View our Past CCPDA Presidents

2025-2026 Executive Committee
President - Lisa Plowman (Director of Planning and Development), County of Santa Barbara
1st Vice President - Trevor Keith (Planning & Building Director), County of San Luis Obispo
2nd Vice President - Dave Ward (Planning Director), County of Ventura
3rd Vice President - Scott Orr (Assistant Director of Permit Sonoma), County of Sonoma
Secretary-Treasurer - Tracey Ferguson (Planning Director), County of Plumas

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This oral history was provided by Charles Gardner, former Planning Director of Kings County: I was with Kings County for 40 years. I started in July of 1953 as a junior planner and was appointed director in 1959. So when I retired in 1993, I had served as the director for 34 years. There was not a planning directors association when I was first appointed planning director. At that time, the directors would meet in a technician's session the day before the California County Planning Commissioners Association. In 1961 at our meeting in Santa Barbara, we set out to form the association and in 1962 at a meeting in the Sacramento Inn, we formally adopted our Constitution. I was a charter member of the group and I believe I am now the only surviving charter member. In the early 1980s, there were only two of us left, Robert Petersen and myself. I became the Secretary Treasurer of the association in 1978 and have served continually since then. Technically, I have not resigned from that position so this year (2011). I have served in that capacity for 33 years.