

meet-ings with the subdivision review board or the

his-toric

commission

orplanning board or city council orcountycommission,butatleast

when

themeeting

is over

you

go

home.

some

kindof peak

demand

fordoingaseriesof

stud-ies

you

would

needtosupplement yourstaff,andthe

advantage ofdoingthatisthat

you

don'tneedtobring

on staffeitherpermanently ortemporarilv and

man-agethatstaff.You'reableto

manage

your workload

orhandlepeaks inyourworkload

more

efficiently.

I

used

to feel that

you

would

never

hire

a

consult-ant

to

do

a

long

range

area

plan,

but

in

some

instances

it

may

be

the best

thing

to

do.

What

are

some

ofthe

disadvantages

of

working

with

outside

consultants?

I guess the

down

side of using consultants to

supplement yourregularstaffis thatthere's often a

great deal oftime and

money

involved in bringing

the consultants up to speed on whateverthe issue is

becausetheyarenotfamiliarwiththenuances ofit. I

guesspretty

much

thosearethe

same

advantages and

disadvantages ofusing atechnical specialist.

Obvi-ously,

you

don't have to hire

somebody,

and those

kinds ofspecialists are usuallynot around, are

usu-allynotavailable,andprobablyarenotlikely to

want

to

work

ina planning agency. Its nottheir goal.

An-otherdisadvantage ofa consultant inthat roleisthat

when

the consultantisnotavailableyou'velostyour

capacity. In otherwords,it's only atemporaryassist

foryou. Forinstance. I'mthinking aboutthefield of

demography

and

economic

analysis. If

you

bringon

consultantstodo aseries ofpopulation analysesand

forecasts for you. that's great as long as they're

around, butoncethey're

gone

you

onlyhavethe

How

do

you

negotiate

your

role

with

the public

agency

that

you

are

working

for?

I

would

saythat"negotiating yourrole."is done

vers', very early in the process, perhaps even in the

consultant selection process.

You

pretty

much know

whetherthere's acompatiblechemistry between the

client

community

and the consulting planner. I've

been very fortunate in the

communities

that

Eve

worked

with,because Ithink

we've

had

good

chem-istry and

we've

bothviewed

my

roleasan extension

ofthe staff.

Em

usually treated as a

member

ofthe

planningteamratherthanasan outside"expert." I've

found thatthe old style consulting expert is really a

counterproductive role.

Are

there

some

tasks

you

feel a private

consultant

should or should

not

do?

Nothing really

comes

to

mind

on one sideorthe

other I think probably the bestreasons for hiring a

private consultant are to 1) alleviate

some

ofthe

workload burden, and 2) perhaps bring in an

inde-pendentperspective,

somebody

who

doesn'thave any

perceivedvestedinterest inaparticularissueina

com-munity

Most

publicsectorplannersdotheirverybest

nottotakesides intheirwork,butthey'refrequently

perceivedastaking sides

by

the public. I don'thave

as

much

ofaproblem that way.

Getting backto theteam approach and the

plan-ning departmentteam,

my

feelingisthatthe

consult-antshould onlytakerecommendationsforwardas part

oftheplanning

management

team. In otherwords,if

Em

operating as part ofthe planning staff, then I

wouldn't take

my

recommendations forward to the

Board or the Council as an independent consulting

plannerany

more

thanifI

was

astaffplannertrying

totakerecommendationsforward without havingfirst

discussed those recommendations withthe planning

director.

The

analogy is very similar. Occasionally

you

will finda

community

or aparticularboard that

wants the consultantto bring his orher

recommen-dations forward independent ofthe staff, and I find

thatgenerallytobe counterproductive. Ifindthatit's

much

more

effective ifyou're operating as part of

theplanningdepartmentteam Imean,afterall,who's

going to be asked to implementthose

recommenda-tion? It

comes

rightbacktotheplanning department.

