La Cour moving down the street for university job

By Nick Grabbe
Staff Writer

Published on November 23, 2007

Senior Planner Niels la Cour, who coordinated the comprehensive plan, will leave Town Hall for a job at the University of Massachusetts.

La Cour started working at Town Hall in 1997, and his last day was Wednesday. On Dec. 10, he will start his new job in the Facilities and Planning Department at UMass. "We very much appreciate his many years of service," said Town Manager Larry Shaffer. "With him up at the university, we have an advocate on staff there. We're losing a great employee, but he will work very closely with the town's planning folks."

La Cour, 47, is an Amherst resident who grew up on a thoroughbred horse farm in Lexington, Ky. He attended graduate school at UMass from 1987 to 1991, earning a master's degree in landscape architecture and regional planning. He worked for a private company in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., specializing in geographic information systems. This expertise in computerized aerial mapping led to his job at Town Hall.

Amherst's GIS capability has provided accurate geographical information that's been used by many town departments and is available to the public.

"Our GIS system is remarkable, the best one in the state," Shaffer said. "Niels was responsible for it in its formative years. Now it's cutting-edge, and we have Niels to thank for that."

La Cour started working on a comprehensive plan in 1997, and has concentrated his attention on it over the past 18 months. He has assisted the 30-member citizen committee overseeing the plan, been a liaison with consultants, and organized public events.

"We've gone through an incredibly valuable process," he said. "It will give us a framework with which to make a lot of decisions down the road."

The committee is in the final stages of reviewing the plan, and will present it to the Planning Board early next year.

La Cour's new job at UMass will be as a physical planner, working under Clifford Resnick, assistant director for planning in Facilities and Campus Planning. He expects to be involved in an updating of the campus's master plan, he said.

"I've enjoyed getting paid to do good things for my community," he said. "I've gotten to do things most planners only get to dream about."