James Schwab

James Schwab, fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners, was manager of the American Planning Association’s (APA) Hazards Planning Center until his “retirement” in 2017. He then began consulting while continuing a 16-year engagement at the University of Iowa as adjunct assistant professor in the School of Planning and Public Affairs, teaching “Planning for Disaster Mitigation and Recovery.” Schwab ended that commitment in 2024. He is now focused on completing a book and the documentary film, Planning to Turn the Tide, a project of the APA Hazard Mitigation and Disaster Recovery Planning Division (HMDR), which he chaired in 2020-2021. At APA, he led project teams that produced Planning for Post-Discovery Recovery and Reconstruction, a pathbreaking exploration of the role of planning in facilitating disaster recovery before and after disasters; Hazard Mitigation: Integrating Best Practices into Planning; and Planning for Post-Disaster Recovery: Next Generation, among other Planning Advisory Service Reports and projects that helped build the case for a robust involvement of planners in addressing community disaster resilience needs. He has served on numerous advisory committees and in other capacities with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, and other agencies during and after his work with APA. He is now launching work on a professional memoir laced with planning history that he hopes to finish by 2026.

Schwab has a Bachelor of Arts in political science from Cleveland State University and a Master of Arts in urban and regional planning and journalism from the University of Iowa. He received the Goddard-White Award from the Association of State Floodplain Managers and the Lifetime Achievement Award from HMDR.