How

do

you determine

the role ofthe private

consultant

as a

supplement

to

your

staff?

Are

there

some

tasks

you

would

never

want

a

consultant

to

do?

I doubtthat there are

many

thingsthat are quite

that blackandwhitebecauseitoften justdepends on

the environment

you

find yourselfin. Forinstance,

you

might

on

some

occasions chooseto hire a

con-sultant to handle a particularlydelicate political

is-sue, somethingthat isvolatileinthe

community

be-cause the consultant can

remove

the stafffrom that

political volatility. Otherwisethe staff

may

become

seen as an advocate forone orthe other sidesofthe

issueand run

some

dangeroflosingitseffectiveness

andobjectivity. Ithink

you

canpaint that picture the

other

way

andsaythatthere are

some

issues that are

so sensitive that

you

probably should not use

con-sultantsfor

them

because theymight not be able to

handlethe shiftingpublic opinioninthe

community

ifthey'renotaware ofit or don't

know

how

to read

it

—

itcould get

you

in

more

trouble than you're

get-ting out of.

So

you

have to

make

a decision about

thatgiventhe particular issuethatyou're dealingwith.

I used tofeel that

you

would

neverhire a consultant

to do a long range area plan for

you

because once

they'regonethere'snocapacityto continuetoapply

thatplan ortoevolvethat planas conditions change.

Butin

some

instances it

may

bethe bestthingto do.

I think

you

just have to

make

a

judgment

based on

the complexity ofthe situation,

what

yourstaff

re-sourcesare. whattheircapabilitiesare. and

what

the

political environment is.

What

do

you do

when

you do

not likethe

product

a

consultant

produces?

Well,you reallyshouldneverget into that

situa-tion.

What

I

mean

by that isthat in

working

with a

consultant I don't think

you

can ever give a

consult-ant atask and tell

him

to

come

back and

show

you

the finished product. I

view

the consultant's role in

working with the planning staffas an extension of

thatstaffandtherehas to be continuing relationship

witlithemduringthecourseoftheproject just as

you

would

oversee aprojectdone by your

own

staff.

You

needtotake that rolewith consultantsas wellandso

sotheplanningdepartmenthas gotto feelvery

com-fortablewiththose recommendations.

What

do

you do

if the public

agency you

are

working

for is not

happy

with

your product?

The

way

to avoid that is

by

involving the

deci-sion makers on the front end ofthe process. Icall it

"front-end loading." Ibelieve thatinorderforpeople

to agree

upon

the course ofaction at the end ofa

process,they've gottoagree onthe process itself in

the beginning.

So

if

you want

to avoidhavinga plan

shot

down

atthe end.you'd betterbesureaboutwhat

peoples

priorities andconcernsare onthe frontend

To

answer yourquestion

more

directly, asa

consult-ing planner you're inaservice business.

And

if

you

got into a situation

where

a public agency

was

un-happy

withyourproductyou'd haveto do yourbest

todetermine

what

the specificconcernswere and

how

to fixthem. If

you

don't do that you're probably in

the

wrong

lineof work.

What

are

some

ofthe

most

common

problems

you have encountered

in

working

with

public

agencies?

Ican'tsaythatIcouldidentity'anythingthatcould be calleda

common

problem. Each projectis

differ-entand thankfully all ofus aredifferent inthe

way

we

dothings,

which

keepsthingsinteresting. In each

projectyou'regoingtoencounterproblemsalongthe

way

that

you

need to

work

through Again. I think

the important thing isto establish thechemistry and

the

common

objectives at the beginning ofthe

pro-cess andget people involvedonthe front end. If

you

do that, the chances of having problems are really

minimized. Planners haveto becommunicators.

