Featured Planner: Kevin Pflager

Every community has a story, and so does every planner. Check out this issue’s Featured Planner, Kevin Pflager, and discover the people, projects, and ideas moving Nebraska forward.

Please describe your current job/title and the work you are currently doing.

I am a Planner I for the City of Papillion. My job responsibilities include looking at commercial and residential permits and reviewing them for code compliance. I am also a certified floodplain manager, so I assist with a lot of the floodplain management that we have in the City of Papillion. And then I also help write the city council reports. That’s a primary function. Larger project-type stuff that I get to do is a lot of the GIS work for the department: updating maps and creating new stuff. And then occasionally help with code updates, ordinance updates for long-range plans, and reviewing stuff like that. But those are more of the project aspect; the more day-to-day is commercial permits and city council reports.

How long have you been in this position?

Just about four years now. My first week in 2023 was the week of the planning conference in Kearney. So I started here for two days, then went to Kearney for two days for the planning conference, which is kind of a nice way to mark my work anniversary. 

You stuck with it, so clearly you saw something that was worthwhile in the long term.

I really like the job. I like helping people through the process a lot. Or if somebody calls and they don't understand government. They think it's going to be way more complicated than it really is. Then getting to help somebody, even if it's something as easy as just getting a deck permit, describing “this” is all the only information we need. Helping them through that and making their lives a little easier is a rewarding job.

So how did you get into the planning profession? I know you mentioned that you started from grad school straight into this position. How did you find this job and what interested you in it?

I got two degrees from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. I got my undergrad in economics, with a minor in geography for my bachelor's degree. Then I got a master's in geography. But I took a lot of planning courses with that. 

I took my first [planning course] my senior year—it was the intro to city planning class. Took that, and I wish I had found this way earlier. But at the time I was not thinking about getting a master's degree. About six months after that, my college advisor for my undergrad emailed me and was basically like, “We need a TA for the next semester. Would you be interested?” And I was like, "Free master's program? Okay.” So I took about equal geography and community and regional planning classes. Really liked it.

I actually got this job just before I graduated. I graduated in May of 2023 and got this job in March of ‘23. I saw there was an opening, and at that point I knew I was basically just on the home stretch and had all my stuff in. I just had to finish my project for my master's, and I was applying to a bunch of city planning jobs. I got a couple of interviews in Papillion, and then they hired me. The hardest part right after college is getting the first job. After you get some experience, you can help build your resume that way. But luckily, I really like it here and I can see myself being here for a long time.

I feel like a lot of folks don't really hear about planning until they're kind of midway through something else that they've already been going through.

It makes sense this job exists, right? If you had asked me when I was in high school if city planning was a job, I'd be like, yeah, but not something that I would think I could do. It feels like one of those abstract things out there that happens. And it's really nice to stumble into it and be like, “Oh, I really, really like this job. It kind of meets all my niche interests.”

You can find different paths within planning. There's transportation, code, and you can probably switch up halfway through or later on in your career if you want to, and it's perfectly fine. You still have that foundation.

That's a really nice thing about this job too. I get to do a little bit of everything, so it's been really nice. I get to see what parts of planning I really like, and if I ever do want to specialize down the line, it'll be nice to have this background of, okay, I've done a little bit of that, a little bit of this.

You kind of talked about this already, but you didn't really see yourself in this career path when you were in undergrad. What did you want to do when you were studying?

I had an economics degree and I wanted to work in the financial world. After seeing a little bit of that, I was like, that's not something I want to do. When I was studying it, I really liked what I ended up learning. I really liked economic theory. I could learn that all day. The practicality of doing the work, what that looked like in corporate America, is a very different story. And that's not something I wanted to do after looking into it and dipping my toe into it. And then I just got lucky that my advisor reached out to me, and Dr. Buller asked if I was interested in a TA position. I applied for it and got lucky enough to get it, and that really changed the trajectory of my career path.

I took the hazard mitigation class and realized that planning was something that I wanted to pursue. It’s very interesting that you have one thing that you are interested in pursuing, realize that it's not for you, and then planning just kind of appears out of nowhere, like, oh, this is perfect.

What I like about geography is the study of space. Dr. Wishart kind of describes it as the rhythms of life as they move through, and planning is really applied geography, which I really like. Geography scratches my brain in that way—geography theory and all that—in a really fun way. And then going from that to practicing geography every day, getting to look at built environments and how it will affect people and how it will affect the space around them—my brain likes that. It could mess with that all day.

What has been a project or task in your professional career that you still think is inspirational or you kind of look back on?

I will give you two because I have the very kind of first big project I worked on was making a bike map for the City of Papillion that lives online. People can go to it; it gets updated about twice a year or so with the new trails. That was something I got to do right away that I felt like made a difference. It gets lots of use, which is really cool to see a project have real numbers—you can see how many times somebody's opened it, how many views it gets, and how many uses it gets during the biking season. So it's really cool to see a project getting used.

