Chairman, New Schools/ Better Neighborhoods
President, CEO, ABL, Incorporated
Publisher/Managing Editor
The Planning Report and Metro Investment ReportNovember 2005

Mr. Abel is Chairman and Managing Director of New Schools/ Better Neighborhoods (nsbn.org), as well as President & CEO of a California-based public policy consulting firm, ABL, Incorporated, engaged in foundation, civic and public affairs consulting. He is also the publisher of two widely respected monthly newsletters: and The Planning Report, which focuses on land use issues in Southern California, and the Metro Investment Report, which covers public infrastructure. 

Mr. Abel presently chairs the University of Southern California’s Masters in Public Policy Board of Overseers, and he is a lecturer on regionalism at UCSD. This fall he was invited to be a Keston Fellow by the USC Keston Institute on Infrastructure. He has published articles in the Los Angeles Times and The Harvard Educational Review, and has been a Fellow and a Director of the Coro Foundation, the Robert Kennedy Memorial, and the Institute for Educational Leadership. In addition to his law (Boston University) and doctoral work in educational administration (Harvard), his collegiate background includes an undergraduate degree from Claremont McKenna College, study at the London School of Economics, and a Master’s in Urban Studies degree from Occidental College. 

Civically, Mr. Abel chairs the California Center for Regional Leadership, and is an executive board member of both the L.A. County Economic Development Corporation and the L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce. He also serves on the boards of St. Anne’s, Grand Performances, and the Trust for Public Land - California advisory board. He served for two years on Los Angeles Unified School District’ Proposition BB School Bond Citizen’s Oversight Committee. He has also served by appointment and was chairman of both State Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg’s Blue Ribbon Commission to Consider Reforms of California’s Initiative Process and former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa’s Commission on State/Local Government Finance Reform. He also was a member of Speaker’s Hertzberg’s Commission on Regionalism. 

Mr. Abel formerly served as Chairman of the Los Angeles County Economy & Efficiency Commission (often referred to as Los Angeles County’s Little Hoover Commission); chaired the board of directors of both CalStart and Project Restore, and served on the Independent Citizens Oversight Committee of the L.A. County Fire Department. Most recently, Mr. Abel served as a member of the Independent Review Panel - Finance Options -of the Bay Delta Authority.