We

communicate

in our public presentations,

we

com-municate in the reports and ordinances

we

prepare,

and

we

communicate

insmallergroup meetings.Like

anythingelse,things can be

miscommunicated The

better a

communicator you

are, the

more

effective you'llbe asaplanner.

course oftheeffortto

make

sure thatyou're still on

targetwithyourgoals, objectives, time frame, costs,

and everythingelse. Certainly you're goingto

occa-sionally geta consultant

who

comes

to aconclusion

that

you

don't agree with, but

working

closely with

the consultant duringthe

whole

courseofyoureffort

is going to reduce the likelihood ofthat happening.

You

aretheir client,and they needto be responsive

to

you

and yourneeds. That's kind ofa basic

rela-tionship. Certainly there's

room

forprofessional

dis-agreement, different conclusions that are properly

justified, but

you

may

not be too

unhappy

withitif

they'reprofessionallydone andproperlydocumented,

even if

you

disagree with the conclusions. It

would

be foolish to say it's not going to happen

—

some-times you'regoingtoget into asituation with a

con-sultant wherethey're notdoingthe

work

ontime or

their

work

is not satisfactory, but I think the closer

you

are to your project the sooner you're going to identify that.

And

if

you

can'ttake steps to

remedy

that situation, then

you

terminate your relationship

withthe consultant. Butthat shouldn'thappenatthe

end ofthe project.

What

are

some

of the

most

common

problems

you have encountered

in

working

with

private consultants?

Idon't

know

thatthere arerecurring or

common

problems.

The

thing

you

havetobe

most

carefulwith

is

making

sure thatthey do not

become

clients to a

publicgroupor aprivateinterestgroupor

some

other

entity.

You

are their client.

You

haveto

make

sure

thatas the planning agency

you

know

you

are

play-ing the central roleinthedecision-makingprocess

developing alternatives, assessing the consequences

ofthem,tryingto adviseyour governing

body

—

and

that the consultant doesn't take that role from you.

You

have to have a very clearunderstanding at the

beginning ofaproject

by making

it clear asto

what

kind ofcheck pointsduringthe courseofthe project

theyareresponsible for

coming

toyou,and

you

have

tofollowthrough onthat.

I think

managing

a consultant is probably the

thingthat

most

planning agencies underestimatethe

timeand needtodo.

You

often think,well thesefolks are well

known

or well regarded competent profes-sionals,

you

shouldn't havetoworry aboutthat, but

Interview withGlenn Harbeck, Private Consultant:

What

can

public agencies

do

to

improve

their

relationships

with

private

consultants?

The most

effectiveworkingrelationshipsthatI've

hadarewith thoseclients

who

reallyinvolve

me

asa

full

member

ofthe planning staffteam for the

dura-tion ofthe project.

So

theanswertoyourquestionis:

anything that can be done to improve the ability of

the staff toinvolvetheconsultantasa

member

ofthe

team is going to help the project. It could even be

somethingas basicas involvingtheconsultantinthe

preliminary discussions or thinking about what the

project entails asfarasboththe processofpreparing

the product andthe final product. For example, ifa

publicagencyishiringa consultanttopreparea

com-prehensive plan that will require a public planning

process, it'sreally

good

ifthe publicagency can

al-low the consulting plannerto have afree exchange

ofideas

on what

thatpublicplanning process might

be, ratherthan puttingitall

down

tothe«*degreeas

part ofthe request forproposals.

What

I'm

most

in-terested in is

what

are the client's objectives.

What

doesthe client

want

toachieve attheend ofthe

pro-cess? If

we

can agree

upon

the objectives first,just

like in a

good

planningprocess, then the process to

achieve those objectives can betailored to fit.

Most

planning agencieshave regular staff

meet-ings,troubleshootingmeetings, oradvancedplanning

meetings. Ifthose meetings

happen

to be being held

on aday

when

the consultantis inthe

community

or

can be coordinated in such a

way

that the planning

consultant

would

beinthe

community

onthosedays,

it really helps the consulting planner to understand

the full range ofproblems that the planning agency

is facing. Italso helps theconsulting planner

under-standwhere his orherparticularprojectfits into the

bigger picture ofthe agency's responsibilities.