Then, the project I got to do through APA Nebraska—to create curriculum for planners to go into classrooms and talk to students. I really liked teaching. I found that out when I was a TA: if I could do anything in this world, it would probably be teaching. I really enjoy it, but the pay is not great. And then I'd have to go back to school, which was kind of a double whammy. So, I'll just see if I can work it into my regular job and I had already talked to a few classrooms. Then I was telling Cale about it and how much I liked going into classrooms talking about being a planner. And he said we're actually looking for somebody who can help out with that and make some curriculum for planners. So I did that, and now we are on pace to talk to over 1,000 third graders in the Papillion-La Vista area. We're also talking with Bellevue, and soon we'll talk to Gretna and Omaha after this coming year. We could, fingers crossed, have a network of planners in the Omaha Metro talk to 4,000 or 5,000 kids every year. It's just been something that's been really cool to go from one random teacher reaching out to me in 2023, and it’s grown three, four years later to now we're at 1,000 kids, and it could easily be 5,000 kids in the next couple of years, which is really cool.

That sounds like it'd be a really impactful thing to also introduce this profession to younger folks as well.

Yes; I've talked to a lot of third graders or so about it, but I've also talked to a class called JAG, which is Jobs After Graduation for high school students. They just bring in all kinds of working professionals, and one of the JAG teachers reached out to me and asked if I would be willing to come and talk. It was really nice because those kids didn't really know that city planning existed as a path, but I got to talk to them about city planning and working in local government in general. They were really interested because they hadn't really thought of [local government positions] outside of police and firefighters. Those jobs were working for local government, but not the whole breadth of what you can do. That was really impactful to talk to, you know, seniors in high school who are going to go on to college and are undecided what they want to do with their lives and, you know, just letting them know that this option exists before they get to their senior year of college like it was for me.

How long have you been into cycling? Has this always been something that you're passionate about or did it start when you were a planner?

The gateway drug to planning is biking and wanting better bike infrastructure. I didn't have a car until I was 25, so when I lived in Lincoln, I got to and from campus on my bike. Originally it was just commuting, a way to get back and forth. But then I started riding around Lincoln because it has such wonderful trails. And I was like, I really like this. So then it really became part of my daily habit of waking up early to go on a bike ride, then going to class afterward, and I got really into it for a while. I have less time to do it now than I did in college, but when I can get out there on the weekends, I like to ride 20- 30 miles, which really just helps the brain get unfuzzy-ified, relax, and unwind.

What would you say to someone interested in pursuing a path in planning? 

I would say there are two things I would do. I would contact your local planner, because most of us don't mind chatting for a while and would be happy to tell you about what we do and how we got here. Then I would look into your college. If you're in college, you can take a human geography class, an urban geography class, or you can take urban studies. Some places, like Iowa State, offer undergrad community and regional planning courses. Just take one, try it, see what you're thinking. When you do that, you can see if you like it. The other option would be to get a little more involved locally; go to a planning commission meeting and see what they're talking about and see if that's something you're interested in, or contact an engineer in the area and see if you could job shadow for a day. I'm sure there are programs for that set up at all the engineering firms in the metro Omaha area or across Nebraska where you could meet them, see what it is like, if I wanted to go into the private or public side of it, what does that look like and ask them how they got there.

What advice would you give someone who wants to build that kind of professional relationship with a planner or someone in their community who works in that field?

It can be scary, but I just pick up the phone and call. Most of us are pretty friendly people. I mean, we talk to people for a living. It's kind of part of the planning profession, so we don't mind chatting most of the time. Talk to us and if, maybe, whoever you talk to doesn't fulfill the mentor role that you're looking for, they'll probably know somebody who does, or they can put you in contact with an organization like APA. And there are tons of us in APA who would love to chat and be a mentor and give you guidance along the way. So, first step would be to pick up your phone and call your local city and ask them what they have going on and talk to them for a bit. Then, if not, go on to APA Nebraska or APA in whatever state you live in, and talk to them because they'd be happy to talk to you.

Who has inspired you in your professional life, whether it be a mentor or some sort of family member or a prominent leader, and why have they influenced you?

I have to go with my college advisor, Dr. Buller. She's still at UNL as a geography professor. And it's kind of her general approach. Me and her have different interests in geography, but her approach and enthusiasm for learning, curiosity, and general warmth in welcoming new people have really affected and shaped me. And she's always willing to give her time and energy to help people that are interested. On the professional side, being just curious and constantly wanting to learn more and do more. It's just been great to get to know her and just see how she operates. And I want to take as much of that into my life as I can because she's a wonderful person and really good at what she does.

Do you have any last-minute things that you wanted to say or plug?

If you are a student and you're reading this and interested and get into contact with me, I'd be happy to talk with you. And if you are a high school student and you want me to come talk to your class, also reach out, and I'd be happy to come chat.

Contact Kevin Pflager at [email protected].