Celeste-Boccieri Werner, FAICP, serves as HR Green’s National Community & Federal Planning Director, leading the growth and strategic direction of the firm’s expanding planning practice. She works closely with clients and internal teams to strengthen market presence, drive strategic growth, and deliver planning solutions that connect community vision with practical implementation. Her leadership spans client development, project execution, and collaboration across HR Green’s planning, engineering, environmental, geospatial, and municipal services teams.
Celeste is a nationally recognized planning and strategic advisory leader with more than 35 years of experience helping communities, government agencies, and public-sector organizations address complex growth, redevelopment, land use, infrastructure, and governance challenges. A Fellow of the American Institute of Certified Planners and recipient of the American Planning Association, (APA) Arizona’s Distinguished Planning Pioneer Award, she has led more than 100 comprehensive and general planning efforts and directed multidisciplinary programs across the United States and U.S. territories.
Celeste’s technical expertise spans comprehensive and general planning, land use and zoning, development regulations, redevelopment and adaptive reuse, housing, economic development, infrastructure and transportation planning, military and defense community planning, resilience, governance, and strategic planning. Her experience in both the public and private sectors including service as a planner and Deputy Chief of Staff to a San Diego City Councilmember gives her a practical understanding of how technical recommendations, public policy, political decision-making, and implementation come together within local government.
Throughout her career, Celeste has helped translate complex technical, economic, regulatory, and policy issues into clear strategies that can be adopted, funded, administered, and implemented. Her work includes major comprehensive plans and zoning code updates; redevelopment and reuse plans for former military installations and other complex sites; statewide and regional military compatibility initiatives; government modernization and organizational strategy; housing and economic development studies; and infrastructure and capital investment planning.
Celeste is particularly skilled at leading large multidisciplinary teams and connecting planning, engineering, economics, infrastructure, policy, and implementation into a cohesive strategy. She has advised governors, elected officials, military leaders, public agencies, and local governments on high-profile and politically complex initiatives and has helped develop legislation, regulatory frameworks, implementation programs, and investment strategies that move projects from vision to measurable results. Her longstanding work with defense communities includes service as an Honorary Commander at Luke Air Force Base.
Her nationally recognized public engagement and facilitation expertise complements this technical foundation, helping communities and decision-makers navigate difficult issues and build support for technically sound, implementable solutions.