Director of Park Planning & Design
oil PAinter
tolerable musician
occasional welder
GOOD PAL
Drew Carman is a multi-disciplinary artist and award-winning landscape architect based in Austin, Texas. While pursuing an MLA in Athens, Georgia in the early 2000s, he was introduced to oil painting through the friend and mentorship of renowned painter, musician, and folklorist Art Rosenbaum. Like Art, he developed a multifaceted approach to creative work often overlapping storytelling, music, oil painting, and in Drew’s case, the design public parks and open spaces.
Carman moved to Austin, Texas in 2014 to work as one of the statewide planners for Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD), where he led planning for some of Texas’ premier State Parks. He then took a role as Director of Park Planning and Design for one of the largest landscape architecture firms in the nation, RVi Planning + Landscape Architecture, where he oversaw the firm’s public practice in Texas for nearly a decade. All the while, Carman continued to expand his body of work in oil painting, sculpture, fabrication and music.
This diversity of mediums, what he refers to collectively as his "design cohort" ensures his creative ideas have a variety of outlets to be developed, refined, destroyed, built back and finally realized.
He opened Design Cohort, LLC in 2026.
EDUCATION
M.L.A.—University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia
College of Environmental Design
Masters Landscape Architecture, May 2008
B.A.—Lawrence University, Appleton, Wisconsin
Major: Environmental Science, May 2003
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Principal - Design Cohort, LLC
Austin, TX | 2026
Director of Park Planning & Design — RVi Planning + Landscape Architecture
Austin, TX | 2014 - present
Park Planner IV—Texas Parks and Wildlife Department
Austin, TX | 2012 – 2014
Principal—Environmental Design Studios, LLC
Watkinsville, GA | 2010 – 2013
Project Manager, Designer - various planning and design firms from 2004-2010.
Board of Directors -Vice President - Austin Outside
Capital Projects Committee - The Trail Conservancy
HONORS, AWARDS, SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS
2025 Tiny Talks ATX
Speaker - Finding Stories in Parks. Austin, Texas 2/18/25
2023 TX ASLA Merit Award
Thriving Together: The Mueller Southeast Greenway. Austin, TX Project Lead & Landscape Architect of Record.
2022 TX ASLA Honor Award
San Gabriel Park Phase I & II, Georgetown, TX. Project Lead & Landscape Architect of Record.
2021 Austin Green Awards Winner
Colony District Park, Playground & Fitness. Austin, TX. Project Lead, Construction Administration
2021 Texas Conservation Symposium
Speaker - They Contain Multitudes: Designing native habitat systems into the dense urban development at Mueller in Austin, TX.
2020 Texas Trails & Active Transportation Conference
Speaker - More Than Just a Mile: How a scrappy .9 mile trail navigated its way through federal oversight, 6 years of planning and one very tall bridge.
2018 Texas Trails & Active Transportation Conference
Speaker—Springs, Karsts & the 100 yr Flood: Design Thinking for Trails in Environmentally Sensitive Zones.
2018 Texas Conservation Symposium
Speaker—Spring Restoration at San Gabriel Park, Revisited
2017 Texas Conservation Symposium
Speaker—Spring Restoration at San Gabriel Park
2010 GA ASLA Honor Award
Gospel Pilgrim Cemetery Rehabilitation, Project Team Member, The Jaeger Co.
2007 GA ASLA Award of Excellence
Callaway Gardens Stormwater Management Master Plan, Project Team Member, Breedlove Land Planning.
2002 Recipient—Chester Cook Research Grant, Lawrence University
Statistical study of vegetational ecology on beach and dunes community in Door Co. Wisconsin
SOFTWARE, skills, ETC.
AutoCAD (Civil, Maps3D); ArcGIS; Adobe CC Suite: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premier Pro; Sketchup; Microsoft Office Suite including MS Projects; GSuite; Procore; Deltek Vision; ProTools…but would rather put a pen to paper any day.
Avocational or general experience in carpentry, woodworking, flatwork, MIG welding, & hole digging.
LICENSURE, CERTIFICATIONS
State of Texas—Licensed Landscape Architect
License number: 2908
TxDOT - Local Government Project Procedure Qualified LGPP - #72751, 08/2019
State of Georgia—Licensed Landscape Architect
License number: LA-001683 (inactive)
PSMJ’s A/E/C Project Management Certified
Course #0007693, 07/2015