Professor Bressler was appointed Head of the Department of Landscape Architecture in 2006. Since his arrival to NCSU he has been teaching the First Year Fall MLA Design Studio along with Professor Art Rice and has devoted most of his efforts in working with the faculty, students, alumni, and practitioners to revise the MLA and BLA academic programs. He has been on the Dean’s Administrative Council and Steering Committee for the College’s Annual Urban Design Forum held each spring and serves on numerous committees within the College and University including having been recently appointed to the Campus Planning Committee. In fall 2008, he was named by then Chancellor Jim Oblinger to lead the State Employees Combined Campaign. Bressler also sits on the Executive Committee of the North Carolina Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects and served on its annual professional awards jury for two years. His areas of research and teaching focus on urban growth, sustainable development, and the planning and design strategies for “Challenging Suburbia.” In June 2009 he co-authored with University of Colorado Professor Allan Wallis the chapter, “Oh Give Me Land, Lots of Land” for the book Healing the West, by Professor Patricia Limerick.

From 1997 to 2006, Bressler served as Chair of the Landscape Architecture Department at the University of Colorado, Denver, College of Architecture and Planning. For several years, Gene co-taught an annual series of advanced interdisciplinary design studios with Architecture Professor Keith Loftin focused on challenging existing residential landscape and architectural design development patterns . In 2003, he was named Director of the Colorado Center for Sustainable Urbanism and was responsible for producing the highly successful 2004 and 2005 “Colorado Tomorrow” public forum that focused on population and urban growth challenges facing the State. He was a founding member and president of the Colorado Community Design Network and consulting principal for the Denver-based firms Landscape Strategies and Design Studios West. In addition, Gene served as chair of the College’s Information Technologies Committee charged with creating and implementing the College’s Interdisciplinary IT Strategic Plan which included the integration of computer aided design, visualization and modeling, and GIS technologies.

Prior to his work at Colorado, Gene was on the faculty of the University of Oregon, Eugene from 1971 to 1985. There, his teaching and research activities focused on the development of computer driven suitability modeling technologies used to evaluate opportunities and constraints to development, infra structural costs, environmental impacts, and alternative urban planning and design strategies. This lead to his accepting a position from 1985 to 1995 with Dynamic Graphics, Inc., a developer of international recognized and highly regarded software used in numerous terrain and land use mapping, modeling, and visualization applications.

In 2006, Bressler was recognized with a national award, Outstanding Administrator of the Year, from the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA) for his leadership and for his contributions to teaching. He is a Fellow in the American Society of Landscape Architects. In 2007, he was awarded Fellow, by the American Society of Landscape Architects. Governor Bev Perdue appointed him to the North Carolina Board of Landscape Architects in June 2009.

Bressler received his Bachelor of Landscape Architecture from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry at Syracuse University (1968), and his Master’s in Landscape Architecture from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (1970).