An-other

way

would

be fora consulting plannerto sitin

ona planning board orcitycouncilmeeting, not with

a particular objective in

mind

butto gain

some

in-sights intothe particulardynamics andpolitical

struc-ture ofthe

community.

Interview with

George

Chapman,

Public Planner:

They

need to be viewed in a

management

context

and

you

haveto

know

what

yourresourcesandtime

limitsareandoperatewithin thosethings. In the short run,consultants

may

notbe lesstime-consumingthan

hiring staff, but in the long run it

may

be

advanta-geousto

you

because once

you

bring on astaff per-son, for instance,

you

have along-term

responsibil-ity to that person

which

requires alot

more

invest-ment

inthe long run

What

can

private consultants

do

to

improve

their relationships

with

public

agencies?

I think basically they need to listen to their

cli-ents'needsand

make

surethosearecarefullydefined

atthebeginningoftheproject.

The

agreement

—

what-everthatis.contractorwhateverformtheagreement

is

—

isvery specific asto

what

the timeframe ofthe

effortwill be,

what

theendproductswill be,and

what

checkpoints along the

way

there will beto measure

the progress ofthe project.

Make

sure there is

atten-tiongiven atthebeginning tothe details ofthe

work

program

—

don't just rush into the relationship

be-cause you'reimpressed with

how

they'vedone

some-thing

somewhere

else.That's

good

reasontoconsider

them, butonceyouunderstandthey're

somebody you

want

to considerit's important to be detailed about

thetime frame,the resources, the checkpoints along

theway.

Iguessonebigcautionforpublicagencies

work-ingwitha privateconsultantisto

make

sure

you

know

the staffresources that are going to be available to the project.

You

often get a proposal with a list of twenty highly competent resumes, but

you

need to

know

who

they will specifically have on the project

and

who

willbe responsiblefor the consultant'swork.

Thereneedstobeoneperson

—

theproject

manager

playing that role.

You

always have one person

you

dealwithfor thatproject.

They

may

havea halfdozen working on that project, but you're notthe

supervi-sorofthose people, and

you

canonly be effectiveif

you'reworkingthroughtheirsupervisor,

whoever

that

is.

On

theconsultant'sside,theycan

make

surethey

are speaking through one person, one contact, and

that that project

manager

is always available to the

What

do you

see as the biggest differences

between

working

as a private

consultant

and

working

as a public sector

planner?

Speaking only from

my

own

experience. I

would

say that the "business" side ofconsulting is a real

eye-openerinterms ofthe particularset ofskills

re-quired.

They

are quite abit differentthan the plan-ning skills that

you

learn inundergraduate or

gradu-ate school or on the job afterthat

And

to bring it

home, you

haveto havethe confidenceto

know

that

nextyear's salary isgoingto

come

from somewhere.

You

just don't

know

where. There's clearly not

se-curity, so tospeak,whereas

when

I

was

working for

acityagencyor

when

I

was

workingforalarger

cor-porationthereis

some

securityin

knowing

that there's

asalary

somewhere

with your

name

on

it.

I think ifIwere togo backintoa publicagency

today I

would

still

employ

the

same

fundamental

pro-cesses, techniques, research skills,

communication

skills,publicspeakingskills,andwritingskills.Idon't

think that

would

differ.

You

have

to

be

able

to act

with

a great deal

of

self-motivation

and

discipline

and

a

love

for

what

you

are

doing.

Do

you

think

there are

any

skills that are especially

important

forprivateconsultantsto

have?

You'reusing the

word

"especially" inthe

ques-tion and Iguess I'dhaveto say

you

haveto be

espe-cially focused.

You

have to be able to focus on the

taskathand.There's not astructurearound

you

that's

going to ask

you

to do something atacertain time.

