Gabi Kappes

About Gabi Kappes

Gabi Kappes is an urban designer and planner with over 11 years of experience in both the private and public sectors. With a background in community development and both transportation and physical/environmental planning, she approaches urban planning and design issues with context-sensitive and sustainable solutions. She has played critical roles in planning and designing projects of various scales, including transit station area planning, corridor planning, transit-oriented development (TOD) planning, complete street design, and land use planning. She also has experience working cross-disciplinary and leading large matrixed teams. As an artist with a lifelong passion for social justice and environmental sustainability, a career in transportation planning and urban design is the perfect synthesis of her personal and professional aspirations. She is passionate about transportation planning and urban design because they are central to so many issues - resiliency, accessibility, climate change, environmental sustainability, equity, social mobility, education, and housing. Professional Affiliations and Positions: Executive Board, Co-Treasurer, Women\'s Transportation Seminar (WTS) InternationalAmerican Institute of Certified Planners (AICP), American Planning Association (APA)Member, Young Professionals in Transportation (YPT) International BoardMember, American Planning Association (APA)Technical Skills:Microsoft: Word, Project, Access, Excel and Powerpoint, Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, Lightroom), PowerBI, ArcMap (Esri 10.6): Network and Spatial Analyst, AutoCAD, Sketchup

Experience

1. Planning Lead

   GFT

   Jan 2026 — Present · Seattle, WA, US

Education

• University of Cape Town

  Bachelor of Science (BS)

• Rutgers University

  Master of City and Regional Planning (MCRP), Transportation Planning, Environmental Planning/Physical Design

  2014 — 2016

• Penn State University

  Bachelor of Science (BS), Community, Environment, and Development - International Development

  2009 — 2013

Skills

• Qualitative Research
• Economic Development
• Adobe Creative Suite
• Spss
• Urban Planning
• Data Entry
• Transportation Planning
• Community Outreach
• Community Development
• Research
• Public Policy
• Donor Management
• Report Writing
• Rendering
• Donor Research
• Fundraising
• Community Engagement
• Policy
• Event Planning
• Grant Writing
• Leadership
• Project Management
• Data Analysis
• Autocad
• Donor Engagement
• Wordpress
• Volunteer Management
• Foreign Policy
• Gis
• Survey Analysis
• Photoshop
• Sketchup
• Microsoft Word
• Land Use Planning
• Illustrator
• Sustainability
• Transportation Modeling Suite Cube
• Nonprofits
• Conflict Analysis
• Indesign