Alicia Giudice, AICP, has been promoted to Community Development Director, effective June 1, 2021, at the City of San Rafael, where she has held senior planning positions since 2018. Previously, she was a senior planner with Metropolitan Planning Group (M-Group) for six years. Giudice has worked in both the private sector and for local government for 25 years. Her experience includes leading teams and managing a broad range of complex development projects, as well as preparing policy documents on land use, housing, traffic, and utility/infrastructure uses in the public right-of-way. Giudice holds a BS in city and regional planning from Cal Poly–San Luis Obispo.
Richard (Rick) Smeaton, AICP, is now a Principal Planner at Interwest Consulting Group, and also has been appointed to the Northern Section Board as South Bay Regional Activity Coordinator (RAC). He had been a department manager with Michael Baker International in Oakland for seven years. Before coming to the Bay Area in 2014, Smeaton worked with municipal governments in a variety of roles, either as a member of the staff or a consultant in the Chicago area. He holds an MPA in public administration from Northern Illinois University and a BA in urban and regional planning from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.
Leslie Trejo has been appointed Social Media Coordinator for APA California – Northern Section. She is an environmental planner at Rincon Consultants. Trejo holds a master of urban planning from San Jose State and bachelor’s degrees in communications and environmental sustainability studies from the University of Northern Colorado (Greeley). In her spare time, she enjoys reading and cycling.