The head of Berkshire County’s Regional Planning Commission is preparing to step down after almost 30 years with the organization.
Berkshire Regional Planning Commission Executive Director Thomas Matuszko has been fascinated with planning for decades.
“My entry point to this kind of work was basically in the 1980s when I saw what was happening to the landscape in Western Mass,” he told WAMC. “There was a lot of sprawl being done, and so I was interested very much in trying to do preservation of both the land and the landform, but also the communities too, so that we had some of the small communities. So, my background was in regional planning at UMass, but it had a rural resource concentration on it.”
By the time he leaves the commission in March of 2026, he will have spent 29 years with the agency tasked with providing organization and resources to the westernmost region of Massachusetts and its 32 municipalities.
“Our organization is overseen from a policy perspective by one member from every planning board in the county,” said Assistant Director Laura Brennan. “So that’s a 32-person governance body, and that is also a huge amount of dedication that we are extremely grateful for, and that has been the case – that’s how we have been operating for nearly 60 years. We’re heading into our 60th anniversary in 2026. So that continuity and that commitment that we have from local volunteers and our partnerships with the staff at local municipal organizations is incredibly important for our ongoing success.”