Jesse Herrera

Founder & Executive Director, CoAct North Texas, Forth Worth, TX

Jesse Herrera is the Founder & Executive Director of CoAct, where he uses design methodologies to develop strategic responses to today’s most pressing social challenges.

With a depth of knowledge spanning the design-build industry, Jesse identified the profession’s limited ability to directly foster social impact. Solutions would be built for specific problems without engaging directly with the people the project was meant to serve. This limitation was also present in the social spectrum, where novel solutions would be crafted by well intentioned individuals to solve problems they were vastly separated from. This realization kicked off a series of global trips to explore equitable methods used to solve today’s most pressing human problems.

A native of Fort Worth, Texas, he spent his teenage years as a gang member. After a near death experience and a blessing of circumstances, he left the life behind and pursued his education, becoming the first in his family to graduate from college. As a former gang member, he understands the impact of social isolation and the value of exploring the intimacy of human challenges.

His life experience and the insights gained through professional experience and his global travels for the foundation of his work. Recognizing design as a creative problem solving process, Jesse utilizes design as an instrumental force to better understand the underlining causes of today’s social challenges and build strategic responses that create sustained impact.

Jesse’s project will attempt to reduce food insecurity in Fort Worth by facilitating the use of vacant and underutilized lots to support food production through urban farming. Over the last six years, his organization has supported the creation of Tabor Farms, and during that process, he encountered numerous administrative barriers at the local level that made the permitting process for the farm difficult, costly, and time-consuming. His project will attempt to journey map the permitting process, clarifying requirements and procedures in the hopes of creating a roadmap that others can follow. In the long-term, he hopes this work will lead to improvements to the urban agriculture ordinance, including incentives for urban farm development. More urban farms would not only increase food access and resiliency in the city but could serve as an economic driver to support developments like new restaurants, farmer’s markets, and food cooperatives.