Herb Simmens

Herb Simmens has had a varied and distinguished career planning for the future of our communities and society. He was the county administrator in Atlantic County, New Jersey when casinos were first legalized, a town manager of two New Jersey communities, and served as Executive Director of the New Jersey State Planning Commission for a decade. In that role he led the effort to create New Jersey’s award winning long term smart growth plan.

Herb has also taught at two universities and been executive director of two environmental nonprofits.

He helped secure the passage of the first declaration of a climate emergency in any American community in 2017 and created the philanthropic platform Planetphilia. He authored the first edition of A Climate Vocabulary of the Future in 2017.

He serves on the Steering Committee of the Healthy Planet Action Coalition healthyplanetaction.org.

He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton University and also studied at the London School of Economics. He currently lives in Silver Spring, Maryland. His website is www.herbsimmens.com