Principal Demographer, Forecasting & Land Use

About Houston-Galveston Area Council

The Houston-Galveston Area Council is one of the largest regional planning commissions in the country with a diverse service area of 13 counties and more than 7 million people. We are the pulse of our region addressing issues that cross city limits and county lines every single day.
We make decisions that affect our transportation system, ensure the safety and well-being of our seniors, connect people to jobs, help families recover from natural disasters, preserve water quality for our children, and so much more. We work to make the region a great place to live, work, and thrive.

What will I be doing?

As the Principal Demographer – Land Use & Regional Growth Forecasting, you will lead regional demographic, employment, and land-use forecasting activities that support transportation and regional planning. You will manage the Socioeconomic Modeling Group, oversee parcel- and TAZ-level forecasting and model development, and provide socioeconomic inputs for travel demand modeling, long-range planning, and scenario analysis.

• Manage and lead the Socioeconomic Modeling Group, including work priorities, schedules, technical direction, staff coordination, and QA/QC.
• Lead long-range population, household, employment, and land-use forecasts at regional, county, TAZ, parcel, and other geographic levels.
• Develop growth allocation methodologies, model assumptions, and alternative development scenarios for regional planning applications.
• Maintain and analyze parcel, building, county appraisal, plat, master-planned community, demographic, economic, and land-use datasets.
• Develop socioeconomic and land-use inputs for travel demand models, Metropolitan Transportation Plans/RTPs, corridor studies, and scenario planning.
• Coordinate forecast assumptions, TAZ structures, and socioeconomic datasets with transportation modelers, GIS staff, planners, consultants, and partner agencies.
• Evaluate relationships among transportation investments, accessibility, development patterns, population, households, and employment.
• Develop and improve regional socioeconomic and land-use forecasting models using Python, GIS, SQL, R, SAS, UrbanSim, or comparable tools.
• Prepare technical documentation, reports, presentations, and clear explanations of complex modeling results for technical and nontechnical audiences.
• Provide technical leadership, mentor staff, and respond to technical and data requests from internal teams and external stakeholders.

Key Qualifications

• At least five years of related experience in demographic forecasting, socioeconomic forecasting, land-use modeling, regional growth forecasting, transportation planning, or related MPO/DOT forecasting work.
• Experience developing or supporting population, household, employment, or land-use forecasts for MPO, DOT, travel demand modeling, Metropolitan Transportation Plan/RTP, corridor study, scenario planning, or regional planning applications.
• Strong GIS, quantitative analysis, data management, spatial analysis, public-sector data, and technical project leadership skills.
• Experience using Python or similar scripting tools for modeling, automation, QA/QC, debugging, or reproducible analysis.

Do you have…  

• Bachelor’s degree in applicable academic discipline or related field of study.
• 5 years of experience working with local government, nonprofit programs, school or in job related duties.

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Demography, Urban or Regional Planning, Geography, Economics, Statistics, Data Science, Transportation Planning, Environmental Studies, or a related field.
• Master’s degree or PhD in a related field.
• More than 8 years of professional experience with an MPO, state DOT, state or local government, Council of Governments, regional planning agency, university, or public-sector partner organization.
• Experience supporting socioeconomic forecasts for travel demand models, Metropolitan Transportation Plans/RTPs, scenario planning, or corridor studies.
• Experience with parcel-level data, county appraisal data, TAZ-level datasets, UrbanSim or comparable land-use models, SAS/R, GIS, and spatial datasets.
• Experience preparing technical documentation, data dictionaries, QA/QC checks, and presentations for planning or modeling audiences.

All employees of H-GAC are required to reside within the agency’s region of service to support our commitment to excellence in service of our region.

H-GAC is an equal opportunity/ADA employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, national origin, or protected veteran status.