About

Bill Lennertz, President

Bill Lennertz headshotBill Lennertz is a nationally respected designer, city planner and urban designer who builds capacity for collaboration by design and transforms how people work together. He is a founder of the National Charrette Institute and the principal author and lead instructor of the renowned NCI Charrette System™, the first structured process for design-based collaborative planning. Through his curriculum development, teaching, publishing, and built work, Bill has developed a proven methodology that accelerates vision to implementation. His integrative approach solves complex problems by harnessing the talents and energies of all interested parties to co-create and support a successful outcome. He has educated thousands of community planners, including top staff from national organizations. With NCI and throughout his career, Bill has managed numerous built projects.

Bill has taught at various universities, including the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he has delivered the NCI Charrette System™ professional certificate course every summer for the past 15 years. He has made significant advances in the field of public involvement through research and publications.

In 2016 Bill orchestrated the acquisition of NCI by Michigan State University. In doing so he transitioned from NCI Director to part-time faculty, remaining in Portland. Bill started Collaborative Design + Innovation LLC to make the Collaboration by Design process available to a broader range of projects from engineering to public policy.

See Bill’s full CV.

Aarin Lutzenhiser, Project Manager/Graphic Designer

Aarin Lutzenhiser is a project manager, supporting Bill Lennertz at Collaborative Design + Innovation.  She specializes in meeting planning and preparation, web and online engagement tools, meeting facilitation and process reporting. She works with Bill to develop and implement group consensus-building and decision-making processes. Aarin has two decades of experience designing and managing websites for community planning projects and maintains evolving content throughout the public involvement process. She also manages social media and online input for planning projects and produces marketing materials and project reports. Aarin designs and maintains CDI’s marketing materials and website.

Aarin co-founded the National Charrette Institute (NCI) and is Co-author of the NCI Charrette System™ curriculum for transforming collaboration at any scale and The Charrette Handbook, published by the American Planning Association, 1st & 2nd eds. While at NCI, she managed projects for research, publications, and community involvement projects including for clients at the US EPA, NEA, HUD, DOD, HDR Inc., World Bank, URS Corporation, National Association of REALTORS®. Aarin has a BA from Reed College.