Preston, Davis bring new dimension to CNU Board
CNU’s Board of Directors added four new members earlier this year. In this issue, CNU will briefly profile two of them, Russell Preston and Jack Davis. And then in an upcoming issue, it will profile the two others, Jennifer Hurley and Scott Polikov.
Preston fills a new board seat (explained below) and the other new members fill vacancies left by departing board members Roxanne Qualls, James Murley, and Susan Mudd, who CNU thanks for their distinguished and valuable service.
Russell Preston
Russ Preston, the design director of Cornish Associates in Providence, Rhode Island, achieved a place in CNU history in joining the board this year. He is the first person to fill a new seat the board has reserved for a representative of CNU’s chapters, which have proliferated in recent years and now number 12. The representative’s role is to preside over CNU’s Chapters Steering Committee and to work closely with CNU’s chapter coordinator Lee Crandell, the board, and this committee to assist chapters in supporting the mission of CNU. Earlier this year, the Chapters Steering Committee, composed of the chairs of each chapter, selected Preston from among the chapter leadership.
In addition to coordinating design work at Cornish projects such as major Mashpee Commons and the revitalization of Downcity, Providence, Preston serves as vice president of CNU New England and served as chair of this year’s Sustainable Urbanism summit. He brings a sense of mission to his board service. “As a member of CNU, I am helping save the planet,” he says. “Our global climate crisis will need to be addressed by my generation. CNU and its Charter offer guidance on how this great effort will be accomplished.”
Preston says he would like to help CNU double its number of chapters. “Each region is unique and the role local chapters play will become increasingly more important,” says the former Knight Scholar at the University of Miami and recipient of the Noel Blank Design Award from the University of Notre Dame. “The principles of the New Urbanism have not yet won. We need clearer messages, better tools and more sophisticated advocacy.”
Jack Davis
Jack Davis brings a wealth of diverse experience and leadership savvy to CNU’s board. His 37 year career in journalism included service as a reporter (in New Orleans), editor (in New Orleans, Chicago and Virginia), and head of the Tribune Company’s interactive division. It culminated in his role as publisher and president of the Hartford Courant, whose news and editorial coverage gave special attention to economic growth, regional planning, and urban design.
After retiring from journalism, Davis spent two years in the regional planning and transportation-advocacy work of Chicago Metropolis 2020 and since the beginning of 2009 has been an activist in New Orleans recovery projects. He is a trustee of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and president of Smart Growth for Louisiana.
“CNU and its ideas have so much potential to make our cities and towns better places to live,” says Davis. As a board member, one of his goals is “to popularize New Urbanism as a set of ideas that can make everyday places more vital and sustaining, to have our ideas more broadly understood and accepted.”
