Jason Beske This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. Heartland Brick Council

   www.heartlandbrick.org/career_ - [Cached]

   Published on: 1/7/2005   Last Visited: 1/7/2005

   Contact: Jason Beske j.beske@heartlandbrick.org Phone: (877) 202-5554 Fax: (515) 252-0645

2. 2. Finance and Commerce

   www.finance-commerce.com/recen - [Cached]

   Published on: 8/6/2003   Last Visited: 8/6/2003

   Jason Beske, city planning consultant for the Iowa-based Heartland Brick Council, said he has sent a "city planner's tool kit" to mayors, planning directors and other officials in at least 20 Minnesota cities. The kit includes a 14-minute CD-ROM that extols the benefits of masonry. It also features model ordinances and case studies from cities that have adopted masonry ordinances.
   
   Beske said he has met with planning staff for the city of Ramsey and hopes to see a residential or multifamily ordinance approved there. Inver Grove Heights, Andover and Savage have also expressed interest in adopting tougher masonry regulations, he said.
   
   "I do want to see better development, and I can definitely stand behind brick and masonry products as better development than what is seen commonly in urban sprawl," Beske said.
   ...
   From an environmental standpoint, Beske said masonry is consistent with the philosophy of green construction, because brick lasts a long time and it's a "natural material - something that doesn't take an environmentally destructive process to create."

3. 3. Spit and Polish

   w1.planning.org/planning/nonme - [Cached]

   Published on: 1/25/2004   Last Visited: 8/30/2004

   For Jason Beske, planning may not be exactly what he expected when he sat through his classes at Iowa State University, but he's having a lot of fun. Beske is a city planning consultant with the Heartland Brick Council, based in Johnston, Iowa, a group composed of brick and masonry manufacturers in the Upper Midwest. While Beske tries to convince small towns in an eight-state region of the importance of brick and masonry construction, he also finds himself serving as a planning missionary in places that don't even have one planner, much less a planning staff.
   
   He travels extensively, offering advice on the uses of brick, with planning guidelines for commercial and family structures. Perhaps a quarter of the time he's in a town of 20,000 or less, where guidelines are a new concept.
   
   "I've had small towns actually seek me out for help with their ordinances," Beske says. Earlier this year, a city council member in Holt, Missouri (pop. 500), heard of him from a neighboring town and asked him to visit. Holt had neither an ordinance nor land-use plan. Beske helped with ordinance language and introduced the idea of planned unit developments.
   ...
   Jason Beske may not be traveling overseas, but in traveling through America's heartland, he's often doing a lot of education about planning, urban design, and historic preservation.
   
   "I always thought I'd be working for a city somewhere; I didn't know the broad range of opportunities," Beske says. His internship at the city of West Des Moines in Iowa, taught him what it was like to work on a project from concept to reality: That's what happened with the Jordan Creek mall, the city's new town center, to be completed this month.
   ...
   Middle - Jason Beske (second from right) is often on the road for Heartland Brick Council.