Robert H. McNulty, founder and president of Partners for Livable Communities, is known primarily for persuading local officials to view public and private partnerships as a resource for revitalizing cities in the Americas. He has a distinguished background in design and planning, having been a Loeb Fellow in 1973-74 at the Harvard Graduate School of Design; lecturer, adjunct professor, and acting Director of the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation at Columbia University’s School of Architecture. He formerly sat on the Alumni Council of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design.

For the past 40 years, Bob has led Partners to become the national leader on issues of livability and better communities. A network of over 1,000 organizations ranging from the World Wildlife Fund to the Urban Land Institute, Partners embodies the diversity and consensus-building needed in the recovery of the American city.

Bob, a fourth-generation Californian, grew up in Oakland. He graduated from business school at the University of California-Berkeley with a focus on real estate. After working Safeway Stores as a property-acquisition planner, he graduated from law school at Boalt Hall, University of California, Berkeley, in 1965 and joined the California bar that same year. He went on to serve in the U.S. military forces in Germany from 1966-67. He and his wife thereafter traveled extensively in North Africa and Eastern Europe.

In 1968, upon returning to the States, Bob joined Colonial Williamsburg as an archeological assistant to Ivor Noel-Hume, dean of historical archeology in this country. He then moved to the Smithsonian Institution, where he became the research assistant to Daniel Boorstin, Director of the National Museum of American History. Two years later, Bob became Director of Environmental Programs at the General Services Administration, charged with establishing compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act in areas ranging from historic preservation to control of pollution sources from federal properties. In 1972, he transferred to the National Endowment for the Arts where he became Assistant Director of NEA’s Architecture and Environmental Arts Program, pioneering the series of small grants to local municipal authorities to improve the climate of economic well-being in their communities. These grant programs—variously described as City Edges, Livable Cities, Neighborhood Conservation—set a new tone for the role of aesthetics and amenity in community economics and social concern. The programs led the Chairman of the Endowment, Nancy Hanks, to collaborate with Bob in 1977 on forming Partners for Livable Places, a nonprofit organization that advances the economic and social resources of design, planning and quality of life to improve communities.

Partners has become the national leader on issues of livability and better communities. A network of over 1,000 organizations ranging from the World Wildlife Fund to the Urban Land Institute, Partners embodies the diversity and consensus-building needed in the recovery of the American city.

Robert McNulty has been a frequent writer, editor and contributor on urban strategies over the last twenty years. He served as researcher/writer on the “urban” section of Use of Land in 1972; editor of By Design published in 1976. McNulty was guest editor of the Journal of Architectural Education of the American Institute of Architects on historic preservation in America in 1976; co-editor of Neighborhood Conservation in 1976; editor of the Economics of Amenity in 1985 and the Return of the Livable City in 1986 and the Entrepreneurial American City in 1986. He was editor of the Better Cities Book in 1989. McNulty contributed a chapter to Henry Cisneros’ book, Interwoven Destinies on quality of life in 1993; and was writer and co-editor of the State of the American Community report in 1994.

Robert McNulty has also written for the Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, the Atlanta magazine, and the California Monthly magazine.

Bob has traveled extensively in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Pacific, Australia and the Caribbean. He is an accomplished speaker and has been a lead presenter at such diverse gatherings as a Public-Private Partnership Forum held by the Chamber of Commerce of Istanbul and the Ditchley Forum on Urban Affairs between the United States and UK.