Conference Keynotes

Ben Hitchings, FAICP, CZO

Principal, Green Heron Plannning LLC & APA Region II Board Director

Ben Hitchings, FAICP, CZO, is the Principal of Green Heron Planning, LLC based in Durham, North Carolina, and a fellow at the UNC School of Government. He has more than 30 years of experience working on planning issues, and has developed award-winning community plans and professional publications. A former planning director for the towns of Chapel Hill and Morrisville, North Carolina, Ben is a member of the American Planning Association’s Board of Directors. He is the co-author of Managing Disruption in a Rapidly-Changing World: A Briefing Book for Decision-Makers in North Carolina, published in 2024 by the UNC School of Government.

Kelly Pohl

Associate Director, Headwaters Economics

Kelly Pohl is Associate Director at Headwaters Economics, a Montana-based independent, nonprofit research organization that works to improve community development and land management decisions so that people and places can thrive. Kelly’s work centers on how communities use and manage land amid rapidly changing economies and risk–from reducing wildfire risk in the wildland-urban interface through land use planning, to balancing recreation, conservation, and development. Before joining Headwaters, she coordinated public-private land conservation and public access projects and has worked as a fire ecologist and park naturalist.