Employee Profiles

Rob Gottschalk focuses his skills and efforts on exposing economic development strategies and sustainable development opportunities for regions, cities, and urban centers. As he works, his unique skills and experience help him unearth, communicate and illuminate unrecognized opportunities. He then accelerates and guides their implementation.

A creative innovator, Rob has an easy-going style and is passionate about bringing his core visions to life. A central force in these projects, his greatest values are in the vision he creates, and in defining and executing strategies to advance initiatives. While often managing and pushing the vision forward, Rob is also an implementer. He focuses on actively designing and building the key catalytic projects, initiatives, or collaborations to have the biggest impact on accelerating positive change.

Mission driven, Rob strives to enhance the economic and place-based value of the upper Midwest to improve economic and environmental stability—and ultimately, long-term quality of life. Unhampered by risk-aversion, his energy amplifies when exposing unrealized opportunities, and creating models to be replicated.

Rob is also a creative urban designer, development advisor, and graphic communicator of complex ideas. Rob has been heavily involved in hundreds of development and redevelopment projects throughout the Midwest.

Economic Asset Analysis, Vision, and Implementation

MG&E Economic Development
For the last five years, Rob has worked with Madison Gas & Electric to help expose economic opportunities to shape sustainable growth in the Madison Metro Area. He has also worked with the MG&E team to create the vision and strategy, and to guide the implementation of key development and redevelopment opportunities—as exemplified in the Fitchburg Technology Neighborhood and the Central East Isthmus.

Biomedical Collaborative
Rob worked with MG&E, UW-Madison, and the executive leadership in the healthcare industry to establish the Biomedical Collaborative. The Biomedical Collaborative seeks to position the Madison Metro Area as a regional and national leader in health care and biotechnology—including life science research, biotech medicine and commercialization, education, and workforce development. To do it, the initiative strengthens the relationship between the healthcare community, the university, and private sector bases. Rob and the Vandewalle & Associates team were funded by the Biomedical Collaborative to lead the creation of a vision document for the group, define opportunities, and develop an implementation strategy for moving forward.

Healthy City
Rob was the lead architect of the Healthy City Model for a Forward Economy for Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz’s 2004 economic summit. The initiative provides an economic and place-based vision that ties together many individual efforts into a unified, comprehensive agenda for one of the most economically successful and progressive cities in the country.

Collaboration Council
Rob is the lead staff member of a team of experts that provided the Collaboration Council with a comprehensive identification and analysis of regional natural resources, as well as economic, physical, and cultural assets of the Dane County region. The Collaboration Council, a cross-section of regional executive leadership, is using this celebrated work as the foundation for future decision making. It will guide the definition of Dane County’s regional economic role, its growth strategy, and its emphasis of organizational resource capacity. Rob also is a member of the four-person staff team that guides the strategy and direction of Collaboration Council.

Redevelopment Implementation
For the last five years, Rob has served as Redevelopment Advisor and Implementation Manager on a $150 million comprehensive downtown redevelopment for Cudahy, Wisconsin. Rob has also played a key role in over 30 large-scale redevelopment and downtown projects throughout the Midwest.

Urban Planning and Design
Rob was one of the first in the region to push the development community and municipalities into creating quality, mixed-use neighborhoods and town centers—including traditional neighborhoods and transit-oriented development. He led the original design and implementation of developments including Smith’s Crossing, Hatchery Hill, Fitchburg Technology Campus, Greentech Village, and Grandview Commons.

Education
B.S. Landscape Architecture
University of Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin

Professional Licenses, Registrations, and Memberships
Executive Director, Blue Planet Partners
Board of Directors, Natural Heritage Land Trust
Governor Appointed Member, Wisconsin Land Council, 2003-2005
Member, Working Lands Steering Committee
Member, 1000 Friends of Wisconsin
Member, American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP)
Member, American Society of Landscape Architects