Wayne is a developer, planner, and licensed architect who resides in Lincoln, Nebraska. After initially preparing for a traditional career in architecture at the University of Nebraska, Wayne’s academic interests shifted to the emerging field of public interest design. The subsequent journey took him to DC, St Louis, and Cleveland before coming home in 2020 to explore affordable housing products and policy solutions that transcend the urban/rural divide.

In DC, Wayne oversaw the launch of a national service initiative called Freedom by Design while President of the American Institute of Architecture Students. In 2004, he continued his education at Washington University in St. Louis where he became the first to achieve graduate degrees in architecture, urban design, and social work. He leveraged that knowledge base on the WashU faculty and at H3 Studio where he managed planning and urban design projects across the Midwest and South.

In 2010, he was awarded an Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellowship in Cleveland, Ohio. There, Wayne helped facilitate citywide planning, housing, and redevelopment strategies as a leader and confidant within an expansive community development ecosystem. His nearly ten-year tenure in Cleveland was recognized by the American Institute of Architects with a 2020 Young Architect Award.

Months later, the Arlington, Nebraska native came home to lead the modernization of NeighborWorks Lincoln including a team reset, community land trust launch, rental rehab program design, and scaling of the land acquisition and development pipelines. Wayne stepped away from NWL in 2024 to launch Public Square and investigate scaling and production techniques for affordable and mixed-income housing. In July, Wayne renewed his work with the Nebraska College of Architecture (as an adjunct lecturer) and joined the leadership team of Excel Development Group. As Vice President of Development, he directs new projects across the Lincoln-based firm’s four-state footprint (Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, and Oklahoma).