Seventh Edition Marquis Who’s Who INSIGHT 7 DAVID DEBS DIXON Vice President, Stantec’s Urban Places Fellow Stantec Boston, MA www.stantec.com/en/people/d/dixon-david How have you navigated disruptions in your industry to remain a top professional? By trying to understand where new opportunities are emerging. For example, as the office market has just tanked, it has been interesting to realize that so many people want to live in downtown Boston now. Housing opportunities can take up a lot of the old office buildings. People who live downtown spend a lot more on retail and culture than people who work downtown, so the area has a very bright future right now. What are two key behaviors/personality traits that allow you to be effective in your role? I am genuinely curious about people and places. I also really love trying to understand what people want in their lives and then figuring out how to deliver that; maybe it’s not in the way they imagined, but I still deliver what they want. How do you feel your industry has changed/evolved? It moved from being a fine art to a social art. It used to be this sort of visual character that the designer tried to achieve — that was the goal. Now, the experience is the goal. What excites you the most about your industry? Going forward, it’s the ability to create more equitable places. Because of the natural forces at work in our society, we may become more segregated by income, race and cultural backgrounds — I think it will happen naturally because the rich are getting richer, but no one else is. If we can create places that really bring people together and provide further density into the workforce, then everybody can have more opportunities. That is the most important thing our cities can do right now. Environmental changes are also very important. SHANNON J. DOBBS Founder Food System Hackers PBC Fountain, CO www.foodsystemhackers.com/ How have you navigated disruptions in your industry to remain a top professional? When I first entered the food movement, I aimed to put a grocery store in downtown Reno. I found out the hard way that retail lobbyists in Nevada are working at every level of government to maintain the food system’s status quo. After much pushback, I realized real change isn’t likely through the nonprofit sector because corporate interests control funding mechanisms. Charity programs depend on donations from the wealthy, who then tend to dictate operations via their checkbook. It’s not a sustainable system. If we want to tackle the root causes of food waste and access inequality, we have to empower communities from the bottom up. I'm showing people how to create grassroots initiatives using market-aligned strategies to make them sustainable and scalable. Empowerment is key – how do we put impactful tools and strategies into the hands of communities? We leverage existing community resources and crowdfund equipment to begin rescuing food and then scale up. With the right strategy, local advocates can start a grassroots program anywhere in the country. What excites you the most about your industry? Food is the heart of the community and touches all our lives deeply. We make all our major decisions as a family and as a community around the kitchen table. Food and housing are the core of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs – we all have to eat. Being able to rescue food resources, place them in a community, and use them as a catalyst creates more connections. That’s exciting.
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