Elizabeth Gutierrez

Elizabeth Gutierrez, the 2005 Alumni Achievement Award recipient for the College of Arts & Sciences, was an impressionable youth.  In fact, the impressions she experienced between ages 3 and 13 when she traveled through much of Asia with her missionary father, a native of India, and her mother, from Minnesota, are still fueling Gutierrez’s career passions.

“I saw poverty that was so bad I can’t even define it,” said Gutierrez. “There is an integral connection between the poverty I saw because of my father’s work and my desire to work with nonprofit agencies.”

Gutierrez, who graduated with distinction from the University of Missouri-Kansas City in 1994 with a bachelor of arts degree in geosciences, has nine years experience as a city/neighborhood planner working with nonprofit community development agencies, largely in the northeastern U.S.

She is cofounder (with her husband Gerry) of Group G in Philadelphia, Pa. Group G is an architectural, interior design and community planning firm that uses GIS (geographic information system) technology extensively in working with clients.

Gutierrez is as much dream weaver as city planner, using the fabric of geography (“a very far-reaching discipline!” she exudes) to bring neighborhoods back from the brink of poverty and decay to transform them into a quilt of vibrancy, cross-cultural customs and food, and fulfillment of the dream of home ownership.

As an undergraduate at UMKC, Gutierrez already had a strongly analytical mind and a flair for research.  So it’s no surprise she makes extensive use of technology – a multiple mapping system called GIS – that allows her to dissect and visually demonstrate to clients the numerous complex factors contributing to a depressed neighborhood’s dilapidated outward appearance. 

“This tool is like a collection of maps with extensive data behind them regarding economic conditions, types of businesses, vacant properties, crime statistics and so on,” she said. “I love the ‘Ohmigosh’ reaction I get from people when I show them their neighborhood analyzed using all these maps and data; and I can track what will happen to their neighborhood over time.”

Gutierrez was the primary author of the Liberty Park Neighborhood Redevelopment Plan (and its six years’ later update) for the City of Camden, N.J., and has been involved in numerous community redevelopment projects in the northeastern U.S., including her home base of Philadelphia.

Success wasn’t long in coming for Gutierrez who, about the time she was completing her master of arts degree (1998) in geography at Temple University in Pa., joined forces with St. Joseph’s Carpenter Society, a nonprofit housing group that promotes home ownership. Among her many accomplishments, Gutierrez implemented a new GIS network at the agency. This network was instrumental in boosting the organization to a federal Housing and Urban Development Best Practices Award and the New Jersey Governor’s Award of Excellence in Housing. Gutierrez was the planning manager for St. Joseph’s Carpenter Society in Camden, N.J. (“some of the poverty I saw in Camden rivals what I saw in Asia,” she says) for three years before moving on to form Group G.

C. Sean Closkey, executive vice president of residential real estate for The Reinvestment Fund (www.trf.com) in Philadelphia, where Gutierrez worked from 1996 to 1997, praises her highly: “Camden, New Jersey is the most violent city in the nation and the nation’s second poorest city. Elizabeth’s work enabled St. Joe to more effectively address neighborhood need and maximize the impact of its investment. Ultimately, Elizabeth’s work became an important part of a body of planning and development analysis which allows St. Joe’s to be considered one of New Jersey’s most sophisticated and capable urban development organizations.”

Gutierrez emphasizes that the work she does involves not just economically distressed areas, but culturally diverse neighborhoods too, with eclectic mixes of Vietnamese, Puerto Rican, elderly and African American populations.  Her goal is not to impose an outsider’s solution on a community, but to understand the needs and uniqueness of a neighborhood, preserving the elements that produce its vitality. “I use tools like GIS to help them make decisions about their community. I help them look for grants and other funding and try to provide home ownership opportunities,” she explains.  Gutierrez has a natural interest in preserving cultures. Her father was an immigrant (from India) and so is her husband (from the Philippines).

A recent favorite project for Gutierrez involves creating a plan for the commercial corridor of the Kensington neighborhood, north of Philadelphia’s Center City. The area is flush with local artists, typified by lower incomes, sporadic employment and, often, a need to live and ply their craft in the same building space. “The same concentration of artists and exciting cultural influence existed in the Center City area, but gentrification, with more affluent residents moving into the area, resulted in the living spaces becoming too expensive for working artists to afford.  We didn’t want that to happen in Kensington,” she said.

UMKC played an important role in the good work Elizabeth Gutierrez is doing in the world. “Being at UMKC was the most enriching college experience for me. I finally got out of college what I thought I should be getting. I experienced so much growth there,” she said. She and her husband came to Kansas City from California when recession and downsizing squeezed his architectural job from existence.  They chose Kansas City largely on her choice of UMKC, due to its strong geography department.

Gutierrez says geography professor Steven Driever played a pivotal role in her career as a student and community/city planner by believing in her and giving her opportunities usually out of the reach of undergraduate students.  “He encouraged me to publish a paper I wrote as an undergraduate in an academic journal – and I did!  Things that seemed out of the realm of possibility, he put in the realm of possibility for me.  Under his tutelage, my education was a lot of fun and a lot of work,” she said. “He also gave me the opportunity to teach; and I met wonderful students here.”

While Gutierrez embraces the whole globe as her world (“Traveling is one of the best educators – seeing things firsthand, touching, smelling, feelings things. I want to continue to do that!) the world she embraces closest to her heart is her family. She and husband Gerry have two children (nearly): three-year-old Sebastian and a baby on the way. Gutierrez’s younger brother lives in Philadelphia too and her mother is dropping hints about departing Minnesota for the northeast as well. Her father is deceased, but still very much with her in his example of helping people and communities in need, wherever they exist in the world.

“As a little girl, I always wanted to reach beyond where I was. I grew up in such an international mode.  I love what I do,” Gutierrez said.

The University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC), one of four University of Missouri campuses, is a public university serving more than 14,000 undergraduate, graduate and professional students.  UMKC engages with the community and economy based on a three-part mission: visual and performing arts, health sciences, and urban affairs.

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