Thomas K. Wright is the Executive Director of the Regional Plan Association, America’s oldest independent metropolitan policy, research and advocacy group. Based in Manhattan, RPA promotes plans, policies and investments needed to improve the quality of life and competitiveness of the New York Metropolitan Region, America’s largest urban area. As the chief operating officer for the association since 2001, Mr. Wright manages a staff of 30, oversees budgeting and fiscal planning for a $4 million organization and staffs a 60-member Board of Directors. Projects he has directed at RPA include the Draft Vision Plan for the City of Newark (2006) and A Region at Risk: The Third Regional Plan for the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut Metropolitan Area (1996). He also participated in planning and organizing “Listening to the City,” the historic electronic town hall forum on the World Trade Center site held in July, 2002 at the Javits Convention Center.
Mr. Wright lectures widely on growth management, regional planning and redevelopment, and rebuilding New York City after the September 11th attacks to the Word Trade Center. He is a Visiting Lecturer in Public Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. Since 1998 he has also been an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.
Prior to taking his current position at RPA, he was the Deputy Executive Director of the New Jersey Office of State Planning, where he coordinated adoption of the New Jersey State Development and Redevelopment Plan (2001) and wrote the Executive Summary of the State Plan.
