Wendy Scaperotta is a retired landscape architect and planner with more than 40 years of experience. Her passion is to provide outdoor places where people can experience nature and communities can reap the many social, environmental and economic benefits of having natural areas within their limits. To her great pleasure, Wendy spent the last 25 years of her professional life doing this in Travis County, Texas for Travis County Parks (TCP).

Wendy’s primary responsibilities as a Planning Project Manager at TCP centered on capital improvement planning. Towards this end she completed system-wide park master plans, a greenway plan for Onion Creek, and concept plans for developing the seven LCRA parks managed by the county. She worked in partnerships with both the Trust for Public Land on The Travis County Greenprint for Growth and the Austin-Bastrop River Corridor Partnership on Discovering the Colorado: A Vision for the Austin-Bastrop River Corridor. Wendy was the Project Manager for the county’s Land, Water, and Transportation Plan and authored its conservation element. She worked on five bond packages that were subsequently approved by voters and provided funds for implementing many projects included in adopted park and land conservation plans.

Wendy had several jobs prior to working at Travis County that prepared her for her county work. After receiving her Bachelor of Arts Degree in Environmental Design from the University of Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning in 1979, she worked at BOSTI, Inc, a multi-disciplinary, non-profit organization affiliated with the University and led by architect Michael Brill. It was here that she developed an appreciation of and skills to identify user needs and preferences as a basis of thoughtful design. Working as a Research Associate on an extensive study of office environments, she honed skills in questionnaire design and administration, data analysis, and reporting to clients including National Science Foundation (NSF), National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), General Service Administration (GSA), Herman Miller, and Corning Inc.

After receiving her Masters of Landscape Architecture from the University of Massachusetts Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning Department in 1984, Wendy relocated to Fort Lauderdale FL and began her focus on the public landscape, in general, and park design, in particular. She learned the nuts and bolts of designing and building parks while working as a Landscape Architect at the historic landscape architecture firm Stresau, Smith and Stresaus, PA, the Broward County Parks Department, and the multi-disciplinary firm Keith and Schnars.

Wendy obtained her Florida Landscape Architect license in 1987 and Texas Landscape Architect license in 1993 when she moved to Austin, Texas. She chose, however, to instead maintain professional planning credentials to complement her TCP planning work. She qualified for membership in the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) in 1995.

Wendy has lived in the Brentwood neighborhood of north-central Austin since 1993. She is an avid gardener, loves cats, enjoys reading, music, yoga, and spending time with family and friends. She is a member of Impact Austin, a women’s collective giving organization and supports several environmental and recreation non-profit organizations in the Austin area.