Mike Slaughter, P.E., AICP

Principal

AREAS OF EXPERTISE

EXPERIENCE

Mr. Slaughter, owner and founder of the firm, is responsible for the overall day-to-day operations of the firm that includes the duties of marketing, client contact, project design, management & presentation, quality control, and the direct oversight of all staff and associates. He is directly responsible for urban planning projects such as annexation feasibility analysis, fringe area studies, redistricting of wards and districts, comprehensive planning, zoning, subdivision regulations and ordinances. Mr. Slaughter is a certified planner (AICP) with over thirty (30) years of planning experience and a professional engineer (P.E.).

Mr. Slaughter is recognized as an expert witness in urban planning, civil engineering and governmental finance. He has testified as an expert in more than eighty (80) annexation cases before the Chancery Courts in the State of Mississippi.

Mr. Slaughter started as a professional engineer, designing solutions for growing communities before moving into urban planning services full-time in the 1990s. He was with W.H. Porter & Company for over six years, where he was responsible for the design and construction inspection of numerous residential, commercial and industrial subdivisions, streets, roads, bridges, water distribution systems, sanitary sewer collections systems and urban drainage systems in the Memphis metropolitan area. After 15 years of urban planning experience, with the urban planning firm of Bridge & Slaughter, 11 of which he was a partner, he founded Slaughter and Associates, PLLC, in 2006.

As a Mississippi-based company focused exclusively on urban planning services, the firm has served hundreds of clients in Mississippi and many others in Alabama and Tennessee. With the addition of new talent, Slaughter & Associates, PLLC, was renamed Slaughter & Willingham, PLLC, in 2024 to reflect the firm’s ongoing commitment to exceptional service and dedication to planning for the future of communities in Mississippi and neighboring states.

EDUCATION

The University of Memphis
Master of City and Regional Planning

The University of Mississippi
Bachelor of Science Degree in Civil Engineering

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS

American Planning Association
American Society of Civil Engineers

PROFESSIONAL REGISTRATION

American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) nationally recognized certification
Professional Engineer (P.E.)

 

Nathan Willingham

Principal Planner

AREAS OF EXPERTISE

Comprehensive Planning

Land Use Controls

Zoning Ordinances

Subdivision Regulations

Sign Ordinances

Historic Preservation and Architectural Design

Hazard Mitigation Planning

Transportation and Public Transit Planning

Workforce and Economic Development

Community Development

Redistricting

Municipal Annexation

EXPERIENCE

Nathan Willingham has 20 years’ of experience in urban and regional planning, economic development, and public management. Mr. Willingham's planning career started in 2004 as a community planner for the State of Tennessee's Local Planning Assistance Office before he joined the Northwest Alabama Council of Local Governments as Director of Planning (2007-2012) and Director of Planning and Transportation (2012-2018), where he supported municipal and county planning and led the Metropolitan Planning Organization and public transit system. Before joining Slaughter & Associates in 2023, Nathan worked in higher education and economic development and as a municipal planning and public management consultant at a firm he founded in north Alabama. Slaughter & Associates, PLLC, became Slaughter & Willingham, PLLC, in 2024, reflecting an ongoing commitment to exceptional service and dedication to planning for the future of communities in Mississippi and neighboring states.

Nathan is a University of North Alabama graduate. He earned a Master of Public Administration from Troy University and is currently a doctoral candidate in the Doctor of Public Administration program at Valdosta State University. Nathan is a member of the American Planning Association (APA) and the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP). He has testified in annexation cases as an expert witness in urban and regional planning before the Chancery Courts in the State of Mississippi.

EDUCATION

Valdosta State University
Doctor of Public Administration (ABD)

Troy University
Master of Public Administration

University of North Alabama
Bachelor of Science, Political Science & History

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS

American Planning Association (APA)

PROFESSIONAL REGISTRATION

American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP)

OTHER POSITIONS

Head of Federal Grants
Rural Innovation Strategies, Inc.

Director of Grants and Sponsored Programs
University of North Alabama

Founder & Principal Planner
Willingham Planning

City Planner
Muscle Shoals, AL (consultant)

Director of Planning; Planning and Transportation
Northwest Alabama Council of Local Governments

Community Planner I/II
State of Tennessee, Department of Economic and Community Development, Local Planning Assistance Office