Princeton University

ML Wernecke is a senior staff member in the Governor’s Office of Policy and Planning under Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell.  Her primary focus is on economic policy including income security, workforce policy, tax policy and economic incentives.  Her responsibilities include communications, program design, interagency coordination, and legislative and regulatory analysis.

ML previously worked for then-Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell as an Assistant Deputy Mayor where she focused on welfare-to-work planning and program development.  As part of this assignment, she created and managed the $1.4 million transportation component of Greater Philadelphia Works that increased utilization of the existing transit system and targeted significant new investments to improve access to city and suburban job centers.

ML has held several positions at the University of Pennsylvania.  In the early 1990s, she was Assistant Director of  the Center for Greater Philadelphia where she managed projects to promote regional cooperation in Southeastern Pennsylvania by working with elected officials, corporate leaders and citizen groups.  In 2000, ML returned to Penn to become Managing Director of the Cartographic Modeling Lab (http://cml.upenn.edu/).  The Lab conducts academic research and urban and social policy analysis using geographic information systems (GIS) with a special focus on Philadelphia.

ML has worked in public and private settings as an urban and environmental planner.  As a planner at Wallace Roberts & Todd, she completed several assignments for the Washington Metro to help resolve complex environmental and land use disputes that were delaying the completion of the Metrorail system.  She also was manager of comprehensive planning at the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission charged with a variety regional economic and community development projects, including an analysis of prospects for first generation suburbs.

ML graduated from the University of Pennsylvania where she majored in Economics and American Civilization.  Before entering WWS, she worked as an Economist at Wharton Econometric Forecasting.  She concentrated in Field III at WWS and interned with the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp.

Address:
Governor's Policy Office
506 Finance Building
Harrisburg, PA 19120