Joan H. Herron
Joan Herron has been named the East Region Assistant Vice President of Lambda Alpha International (LAI – lai.org), the international honorary global network for distinguished professionals related to the use and development of land. Joan Herron is the President of Herron Consulting. She has extensive experience working with private, public and not-for-profit clients, including hundreds of studies for communities and states, land owners, economic development organizations, port authorities, manufacturers, utilities, real estate developers, community groups and not-for-profit organizations. She has published numerous articles on economic development, site selection and industrial site certification programs, and retail redevelopment projects.
Joan formerly directed consulting projects at Urban Investment and Development Co., Trkla Pettigrew Allen & Payne and the Fantus Company in Chicago. She was a Principal at Lockwood Greene Consulting (CH2M HILL) in Chicago and Atlanta, where she specialized in community economic development consulting and corporate facility site selection.
Her site selection projects include facilities for Italian clients Martinelli and Ceramica del Conca, French client AREVA, American Express, Tate & Lyle, Northeast Oklahoma Automotive Coalition, and Organics LaGrange.
Recently, Joan worked on brownfield redevelopment and target industry studies in Binghamton, Lockport and Olean NY. Other economic and community development clients include: BNSF Railway; Georgia Power Company, the Southern Illinois Delta Empowerment Zone; Martinsville-Henry County VA Economic Development; Port of Lake Charles LA; Port of South Louisiana; and Henderson County NC.
Joan has chaired federal peer grant review panels, evaluating, scoring and ranking proposals submitted by community development corporations and non-profits to the U.S. Department of Human and Health Services, Office of Community Services for Community Economic Development and Rural Community Development Facilities funding. She has also reviewed and scored grants submitted to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development for funding for public housing and assisted housing developments/neighborhoods as well as grant requests submitted for funding through AmeriCorps.
Joan is a recognized speaker at conferences and seminars. Examples include Roundtable in the South (2013): Manufacturing Competitiveness in the US; Roundtable in the South (2008): Changing Demographics and the Aging Workforce; and Roundtable in the High Desert (2005): Shovel Ready Sites. Other presentation topics include The Future of Manufacturing; Marketing Best Practices; Community Competitiveness, and the Corporate Site Selection Process and Responding to Site Selection Requests.
Joan has a MBA degree from Loyola University (Chicago), and a BA with High Honors, Honors College, Michigan State University. Herron Consulting is a small, woman-owned business, certified by the nationally and internationally-recognized Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), the City of Atlanta and the State of New York.
Joan has been a long-time member of LAI. When she moved from Chicago to Atlanta, the Executive Committee asked her to establish the Atlanta Chapter, which she did in 2009. She was the first President, holding this office for five years. The Atlanta chapter hosted the LEW in 2014, an early accomplishment of the chapter.
In her welcome letter to new members, she wrote, “Membership in LAI offers many benefits. It is a great source for continued learning, for networking, and for developing professional, business and social relationships with a broad base of peers regionally, nationally and internationally. Membership in LAI is through invitation, and requires candidates to have demonstrated their contributions to the community and to their profession. The Atlanta Chapter is a committed group with complimentary interests, and everyone is working together to chart a path forward for our LAI Chapter in the Atlanta Region.”
