Alta's mission is to create active communities where bicycling and walking are safe, healthy, and fun.
Alta Planning + Design staff are energetic, dedicated, and practice what we preach. We strive to make biking, walking, and mass transit an integral part of our daily lives. We believe that bicycling and walking are healthy, clean, and fun daily activities. We have seen first hand how bicycling and walking add positive value, change people's lives for the better, and improve our communities. We are committed to transforming communities with one trip, one step, one street, park, trail, and intersection at a time.
Our Story
Founder Michael Jones built up a large portfolio of bicycle and trail master plans working as a planner. A lifelong skier and cyclist, Michael decided to form his own company dedicated exclusively to bicycle, pedestrian, and trail planning and design in 1996. He quickly gained clients, hired his first employee, and moved to a small office in downtown San Rafael, CA. In 1999, he started looking to expand to other cities, and heard that...
...Mia Birk had left the City of Portland Bicycle program where she had been working since 1993 and had become known nationwide for her leadership in transforming it to one of the country's best bicycling and walking cities. Mia embraces bicycling and walking for transportation, exercise, recreation, health, community, and family. In 2000 she began to look around to get help with the increasting load of trail, planning, and street design work - and successfully courted former colleague...
...George Hudson, lead trail designer at the Portland Parks Bureau. Dedicated to training for and running marathons, Geroge has lived and breathed trail projects throughout his 20-year career, leading Portland's Springwater Cooridor, Peninsula Crossing Trail, and Eastbank Esplanade, along with hundreds of miles and trails nationwide. Together, Mia and George have expanded the Portland office of Alta into a bustling 24-person office. We began working nationwide, leading us to hook up with our long-time friend...
...Jeff Olson, Alta's East Coast Principal. As former New York State bicycle Program Manager and FHWA Millennium Trails Program Manager, Jeff has been a leader in our field for almost 20 years. He teaches America's first university course in bicycle and pedestrian planning, and is Co-Director of the Sunya Initiative for Healthy Infrastructure, which creates model plans connecting public work with public health. Finally, that brings us back to California, where...
...Brett Hondorp, guides a team of planners in Alta's Berkeley office. Brett is a longtime bicycle racer who competes in road, mountain, and cyclocross, and helps manage a local Bay Area race team. Upon getting his Masters in Urban Planning in 2000, Brett packed up his panniers, and rode his bike from San Francisco to Washington D.C. Along those 4,200 miles, he saw the good, the bad, and the ugly of bicycle facilities in the US. Brett returned to the Bay Area re-energized and ready to shift his career fully into improving non-motorized transportation, and began working for Alta, where his background in planning and passion for cycling have been a perfect fit.
