Heather Worthington

Biography: Heather Worthington is a principal and COO at Urban3. She brings 20+ years of leadership experience in local government organizations, most recently as Director of Long Range Planning in Minneapolis, where her team led the creation, engagement, and policy adoption of the Minneapolis 2040 Comprehensive Plan. Heather has been a proponent of fiscal transparency and visualization of municipal finance since her work in Ramsey County, but brought Urban3 to Minneapolis to provide data visualization in conjunction with the Minneapolis 2040 Planning process, as well as to address deep historic disparities caused by redlining, zoning and land-use policies through data visualization of municipal finance and planning. Heather was the first Deputy County Manager appointed in Ramsey County, Minnesota where she led the Economic Growth and Community Investment service team and the restructuring of the County into Service Teams. She led the cleanup and redevelopment of the Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant (TCAAP), the state’s largest Superfund site; she also led the redevelopment of the former West Publishing site in downtown St. Paul. Heather served as the City Administrator of Falcon Heights, MN and Assistant City Manager of Edina, MN, where she worked on a broad range of policy issues including economic development, human resources, and organizational development. Heather is past-president of the Minnesota City/County Management Association, and was one of the first ICMA Credentialed City Managers in the state. Heather is committed to leading efforts to strengthen communities that are experiencing change related to population shifts, market impacts, racial disparities, displacement and disinvestment. She holds a master’s degree in public administration from Hamline University, a BA in History/Historic Preservation from Michigan State University, and attended the State and Local Executives Program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government through the ICMA Scholarship.