Gary Gaston

Gary Gaston is the Executive Director of the Nashville Civic Design Center, and also serves as a Lecturer with the University of Tennessee College of Architecture and Design. He joined NCDC in 2002, and has led numerous planning and design efforts for the organization. Gary was a contributor to The Plan of Nashville: Avenues to a Great City, published by Vanderbilt University Press in 2005, and co-authored Moving Tennessee Forward: Models for Connecting Communities, published in 2012. Gary served as the project Director and executive producer of NEA funded documentary film Design Your Neighborhood; and is co-author of a new book, Shaping the Healthy Community: the Nashville Plan, to be released by Vanderbilt University Press in March 2016.

Next City Magazine named Gary a "Next American Vanguard" in 2010; he was a member of the 2010-2011 Leadership Nashville class; is an alumnus of the Young Leaders Council; and has served on the Board of Director of Nashville CARES, Artrageous, LGBT Chamber of Commerce and Historic Nashville Inc., and advisory boards for Transit Now Nashville and Urban Green Lab.