Senior Research Fellow

Email: Donald_Zizzi@uml.edu

BA from Fordham University and MPA from the Rockefeller School of Public Affairs and Policy

Don Zizzi is a senior research associate at the Center for Urban and Regional Policy. He is currently involved in developing and advancing the center's Economic Development Partnership to help communities around the country attract business and industries to their jurisdictions. He also is assisting in the Center's survey of the manufacturing industry in Massachusetts. In addition to his work at CURP, Don also is an adjunct professor in UMass Lowell's Department of Regional Economic and Social Development and a senior fellow in their Center for Industrial Competitiveness.

Before joining the center, Don had extensive planning and management experience in both the public and private sectors. During his more than twenty years in public service, he has served as the executive director of the Nashua Regional Planning Commission and chief planner in Schenectady County, NY, before that. In the private sector, Don managed U.S. remote facility development and operations for a Silicon Valley based technology firm, and he headed the company's strategic planning initiative to support future business opportunities and to plot the course for the company's global expansion. He has also founded and operated a start-up business of his own delivering specialized internet-based text over IP telecommunication service for large institutional customers serving the deaf, hard of hearing and speech restricted individuals. Don was one of the founding members of the Nashua, NH, Center for Economic Development, serving eight years on its executive committee and helping to establish its innovative business incubator.

Don lives in Nashua, NH with his wife, Kathy, a master elementary school teacher. He cites as his proudest accomplishments of the last few years: caring for an ailing parent (since deceased), attending all of his son's baseball games and writing a novel.