Planner Profile - Greg Toth, AICP of Henderson, Nevada

Describe your current job. Please include your title and years of service.

I’m a Principal Planner for the City of Henderson, Nevada, and I’ve been here for almost 25 years.  I started in 1998 as a Planning Technician and slowly moved my way up.  Now here I am with only 6 months left before retiring!  Time really does speed up the older one gets.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

As a kid, I wanted to own a used car dealership.  Luckily that was just a phase, and eventually I started paying attention to buildings (I still love cars!) and figured being an architect was the way to go.  Once in architecture school at the University of Michigan, though, I quickly realized I didn’t like it as much as I expected.  So I took “Introduction to Urban Planning” as one of my electives and decided that planning was way more my thing.  

How did you get into the planning profession?

I took a year break before starting grad school and worked for the City of Lansing Building Department and also interned in their Planning Department, then moved to Knoxville to get my Masters in Urban Planning from the University of Tennessee.  Between my two years there, I interned at the City of Las Vegas Planning Department, which got my foot in the door and I got the Henderson job right out of grad school.

What advice would you give someone just starting out in their career?

In fact, what I’ve told students looking to get into planning – or any profession, really – is something an art professor in community college once told me:  If you want to live in a particular city, get an internship there.  You get to know names and faces and you get your name out there, too.  That would work just as well for getting into a particular profession.  Internships are huge, and usually relatively easy to get.  As far as climbing the ranks as a planner, my best tip would be to not get pigeonholed into one aspect of planning early on.  Try to do both current and long-range, learn some GIS, and hang out at the public hearings.  It’s great in an interview to be able to show that you can speak intelligently about a wide range of topics.  But then ultimately try to become an expert at one of them, too.

I started here reviewing maps and building permits, then merged into Long Range and worked on creating a new neighborhood plan for one of our rural neighborhoods.  A few years later I was back in Current Planning, helping implement the neighborhood plan I also helped to write.  I quickly learned a lot about what not to put in a neighborhood plan once I actually had to try to implement it (hint: don’t put public hearing notification requirements in a neighborhood plan).

Why do you belong to the Western Planner?

I also think getting involved in APA, Western Planner, or any professional organization is huge, too.  Networking is so underrated nowadays.  I got involved in the Nevada Chapter just after starting here in Henderson because the then-President, John Wardlaw, nudged me into it.  I’m so glad he did… I started out filling in as Chapter Treasurer and ended up becoming President, working on the 2008 National Conference, working on two Western Planner Conferences (Vegas and Tahoe), and being appointed to the APA National Chapter President’s Council Executive Committee (and a failed run at APA Board of Directors – beating the California candidates is hard!).  But I’ve made so many friends from around the country along the way (including the aforementioned California candidate) by being involved in organizations.

What are you known for in the office?
Here in the office, I think I’m known as the Grammar Police because when I’m reviewing staff reports, I’m pretty strict about using the Oxford Comma.  I also love to organize events like our Office Olympics, which last two weeks and usually have a local Olympian as a judge or torch bearer (I’m a Gold Medal Office Biathlete, by the way).

What are your plans moving forward?
I don’t know yet what I’ll do when I’m done here at the City of Henderson, but I may dabble in consulting or contract work, at least for a time.  But more than likely I’ll try to change it up and maybe see if one of the new, local sports teams needs someone to bring Office Olympics or Oxford Commas to their employees.

Greg Toth, AICP won the 2022 Western Planner, Planner of the Year Award.