2025 Conference - Recap
By: Andrew Bowen and Brad Stebleton
2025 Conference - Recap
The 2025 Oregon APA, Western Planner, and Tribal and Indigenous Planning Division Conference offered a diverse lineup of sessions focused on sustainability, resilience, equitable community development, and practical planning solutions for the unique challenges facing the western United States.
It was the first WP Conference to be held in Oregon, and the picturesque community of Bend turned out to be the perfect venue for this great event. More than 460 were in attendance, making it the largest Western Planner Conference in history and one of only three where attendance exceeded 400. This WP first turned out to be a great opportunity for information sharing, as the 160+ attendees from the other 12 Western Planner states learned about Oregon’s unique state-mandated planning system and Oregonians learned about Lester, Stan Steadman, Karen Smith, Ken Waido, and other hallowed legends of WPR. Wisdom(?) earned over many years of planning in the rural West was on prominent display at Thursday night’s Bingo event.
The conference opened with a Wednesday plenary, featuring a Tribal welcome and remarks from Bend’s Mayor Melanie Kebler, followed by a keynote led by Paul Fragua and Jose de Jesus Leal, emphasizing that healing begins with remembering. Attendees were invited to reintroduce themselves to one another, to the land, and to all relations while uncovering truths and reflecting on collective obligations, fostering reconnection and community action.
On Thursday, former National Park Service Director Chuck Sams III delivered a keynote on modern approaches to park planning, stewardship, and conservation, highlighting collaboration with local communities and tribal nations to balance access, preservation, and cultural integrity.
During the conference, Western Planner Board Members led several engaging sessions, including:
The first Western Planner Round Table, an open discussion and “therapy session” fostering candid conversations on housing shortages, agritourism, and other shared challenges.
Using Artificial Intelligence to Streamline the Planner of the Day Role, exploring how AI tools can enhance efficiency, communication, and workflow management.
Airports: Economic Development Engines in Urban and Rural Areas, discussing how airports serve as economic and resilience hubs, creating jobs, supporting industries and wildfire response, and connecting rural and urban communities.
How to Maximize Results from RFPs, RFQs, RFIs, and QBS, demystifying public and Tribal procurement and Qualification Based Selection (QBS), explaining variations across western states, and showing how to use these tools for timely, successful project outcomes.
Taming Tourism, focusing on strategies to manage visitor impacts while maintaining community character and environmental health.
Multi-Jurisdictional Regional Planning, featuring two case studies demonstrating successful cross-boundary collaboration and governance.
An interactive Ethics Jeopardy session, testing attendees’ knowledge through friendly competition.
A majority of the sessions featured presenters from multiple Western Planner states, showcasing varied perspectives on the same issues, an aspect that WP Conferences are famous for.
Western Planner also presented several awards, including the Stan Steadman Article of the Year Award which went to Oregon’s own Scot Siegel. WP Board members hosted the humorous “You Know You’re a Western Planner When…” Bingo, where the top winner earned free registration to next year’s joint planning conference in Sioux Falls, and the runner-up took home a Jackalope.
Beyond sessions, attendees enjoyed a variety of networking and community-building activities, including vendor and sponsor exhibits, mobile tours, a community service project, morning and evening 5Ks, and a pub crawl in downtown Bend. These events provided opportunities for planners to connect, share ideas, and celebrate the profession in a relaxed and collaborative setting.
Credit must be given the Oregon Chapter APA for establishing a very collaborative and open conference planning process. Representatives from six other Western Planner states were involved with the conference planning committee established by Oregon APA. This committee met often throughout the months preceding the conference and this process undoubtedly led to a more successful event. Phrases like “we’ve always done it this way” and “we don’t do that here” were not heard in the meetings, which instead occurred in an atmosphere of cooperation. Oregon established a model for other host states to emulate.
In summary, the 2025 conference was a fantastic opportunity for planners to learn, connect, and enjoy a week along the banks of the beautiful Deschutes River in Bend. Western Planner extends heartfelt thanks to Oregon APA for their partnership in making the event a success and looks forward to seeing colleagues from Oregon and the other states in the Western Planner family next year on the other side of WP territory in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.