Staff

Leah Kennedy Vaughan, Principal

Leah became president of SCI in March 2007, when she and Kristine Hansen-Dederick purchased the business from former owner Elizabeth Stepp. Leah has been a key SCI staff member with responsibility for outreach coordination for nine years.  Prior to joining Sycamore, Leah handled grant administration and inter-agency coordination for MARTA’s Office of Government Affairs for the 1996 Olympics, she served as the Constituency Outreach Director for the Democratic Party of Georgia, and was an outreach specialist for a US Representative serving Georgia’s 4th Congressional District.

As a principal outreach coordinator at Sycamore Consulting, Inc., Leah has coordinated logistical and support requirements for a variety of public involvement projects.  In addition, she orchestrated the community events task and the public outreach at area malls for the Marietta-Lawrenceville Corridor Study and executed very effective information kiosk activities for the MARTA General Planning Contract.  She has notable experience with citizen advisory committees and stakeholder identification, including the I-20 West HOV Lanes Project, US 411 SEIS Project, I-16/I-75 Interchange Improvement Project, and Multi-County/Suburban County Transportation Plans for eleven counties under a GDOT planning contract.

Kristine Hansen-Dederick, AICP, Principal

Kristine became a principal and owner, along with Leah Vaughan, in March 2007. Before taking over as principal, Kristine served as Senior Planner and Outreach Coordinator for Sycamore for more than seven years. Kristine offers innovative planning approaches and a strong skill set in land use and transportation planning, public involvement, and historic preservation.   She has assisted in the development and implementation of public involvement programs for GDOT’s  The Suburban Counties Study, the Multi County Study, and MARTA’s West Line AA/DEIS and Inner Core Transit Feasibility Study.   For the Atlanta Regional Commission, Kristine developed a framework of evaluation measures for the Livable Centers Initiative program and developed public information handouts for the Mobility 2030 RTP update.  She is currently managing the public involvement efforts on the Northwest Corridor (I-75/I-575) HOV/BRT Project.   She is a 2002 graduate of the Master of City and Regional Planning program at Georgia Institute of Technology.

Jennifer Price, Senior Planner

Jen brings eight years of professional experience as a planner.  Her primary areas of expertise include multi-stakeholder involvement and community planning.  She assisted in the development and implementation of the public outreach program for the Philadelphia International Airport Environmental Impact Statement for the Runway Expansion and Capacity Enhancement Programs.  Jen has extensive experience in revitalization plan implementation, citizen participation, community training, and capacity building.  She developed an outreach program that trained and utilized community residents from a targeted revitalization area to perform outreach to community residents for the LeadSafe Charlotte program.  Jen is a 2001 graduate of the Master of Urban and Regional Planning program from the Florida State University.

Phyllis Kennedy

Phyllis served in the cabinet of Alabama Governor Bob Riley for more than 4 ½ years as Director of the Department of Industrial Relations.  Prior to her tenure with Governor Riley, Phyllis worked for the National Federation of Independent Business, serving nine years as the Alabama State Director and five years as the Southeast Region Public Affairs Coordinator, working in Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina and Alabama. She also served as the Director of the Main Street program in Beaufort, South Carolina, an effort that gained national attention for its successful downtown revitalization.  In the early 1980s she served as the district director for GA 4th District Congressman Elliott Levitas, who served on the House Transportation and Public Works Committees.

In a career that spans 40 years, Phyllis has broad and impressive experience in consensus building, interagency coordination, governmental relations, and organizing and facilitating productive meetings. Phyllis currently is helping lead public involvement activities for the Birmingham Regional Intermodal Facility project, in coordination with Norfolk Southern Railway, in Alabama.

Casie Hughes

Casie has more than 20 years of experience in the field of communications and journalism, including writing, editing, public relations and public information.  She has worked for the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC and as a public information officer at The Carter Center in Atlanta, GA. She served as Washington Correspondent for a trade publication in DC, covering the US Congress and the Food and Drug Administration. She wrote and edited a number of trade journals for several years, and has worked as a freelance writer and designer.

Sycamore’s resident website guru, Casie has created and maintained websites for a number of SCI projects, including the Birmingham Regional Intermodal Facility project, www.mccallacan.com.