Richard S. Bolan was born on December 11, 1927 in Salem, Massachusetts. Bolan earned a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from Yale University, Connecticut, and a Master’s degree in city planning from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). From 1956 to 1964, Bolan was a practicing urban planner in the Boston area and directed staff activities in both neighborhood and project planning. In 1964, Bolan transitioned to working at the Joint Centre for Urban Studies of MIT and Harvard University. In 1967, Bolan accepted an academic position at the Boston College School of Social Work to teach community planning and community organization.
Bolan left Boston College for the University of Minnesota in 1985, where he began focusing on international development. Through his position at the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, Bolan focused on environmental reform and sustainable development in Eastern Europe. Bolan taught geographic information systems classes and published a book, Urban Planning’s Philosophical Entanglements: The Rugged, Dialectical Path From Knowledge to Action, in 2017. He also taught doctoral level courses in planning theory. Bolan died on March 28, 2023.
