Conference Keynote Speakers

This year’s Nebraska Planning Conference keynotes will challenge attendees to rethink how communities grow, engage, and compete in a rapidly changing world. From examining what it truly means to be a “business-friendly” community to exploring how generational values shape placemaking and engagement, these dynamic sessions will offer practical insights, fresh perspectives, and plenty of conversation starters. Join us in Kearney for two engaging keynotes designed to spark dialogue, encourage reflection, and equip planners with tools to better serve their communities.

Lunch Keynote: Big Beautifully Bearded Planners: The Art of Making It All Work

Planning is equal parts logistics, leadership, and controlled chaos. In this engaging keynote, the Big Beautifully Bearded Planners reveal the behind the scenes art planners use to bring structure to uncertainty and movement to stalled initiatives. From balancing public expectations with technical realities to coordinating multiple disciplines, planners excel at aligning teams, reframing challenges, and guiding communities toward workable solutions. Through stories from real projects, interactive polls, and the trademark B3P humor, Josh and TJ unpack the mindset and tools that help planners and their partners make progress when conditions are anything but straightforward. Participants gain insights that apply across specialties, including comprehensive plans, brownfields, zoning reform, and development review, and leave with new ideas for collaborating more effectively and keeping projects moving.

 Lunch Keynote: Clint Runge; Navigating a New Generation Through Placemaking

Generations change. Tastes change. Trying to stay on top of it all can be overwhelming unless we understand the ‘why’s behind the hearts and minds of new generations. When it comes to the reaching young adults, there are incredible forces to consider that are influencing how they see themselves, the brands they buy and the spaces they are drawn to stay. By knowing a generation’s unique operating system, placemakers can be better prepared to take on the nuances of creating attract spaces whether that’s out in the public, at work or online. Trust. Innovation. Influence. Loyalty. Topics that every major organization in the world wrestles to evolve. Packaged into a dynamic talk with lots of conversation starters, Clint breaks down the driving forces that attendees can rely on to build better communities, opportunities and effective marketing.

 We hope you’ll join us in Kearney, March 4–6, for the Nebraska Planning Conference. This year’s conference promises to offer valuable takeaways for planners at every stage of their career. We look forward to the conversations, insights, and connections that will shape the future of planning in Nebraska.

Register today at: NPZA.org/Conference