Dr. Edward Blakely

Recovery Management

In January 2007, Edward J. Blakely was appointed Executive Director for Recovery Management for the City of New Orleans. Blakely is nationally and internationally recognized for his extensive experience in the design of recovery strategies for cities across the United States.

In 1999, Blakely, while serving as Dean of the Milano Graduate School at the New School University in New York, was on hand for the devastating disaster at the World Trade Center.
He coordinated the New School’s recovery strategy, and provided policy guidance for 100 Black Men of New York with respect to participation of minorities in the recovery. In 1989, Blakely guided recovery efforts in Oakland following the Loma Prieta earthquake.

Blakely held academic positions in teaching, research, administration, and policy development for more than twenty-five years. He is a leading scholar in the fields of planning, infrastructure, transportation, and local economic development. Prior to his post at New School University in New York City, Blakely was Dean and the Lusk Professor of Planning and Development for the School of Urban Planning and Development at the University of Southern California (1994-1999). Previously he served as Professor and Chair of the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of California at Berkeley (1986-1994). Blakely remains as the Chair of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Sydney. He has also held senior positions at Pacific Telephone company and as a U.S. Foreign Service officer.

Blakely served as a policy advisor to the two mayors of Oakland, where he was also a mayoral candidate, and as advisor to the Los Angeles Public School District. In addition, he has served on a number of task forces and commissions at the local, state, national, and international levels. He has been on the boards of directors of the American Planning Association, the Nature Conservancy, Environmental Science Associates and SE Corporation.
Blakely was a Senior Fulbright Fellow (1985-86), and received the 1990 San Francisco Foundation Award for improving community life in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition, he was President of the Pacific Rim Council on Urban Development (1993) and remains on the Board of Directors. He was appointed by President Clinton as Vice Chair of the Presidio Trust to serve a two-year term (1997-1999).

From 1977-84, Blakely was Assistant Vice President of Systemwide Administration for the University of California. In this capacity, he managed the University's faculty and academic personnel and policy system for more than 14,000 University of California academic employees. He has been an advisor to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and to state governments in the United States, as well as government bodies in Korea, Japan, Australia, Sweden, Indonesia, New Zealand and Vietnam.

• Fortress America, with Mary Gail Snyder (Brookings Press, 1997)
• Separate Societies: Poverty and Inequality in U.S. Cities (Temple   University Press, 1992)
• Planning Local Economic Development: Theory and Practice (Sage,   1989)
• Rural Communities in Advanced Industrial Society (Praeger, 1979)

His articles include:

• "Room for Whom: Change in the Central Valley" (1990)
• "Theoretical Approaches for a Global Community" (1989)
• "Shaping the American Dream: Landuse Choices for America's     Future" (1993)
• His work is widely cited and he was co-recipient of the Paul Davidoff Award (1993) and a Guggenheim Fellowship (1994).

Blakely was born in San Bernardino and educated at San Bernardino High School, Valley College, and the University of California Riverside, where he quarterbacked the undefeated football team. He subsequently earned a master’s degree in Latin American history at UC Berkeley, an MBA in Organization Management at Pasadena Nazarene College and a doctorate in Education and Management at UCLA.