About Us

Staff

• Conan Smith, Executive Director
• Melanie Piana, Associate Director
• Monique Tucker, Executive Secretary
• Hayley Roberts, Communications Director
• Sam Offen, Southeast Michigan Regional Energy Program Directory
• George Jackson, Energy Programs Coordinator
• Jennifer Young, Energy Programs Coordinator
• Gillian Ream, Communications Coordinator
• Valerie Bieberich, Talent Programs Director
• Richard Murphy, Transportation Program Coordinator
• Sarah Hoerl, Redevelopment Program Assistant

• Walton Business Management Systems
• Plante & Moran
• Carlisle Wortman Associates
• Don Gross

Interns

• Christina Drane, Photographer
• Amy Gillespie, Photography Intern
  

Conan Smith
Executive Director, Michigan Suburbs Alliance
Conan, our noble leader, has served as Executive Director at the Michigan Suburbs Alliance since August 2004. His passion for cities - matched only by his insatiable desire to create straw replicas of the Seven Wonders of the World - stems from a life supporting innovative policies for urban development and regional collaboration strategies. (We're serious about the straw; plans are already in the works for a backyard Stonehenge.) 

Prior to joining Suburbs Alliance, Conan worked with the Michigan Environmental Council. As their Land Programs Director, he helped build cohesive support in the environmental community for Smart Growth policies among the state's environmental organizations and their constituents. His past work has been integral in creating conservation subdivision design standards for local governments, instituting an asset management program within the Michigan Department of Transportation, advancing regional governance opportunities and securing more than $55 million in increased funding for mass transit in the state.

In his time at the Suburbs Alliance, he has transformed the organization. Perhaps his most impressive accomplishment is the Lego building he recently architected - all by himself, might I add. However, his white board drawings have given new life to our office space, and undoubtedly take a close second.  Others point to his more pragmatic impacts, including a budget that has grown from $150,000 to more than $4M in FY 2011.   Under his leadership the Suburbs Alliance was named one of the state’s “Most Innovative Companies” in 2006 by the Michigan Business Review.  The organization’s programs have brought more than $40M to Michigan communities and advanced pioneering approaches to redevelopment, climate change and talent attraction and retention.

Conan also serves as a Washtenaw County Commissioner representing the City of Ann Arbor, a position he's held since 2005. He serves as chair of the board for 2011.  For the previous two years, he chaired the Ways & Means Committee, successfully leading the County through a $30M budget deficit challenge by working to address strategic cuts and restructurings that saved hundreds of jobs and protected critical public services.

Conan was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan where he lives today with his wife, Michigan State Senator Rebekah Warren. He serves on the board of directors of Michigan Saves and as an executive committee member at SEMCOG. Conan attended the Residential College at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, where he earned a B.A. in Creative Writing and Literature.

With his combination of professional, personal and educational qualifications, Conan is the ideal leader of the Suburbs Alliance and a role model for its employees. It is his habit of picking up the lunch tab, however, that has secured his popularity with the staff.

Melanie Piana, PMP
Associate Director
Melanie grew up in Brighton, Michigan among corn fields and a spattering of small lakes. She led an adventurous childhood exploring the swamps and woods near her childhood home and has many stories about her idyllic days hunting for frogs. Mel's spirit of exploration led her to live in and travel to numerous international cities starting at the age of fourteen. These metropolises became her classroom on how other places function and helped shape her ideas about urban space. This understanding of both rural and urban communities gives her a unique perspective, which she continues to explore as the leader of Redevelopment Ready Communities®.

If Mel could, she would be a professional student. She earned a bachelor's degree in German and Communications from Albion College, a Master of Urban Planning degree from Wayne State University and is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP).

Before crossing over to the nonprofit world, Mel worked at Ross Roy (now BBDO Detroit) and Organic, Inc., two print and interactive marketing agencies that service DaimlerChrysler. She lives in Ferndale where she volunteers for the Downtown Development Authority and is an appointed member of the Board of Zoning Appeals. In 2009, Mel was elected to the Ferndale City Council.

