Amanda Cooley, CFM

Amanda Cooley is the Planning Director for Powell County, Montana. She has served in this role for four years. She obtained her degree in Sustainable Land Use Planning from Weber State University with a minor in Botany and an emphasis in the use of GIS in 2018. During this time, she was published for work on Dark Skies initiatives in planning, and completed nationally recognized GIS research on Redlining. Prior to her career in planning, she started and managed small businesses, primarily related to horticulture. As a rural county planner, she works across a broad range of land use topics beyond zoning, permitting, and long-range planning. She leads or participates in regional, cross-boundary collaborations, for trail development, outdoor recreation, wildfire mitigation, brownfields/superfund reclamation, and economic development. She supports this work through fundraising, grant writing, grant management and project management. Foremost, she enjoys being an active member of the communities in Powell County. Outside of work, she enjoys climbing up, snowboarding down, and backpacking across mountain and desert landscapes.