Laura Kessel Receives LEAP Pipeline Award
The Des Moines Downtown Chamber’s Leadership Advancement Education Pipeline (LEAP) program, recognizes women for their leadership in advancing and empowering women.
RDG Planning & Design Landscape Architect and Planner, Laura Kessel, PLA, AICP is the recipient of the 2019 LEAP Pipeline Award. Conferred by the Des Moines Downtown Chamber’s Leadership Advancement Education Pipeline (LEAP) program, the Pipeline Award specifically recognizes an emerging female professional who demonstrates a clear momentum to initiate change and is part of LEAP’s larger awards program that recognizes women for their leadership in advancing and empowering women.
As an early member of Iowa Women in Architecture, Kessel led efforts to develop a Best Practices Manual, a document that offers recommendations for policies to address work-life balance and career development challenges to enhance recruitment, retention and engagement of design firm employees at all career stages. Kessel helped plan events to study work-life balance and lead the task force that developed action-oriented, research-based recommendations included in the manual. In addition, she presented these best practices in Iowa and other states.
Kessel is an experienced project manager and facilitator with deep insight into the issues affecting today’s workforce. She has presented for the Iowa League of Cities and others on “Building for the Future: Infrastructure for the Next Generation” to provide insights on how virtual, physical and cultural infrastructure impacts both the workplace and broader communities. An active member of both Iowa Women in Architecture and the Iowa chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects, Kessel has a strong focus on sustainable design.