You

have to be able to actwith a great dealofself

motivation and discipline

—

time

management

—

and

a lovefor

what you

aredoing. Again, though,alotof

thosethings

would

apply equally welltoa public

sec-tor planner. But for especially important skills. I

What

do you

see as the biggest differences

between

working

for a

public

agency

and

working

as a

consultant?

I thinkit's yourperspective on the taskin front

ofyou.Ithinkasa publicagency

employee you

have

abroaderandlongerterm

commitment

toyour

com-munity and can put the project in that context.

The

consultanthasthe. I

would

callitluxuryattimes, but

really it'savaluable asset,

which

istobring perhaps a fresh and

more

detached perspective to the task.

And

probably bring

knowledge

from other

experi-ences that the local planner

would

not have. I have

worked

asaconsultant, andwhile ultimatelyIfindit

more

satisfying to be a local planning agency

per-son, I think that's kind ofan individual

judgment

peoplearegoingto

come

tobasedontheir

personali-ties. There's value to both sides and both roles, but

from

my

personal perspectivethe localagency

plan-ner has a longerterm

commitment

tohis client,which

ishis

community.

Ithink

you

shouldn'ttry todecide

between

which

sideofthe market

you want

tobeon

until you've

worked

on both sides because even if

you

find you'refar

more

satisfied with onethanthe

other, having

worked

on the other side gives

you

a

better understanding of

what

the issues are on that

side ofthe fence. Ifyou're a public agency person

and you've beena consultantIthink you'regoingto

be

more

effective in

working

with consultants and

vice versa.

Do

you

think

there

are

any

skillsthat

are

more

important

forpublic

agency

planners

than

for

private

consultants?

I

would

be temptedto saythepublicplanner has

tohave

more

patienceanda

more

long-term

perspec-tive. I think the necessity to

compromise

is greater

forpublicplanners becauseoftheirlongerterm

rela-tionships with theirclients.

They

haveto be ableto see both sides ofthe issue and be able to

accommo-dateconflict,whereasIthinka consultant can be

more

ofapurist and probably should be less proneto

ac-cept

compromise

solutions toproblems.

And

a

con-sultantcanperform avery valuable functionto

make

a

recommendation

that's not accepted by the

com-munity. In the course of doing that, public planners

mightreally

compromise

their abilities tobe

would

sayfocus,concentration,discipline,time

man-agement,and motivation

I

would

encourageanyone to

work

forseveral

years ina public sectoragency to learn the

work

first-hand andto

come

to

know

the intricacies of working in the publicagency andthe relationships

betweenstaffand board or council

Those

kinds of fundamentals serve

you

well.®

a public plannerwill choosetouse a consultantand

mightfind a consultantvery effective.

Ithinkthatthehardtechnical skills of

economic

and demographic analysis are probably

more

valu-able ina consulting agencythan inapublic agency.

That's not to say you don't need

them

in a public

agency, butifyou're arealquantitative analyst you'll

find

more

application for that in a consulting role.

You

know,

if

you

thinkabout doingan

environmen-talimpactstatement, thatcan beanenormously

com-plex scientific investigation, and that kind ofa

de-tailedanalysisisprobably

much

betterdone

by

a

con-sultantthan by

most

publicagencies. Publicplanners

would

be

more

capable ofsynthesizing a variety of

ideas and are

more

comfortable with being

general-ists. That's not a completely black and white

situa-tion,

you

know

—

you get into

some

public agencies,

for instance at the federal and state levels, and

you

can be a highly specialized technician in a public

agency.Therearewaterqualityspecialistswithinstate

environmental agencies that are highly specialized.

A

transportation planner

who

is really into

model-lingand hasthe capabilityof developing the

models

as well as applying

them

would

probably be

more

satisfied inthe long runina consultingagency.

You

probably don't find that in

many

local public

agen-cies

—

those people are

more

likely to be found ina

consulting role, a private consulting role. But

you

know, we've

got transportation planners

who

are