Richard Bell

Project Officer

Office: 919-843-3078
Fax: 919-843-3083
rich_bell@unc.edu

Bio

As Project Officer for ALBD, Rich Bell provides guidance and support for grantee partnerships and their leaders regarding strategic planning, program implementation, and sustainability of efforts to increase active living and healthy eating in communities. Rich develops educational materials and tools for advocates, and represents Active Living By Design with national partners concerning his primary areas of expertise in land use planning and urban design, transportation, community development, urban ecology and community gardening. He also serves as ALBD's liaison to the planning process for Carolina North, a future satellite campus for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Rich has wide-ranging experience in managing nonprofit organizations and community partnerships, including leadership training fundraising, and serving as a technical and strategic advisor. He notes, "I like being able to ask questions that no one person can answer alone."

Prior to his current role, Rich was the founding Executive Director of the North Carolina Smart Growth Alliance. Before that, he served as Executive Director of South Eastern Efforts Developing Sustainable Spaces (SEEDS), Director of Resource Development (U.S. Western Region) for Habitat for Humanity International, Inc., as a Community Planner and Project Manager for the Spanish Speaking Unity Council, and as Executive Director of Literacy Volunteers of America, California.

Rich earned a B.A. in economics from Brown University and a master's in city planning from the University of California at Berkeley. He lives in highly walkable Carrboro, NC with Jennifer Curtis, a sustainable agriculture and food systems consultant, and their daughter, Carly.

Rich walks his talk by walking his daughter to school and biking to work daily. He serves on the town planning board and built an affordable, one-bedroom cottage in his backyard. He and his family regularly enjoy their organic garden, chickens and many outlets for local and sustainably produced food.

Active Living / Healthy Eating Story

I've long been convinced of the benefits of things like bike commuting, infill development, community gardening, neighborhood traffic calming, preparing locally grown food at home and serving on local advisory boards. It's one thing to believe in these things; it's another to do them. My experiences with clothing, clocks, rules, personalities, fatigue, failed equipment, fear, moods, weather, paperwork, disagreements, and lack of funds, discipline or encouragement all remind me of the complexity behind daily decisions and commitments. Translating any good idea into action - not to mention establishing a "whole new order of things" - involves accounting for and addressing all the mundane realities that make change really hard. It applies to health behaviors and also to activism. I am very lucky to work almost every day with the workhorses and other heroes of our movement who understand this, and are willing to sweat, get lost, fail, be patient and grow so their community will be a healthy, just and sustainable place to live. They're willing to make the road by walking it, and it's a better road because we walk it together.