Whit Blanton, FAICP

Contact Information

Address:

310 Court Street
2nd Floor
Clearwater, FL
FL
33756-5137
United States

FAICP Statement

Whit Blanton's 23 years of experience is a record of consistent accomplishments in leading a variety of catalytic planning projects throughout Florida and the Southeast, such as Plan East Gainesville, which spurred policy reforms and new investment in lower-income minority neighborhoods. The 2011 recipient of the AICP President's Award for Exemplary Practice, Whit pioneered new methods now applied throughout Florida to combat sprawl and reinvest in downtowns and declining commercial corridors, building support for multimodal projects and critical transit investments. His leadership was crucial to APA's adopting a new Transportation Policy Guide and AICP's Advanced Specialty Certification in Transportation Planning. Inducted in 2012.

About Me

Whit Blanton is a baseball and beer enthusiast, runner, bicycle commuter, and gardner. A big fan of cities, parks and waterfronts of all types and scales, Whit is a passionate urban planner with a special interest in storytelling. He lives and works in Clearwater, Florida and is a native of North Carolina.

Professional Biography

Whit Blanton is the executive director of Forward Pinellas, a public agency responsible for countywide and regional planning, the countywide land use plan, and setting priorities for transportation funding. Hired in 2015 upon the merger of two agencies, the Pinellas County Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) and Pinellas Planning Council (PPC), Whit reports to a 13-member body of local elected officials. Whit has 35 years of professional planning experience in the public and private sectors. Prior to 2015, he was a founding owner and vice president of Renaissance Planning, based in Orlando. Whit has worked with local, state, federal and regional government agencies on planning projects across the country and traveled extensively to teach training courses and provide technical assistance in transportation and land use planning. Whit has served in national leadership roles for the American Planning Association, including the APA Board of Directors. He is serving as APA Florida President-Elect. Whit received the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) President's Award for Exemplary Practice in 2011 and earned induction in the AICP College of Fellows in 2012. A graduate of the University of Florida in journalism, Whit also completed his masters coursework in urban and regional planning at Florida State.

Education

224944 | University of Florida
Graduation Date: May, 1986
Degree Level: Undergraduate

115306 | Florida State University
Graduation Date: May, 1988
Degree Level: Graduate
Planning Degree

Job History

Renaissance Planning Group
Vice President/Founding Principal
August,1999 - May,2015
Orlando, FL
None
United States

SAIC (acquired JHK & Assoc.)
Principal Transportation Planner
May,1995 - May,1997
Orlando, FL
None
United States

JHK & Associates
Transportation Planner
June,1988 - May,1995
Orlando, FL
None
United States

Tallahassee Housing Foundation
Weatherization Coordinator
August,1987 - June,1988
Part time
Tallahassee, FL
None
United States

Florida House of Representatives
Legislative Analyst
August,1986 - August,1987
Part time
Tallahassee, FL
None
United States

Forward Pinellas (the Pinellas Planning Council and Metropolitan Planning Org.)
Executive Director
June,2015 - Present
Clearwater, FL
33756
United States

TransCore (subsidiary of SAIC)
Principal Transportation Planner
June,1997 - June,1999
Orlando, FL
None
United States

Social

Personal URL: https://forwardpinellas.org/
LinkedIn URL: https://www.linkedin.com/in/whit-blanton-faicp-94a2056/
Twitter URL: @whitbone