June 29, 2026
Get to know Principal Planner Derek Lombardi.
What did you want to be growing up?
Either planning out the bid and games for an Olympics host city or doing roller coaster/amusement park design. My family liked sports and traveling, and between regular visits to Florida and Lake Placid, NY, I felt like it would be cool to be involved with building rides, themed lands, or athletic/tourist facilities. I also played a lot of Roller Coaster Tycoon and organized family trips that would combine a visit to an amusement park with a sporting event (e.g. visiting Disneyland and seeing the Dodgers or Cedar Point and a game in Cleveland).
What was your first job?
My first job was working for the town I grew up in (North Providence, Rhode Island). In the summer, before you were old enough to be a counselor at the day camp, they would hire 14–15 year olds to pick up trash at parks, school playgrounds, and on some of the main roads. It was a bit grimy but you might still see me doing that kind of stuff on my block in South Philly, so I suppose it instilled some good civic values.
Once I turned 16 I started working at Target, first as a cart attendant / backup cashier and then I got upgraded to the sales floor. Initially they assigned me to the Electronics department, which felt a bit like typecasting for a teen boy, but I wasn’t really into video games or tech stuff so they later rotated me to other departments. I preferred working in the section that was just called Market (the packaged food aisles back before they had legit produce), but that also meant I had to man the Health & Beauty aisles too. I tend to avoid wearing the color red nowadays.
What did you study in college?
I majored in Economics and International Relations at Bucknell University in central PA. I was interested in a career in international development and studied abroad in Germany and Barbados, but I opted to do Teach For America after I graduated and was a high school math instructor for a couple of years.
How did you end up at DVRPC?
After teaching and working in the nonprofit education sector, I wanted to transition into a career that dealt more with municipal issues. Working in low-income schools exposes you to a range of issues like insufficient transportation access, food insecurity, housing affordability challenges, and lack of quality community facilities. I figured planning was a field where many of these topics intersect and decided to get a Master’s at the University of Maryland. While there I worked in a research office on campus called the National Center for Smart Growth where I contributed to a study on federal sustainability grants that targeted metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs). As I wrapped up my degree, I was interested in moving to Philly and noticed that DVRPC was advertising a planner role within their Office of Smart Growth (OSG), so I applied and started within a few weeks of graduating.
What are your responsibilities?
I mainly contribute to research projects and place-based studies that link transportation and land use. OSG’s work prioritizes transit-oriented and mixed-use development, regional housing affordability, and multimodal access with an emphasis on safe, active transportation. We regularly partner with SEPTA and local governments on improving pedestrian and bicycle access and enhancing development potential at their rail stations. Lately I’ve been coordinating our effort to gather and interpret the zoning codes for all 350 municipalities within our region, and translating them into a uniform dataset so we can get a better understanding of how they regulate housing. This was partly done in partnership with the National Zoning Atlas. One of the best parts of working in OSG is that our projects change regularly. I’ve had the chance to work on studies and plans dealing with traffic safety, active transportation, parking, healthy communities, historic and cultural preservation, brownfields and greyfields, tourism, and more.
What is your favorite part of working at DVRPC?
I like the variety of projects, communities, and people I get to interact with, and being surrounded by colleagues and partners who have a vested interest in improving the city that I now call home as well as the surrounding areas that make our region great.
If you could immediately implement any change to the region, what would you do?
Bike parking everywhere. Where are all the bike racks?
What three words best describe you?
Reliable, curious, methodical (all layered with a degree of stubbornness)
What is something colleagues don’t know about you?
Well, I had to withhold this information from them until very recently, but I got to compete on Jeopardy! this year. The episode aired on June 25.
What actor would play you in the movie version of your life?
Jake Gyllenhaal may be my wishful celebrity lookalike. Sorry Swifties!
What is your favorite leisure activity?
I play way too much pickleball. This past spring, I actually captained a club team in a league that covers all of southeastern PA and NJ. I also like skiing (but not in Pennsylvania), playing Quizzo/pub trivia, and going to the movies.
What is your recent obsession?
I play a lot of daily games, including Wordle, Spelling Bee, Strands, and Connections from the New York Times, and Learned League which is an invite-only online trivia competition, and I watch Jeopardy as regularly as possible. Recently I came across “GeoSports” and “GeoHistory” which give you five clues and a map where you try to identify the location in question.
What is the best music you’ve heard recently?
This past month I got to see Bleachers perform at the Mann Center, and there are a ton of good shows coming up on my radar (The Strokes, Jack Johnson, Death Cab, Noah Kahan to name a few). I also saw The Outsiders at the Academy of Music recently and that had some great music too.
What are the top three places you want to travel to?
I am a huge tennis fan, and the only Grand Slam tournament I have yet to visit is the Australian Open in Melbourne, so that’s at the top of the list. I also want to get to Mexico City and the Canadian maritime provinces, specifically Prince Edward Island so I can eat a lot of oysters.
Are you a cat or dog person?
I like both and most animals, but I have to disclose that I am Team Cat. I’ve had my orange boy Scallop for five years. He is so easygoing that he’s basically ruined dogs for me.
What is a recent gift you’ve given or received?
My dad loses his wallet all the time, so for Father’s Day I gave him a wallet-sized chargeable tracking device that syncs up with Apple’s “Find My Device” app.
What is the most meaningful item in your house?
I have two pieces of art that my very talented family members produced on my bedroom wall. One is a “party ostrich,” which is part of a series of custom ostrich drawings that my cousin makes for and inspired by her loved ones. The other is a painting of a wave that my other cousin made—we all grew up at the beach in Rhode Island and so it reminds me of home.
What are you looking forward to the most in the next year?
I actually had a very busy beginning of 2026 with travel to Colorado, Tahoe, Vermont, Florida, LA, and Texas, so I’m sort of looking forward to a more relaxing summer and fall spending time here in Philly, enjoying the World Cup and semiquincentennial fanfare. I do have a few more trips planned but they will be more low-key family time in Rhode Island and Chicago, where my brother, sister-in-law, and two nieces live. Another fun thing coming up is my 20-year high school reunion.