Ashley Flintoff joined Friends of the Rouge in 2024 as the Executive Director. An avid fan of urban environments, Ashley is fascinated by the role space plays in encouraging and developing human interaction. Over the course of her career, Ashley has worked within the built environment with an emphasis on the interplay between sustainability and communities. Ashley is thrilled to elevate the work Friends of the Rouge is doing to restore, protect, and enhance the Rouge River watershed via her skills in strategic planning, collaborative community engagement, and sustainable development. Prior to FOTR, Ashley was the Director of Planning and Space Management for Wayne State University’s Facilities Planning and Management department. She is a dual graduate of the University of Detroit Mercy with a Bachelor of Science in Architecture and a Masters of Community Development and has a Master of Urban Planning from Wayne State University. Ashley has taught Urban Planning Process in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at Wayne State University and has been an adjunct professor at the University of Detroit Mercy on topics such as regional sustainability, community development for institutions, social media for nonprofits, and presentation skills.

Ashley is a founding Board Member and Secretary/Treasurer of the Volterra- Detroit Foundation, a former Board member of the Association for Community Design and was recognized by Crain’s Detroit as a 2022 Notable Woman in Construction, Design, and Architecture. When not sailing the Michigan’s waterways on their 1978 Pearson 30 s/v Sirius, Ashley, her husband Tim and their rescue menagerie Hunter, Akela, Nora, and Puck are renovating a 1914 Victorian home in Detroit’s historic Woodbridge neighborhood.