Days after finishing his masters degree in Urban & Regional Planning at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs in mid-December, Jackson Matthies stepped into a new job as a Community Development Specialist for the City of St. Francis.
Earlier that same week, Matthies completed an RCP project with the City of Afton that he credits with giving him a competitive edge in a challenging job market.
“Afton and St. Francis are really similar cities in terms of the size and the culture,” said Matthies. “They're both exurban [and] on the edge of the metro, and so it was a really good experience for me to…[say], ‘Hey, I've done projects in cities a lot like this job. I think that was a good interview answer.”
Matthies leveraged his experience with RCP to secure his new job directly after graduation. With the help of applied-learning opportunities and internships, he had practical, hands-on experience to transition into his professional career as soon as he finished his education at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs.
City of Afton Partnership
The City of Afton partnered with RCP on two projects in Dr. Mae Davenport’s class ESPM 5245: Sustainable Land Use Planning and Policy for the 2025 fall semester. The projects centered on developing new greenway corridors. Matthies’s team was tasked with investigating public engagement approaches—identifying strategies and developing outreach tools to involve residents and other stakeholders in the planning and implementation of new greenway trails in the city.
“They want to do it now because the city's growing,” said Matthies about the greenway development project. “They want to be able to get the infrastructure in now. . .[because] it just becomes harder once [land is] already developed.”
The officials at the City of Afton asked students to look at other cities and the community engagement events they’ve hosted, and try to figure out what worked, what reached the most people, and what didn't work. Students created a pilot workshop, which they presented to the City staff, council members, and mayor at an event on December 15, 2025.
Matthies’ work on the project helped the City find ways to get their community involved in their plans for a greenway trail. This spring semester, a Humphrey School of Public Affairs capstone group is building on the engagement team’s work.
Gaining Real Experience
Heading into the project, Matthies was excited about the opportunity to work with a city. Previously he had completed a similar project with Scott County.
“When we first found out about the [Afton] project, I was most excited to be able to work with another city,” said Matthies. “For my degree program, I wanted to work in government doing planning, or planning-adjacent things, and so this was a really good opportunity to get a better understanding of how governments work, what everybody's roles are, and how projects work.”
Throughout the project, Matthies worked closely with the project's city staff leads, as well as RCP staff who helped to coordinate the work with the City. “Having the pilot workshop in the city of Afton was really a beneficial thing,” said Matthies. “They showed us a tour of the whole city, so we had a better idea of what everything's about over there, which was really helpful, so I think it was a positive experience.”
RCP projects offer students opportunities to assist with real-world projects in courses they are already enrolled in and taking for academic credit.
RCP project experiences “are really good things to put on your resume,” said Matthies. “Humphrey School students are required to get an internship, but even with one internship, that's not enough to fill out the full resume of everything that you'd like to put on there for interviews. Getting more experience and knowing. . .what you're getting into and how to react to given situations was helpful.”
Get Involved
Now in his new job, Matthies has a lot of responsibilities that are similar to the work he completed on projects during his time with RCP. “I do a lot of code enforcement and land use-related things,” said Matthies. “I engage with the community on a daily basis [regarding] ordinances.”
If you are a student interested in getting involved with RCP projects in the future, and growing your resume and work experience, RCP matches projects with graduate and professional courses every semester. You can sign up for future announcements about our RCP Scholars program, which offers summer research assistantships to work on applied projects with a local government partner: https://rcp.umn.edu/news/sign-news-and-announcements.