Karen Thompson is currently an Associate Planner in the Advance Planning Division at the City of Ontario, one of the largest communities in the Inland Empire. She has over eleven years of experience working for the City of Ontario. 

 

Karen’s experience includes working on the City’s web-based General Plan, administering the Historic Preservation Program, administering the Homelessness Prevention Program for Ontario, various community revitalization projects; social justice issues; and working for the Housing Agency on affordable housing grants and related projects.  Karen currently oversees the Healthy Ontario Initiative where she works closely with the community on local food policy and related projects such as the community garden and urban farm and safe routes to schools. Karen has worked on several large scale grant projects and brought in over 3.5 million dollars of funding to the City of Ontario.

 

Karen holds a Bachelor’s degree in Public Administration from California State University San Bernardino where she graduated with Departmental Honors. Karen is currently pursuing her Master’s in Social Impact in addition to leadership development training. Karen is a member of the Golden Key National Honor Society and the California Preservation Foundation.