Session 5

Rick Cole is the Executive Director of the Congress for the New Urbanism which advocates for the architecture of community in America’s cities and towns. He also teaches urban policy at Occidental College and Pepperdine University. He spent thirty years in public service, including stints as Deputy Mayor for the City of Los Angeles and City Manager in three California communities, Santa Monica, Ventura and Azusa. Prior to that he spent twelve years on the Pasadena City Council, including a term as Mayor. The Los Angeles Times called him “one of Southern California’s most visionary planning thinkers.”
Rick has been recognized as one of “America's Public Officials of the Year” by Governing Magazine and one of the "Top 25 Doers, Dreamers and Drivers" by Government Technology Magazine. He has won numerous awards for municipal management excellence and urban planning leadership.
He co-chairs ULI-LA’s Homelessness Initiative Council as well as the Poverty and Homelessness Task Force at St. Monica’s Catholic Church and serves as the pro bono Housing Advisor to the Mayor of Pasadena. He previously served as Housing and Homelessness Advisor to the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments. He also writes a biweekly column on public policy issues for the Southern California News Group, which includes the Los Angeles Daily News and the Orange County Register.

Daniel Hintz founded the Velocity Group in 2014 to provide a systems-based approach to placemaking, focusing on mobilizing around the intersections of individual actions and projects to align and strengthen the larger community context. As CEO/Chief Experience Officer of Velocity, Daniel has worked on a wide variety of projects all over North America, including downtown master plans, regional economic development initiatives, community and company branding and marketing strategies, private development projects and tenant programming, event production and neighborhood-based activations, arts and cultural initiatives, restaurant and hospitality concepts, public outreach and engagement, and public policy work. He also founded Blockline, LLC, a private development company that aligns strategic investments, catalytic projects and associated tenant programming that supports both solid returns and strengthens the adjacent neighborhoods. He has cultivated his approach to placemaking over a lifetime of work as an actor, filmmaker, chef, educator, non-profit executive, small business owner, property developer, restauranteur, event producer, social service provider, community advocate and volunteer.

Daniel served as Executive Director of Fayetteville Downtown Partners, where he produced the Fayetteville Arts Festival, structured the formation of the Fayetteville Arts Council, co-wrote the initial Fayetteville Public Art Policy, crafted the state’s first municipally formed Arts District in downtown Fayetteville and changed state BID law to include the arts as a fundable line item, among other projects. He went on to serve as Executive Director of Downtown Bentonville, Inc., where he managed and facilitated economic development, experience design and marketing for the 1,768-acre downtown district. Growing the non-profit downtown association from two to seven employees, expanding organizational revenue by 300%, directly recruiting over $50 Million in downtown investment and producing 400+ events that generated over 750,000+ visitors to downtown, his work fostered a growing art, entertainment, culinary, and entrepreneurial scene which has earned international attention.

In 2008, he earned an Experience Economy Expert certification from Joseph Pine and Jim Gilmore, whose thoughts on the rising consumer value of experience and authenticity were listed by TIME magazine as a Top 100 Idea Changing the World. He was the editor for the annual statewide magazine Block, Street, and Building: New Urbanism in Arkansas published by the Arkansas Times from 2016-2019. Daniel now serves on the Advisory Board for First National Bank of NWA, is the Programs Chair on the Board of the Urban Land Institute of Northwest Arkansas, a Commissioner for the Bentonville Advertising and Promotions Commission, serves as an advisor to Brightwater: Center for the Study of Food, and co-founded the Bentonville Chef’s Alliance and the Northwest Arkansas Regional Food Council, along with numerous other volunteer and philanthropic endeavors. He holds a BFA in Film from the University of Colorado Boulder.