Fun Facts About Mel:

• Easily mesmerized by process flowcharts
• Randomly blurts out old college band cheers
• Uses road maps as wrapping paper
• Annually participates in the Zoo-De-Mack, a 52 mile bike ride through northern lower Michigan

Gillian Ream
Communications Coordinator
Gillian joined the Suburbs Alliance in 2010 as part of the Regional Energy Office team. Gillian recently completed a Master’s degree from U of M’s School of Natural Resources and Environment, where she studied environmental behavior and communication, better known as “how to talk to people about environmental issues.” With that in mind, in April 2011 Gillian took on the role of communications coordinator for the BetterBuildings for Michigan program.
 

Richard Murphy
Transportation Programs Coordinator
Murph joined the Michigan Suburbs Alliance as Transportation Coordinator in February 2010, having alreadyserved on the Redevelopment Ready Communities Board for a year and a half. Prior to his position at the Suburbs Alliance, Murph was City Planner for the City of Ypsilanti for four years, with additional municipal, consulting and research experience. He earned a Master of Urban Planning degree from the University of Michigan after undergraduate studies in computer and aerospace engineering.

Murph's transition from total computer geek to total urban geek is a result of following his now-wife to New Jersey for her graduate school program. After spending a year reading about and exploring major American cities, he decided to try out a brief stint in planning before returning to his plans for doctoral studies in computer science. That brief stint is now approaching a decade. The tech geek background emerges every once in a while in the form of civic blogging (such as the now-retired ArborUpdate.com), fascinations with locationally-aware mobile software, and grudging tech support for those around him.

When not professionally obsessing about transit and walkability, Murph can typically be found personally obsessing about transit and walkability: his favorite vacation is hiking national parks that he can get to via Amtrak.

Valerie Bieberich
Talent Programs Assistant

Valerie has worked at the Suburbs Alliance as the Talent Programs Assistant since September 2010.  Before that, she served as a fellow and then a staffer for the Cool Cities Internship Program in the summers of 2009 and 2010.  As the youngest person on staff, it’s fitting that a large part of her job is figuring out how to keep other young people in southeast Michigan, through UniverCities Connection and the Millennial Mayors Congress.   

Valerie graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in Political Science in May of 2010.  She has lived in Michigan since the age of 6, when her family moved to Battle Creek, where the smell of cereal is always in the air.  She got bitten by the Detroit bug while at U of M and did community organizing in the Fitzgerald neighborhood of Detroit.  She also worked at the Grandmont Rosedale Development Corporation as a Community Based Research Fellow, where she conducted a community survey on neighborhood needs and conditions.  

Besides making and eating baked goods, Valerie’s one true love is policy.  She was extremely involved in the Roosevelt Institute, a student-run think tank, where she published a number of policies on topics ranging from economic development in Africa to expanding the Weatherization Assistance Program.  These days, the only excuse she has for researching policy in her spare time is that she’s a nerd.  

Sarah Hoerl

Sarah, a lifelong Downriver dweller, first came to the Suburbs Alliance as an Intern, working on redevelopment, in 2009. She was so excited to be selected for the position that she quit her job as the Student Assistant at her university's Honors Office so she could devote her time to the internship.  It's okay, though–Sarah's still on great terms with her previous employers.  They do lunch.
 

 
Interns

Christina Drane
Photographer
Christina Drane is a proud native of Cleveland, Ohio, but she's lived in Brownstown, MI, for the past two years. She's an enrollment counselor for the University of Phoenix in Southfield, where she works closely with military students. No doubt she can relate: Christina served in the United States Marine Corps for seven years, complete with two tours of duty in Iraq. She finished her career in the Marines as a Sergeant (E-5), and says she's "happy to have been part of the most elite and decorated branch of service." 

Christina calls herself a resource broker ("because I am the 'go-to' person for everything," she says), and loves reading and writing. She's married, has an eight-year-old stepson, and is a proud mother of a American Staffordshire Terrier (pitbull). She graduated from John Carroll University with a degree in physical education, concentrating in exercise science. She recently finished her MBA, with a concentration in human resources, from the University of Phoenix. She's now working on a second graduate degree--this one focused on adult education and training.

Christina's goal is to teach photography in a college while working as a professional photographer. She says that in her Suburbs Alliance internship, she wants to "gain practical, real-world experience that will help me to transition into a successful career in either the public or private sector, learn about the role that photography plays in strengthening regionalism and local governments, and learn about the use of photography in a nonprofit's marketing, publication design and brand development."