As Director of the Boston Planning and Development Agency, Brian Golden oversees the urban planning of the city. The agency works with both housing and commercial projects and is responsible for approving or rejecting new development proposals within all of Boston. Brian had worked at the previously named BRA (Boston Redevelopment Agency) for several years before being appointed to Director by Mayor Martin Walsh in 2014.

Brian Golden’s career has revolved around the idea of service. He sees public service as a way to make good for the larger public, but he also decided to enlist to serve his country.

Brian is a Boston Latin graduate, and he later received degrees from Harvard University, the College of William and Mary’s School of Law, and the US Army War College. He has always liked history, and was always reminded of public service through his family’s history of service in the Navy. Brian served on active duty in the United States Army from 1993-1996 and is currently a Lieutenant Colonel in the Reserve as part of the JAG Corps (the legal branch of the military). Brian was called to Iraq in 2005 after the Abu Ghraib scandal and went to Israel/West Bank in 2013 to train the Palestinian security force, to name a few of his experiences. He has been awarded the Bronze Star Medal and the Defense Meritorious Service Medal.

Brian served the Allston-Brighton neighborhood in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1999-2005, where he was the Vice Chair of the Joint Education Committee and the Joint Government Committee and was the co-chairman of the Commission of School Building Assistance. While in the legislature, Brian’s Commission was able to revise the state policy for school construction funding. Brian left the House of Representatives and became the Commissioner for the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Energy until 2007. After, he was the New England Regional Director of the United States Department of Health and Human Services until 2009. He also was on the Board of Directors at the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston.