Yolanda’s working philosophy that “Great streets make great places” has helped to define her 25 years in planning. She has helped scores of community leaders, agency staffs, and elected leaders engage together, hear from one another, and find common ground around needs and opportunities where transportation is part of the solution. She leads and advises interdisciplinary teams to creatively and effectively respond with data-informed analysis and solutions; then helps to foster decisions that bring options and innovations to fruition. Her approach in bridging engineering, planning, urban design, and economics has made communities, downtowns, and corridors more walkable, bikable, and transit-supportive. Yolanda’s experience includes investigating and refining premium transit concepts, orchestrating multimodal systems plans, leading project development in Maryland’s Department of Transportation’s Community Design Division, and planning town centers in Anne Arundel County. As key transportation staff in Maryland’s early Smart Growth initiatives, Yolanda designed community planning processes, including Maryland State Highway Administration’s “Thinking Beyond the Pavement” approach to project development.

Yolanda loves being on the move. Frequent travel has her taking in the local culture of places both new and familiar. When she isn’t enjoying the sights and scenes of one of Baltimore’s neighborhood markets, she is power-walking its streets or hiking the amazing woodland trails in Maryland and beyond.