Berkshire Regional Planning Commission Executive Director Thomas Matuszko has been fascinated with planning for decades.
“My entry point to this kind of work was basically in the 1980s when I saw what was happening to the landscape in Western Mass," he told WAMC. "There was a lot of sprawl being done, and so I was interested very much in trying to do preservation of both the land and the landform, but also the communities too, so that we had some of the small communities. So, my background was in regional planning at UMass, but it had a rural resource concentration on it.”
By the time he leaves the commission in March of 2026, he will spent 29 years with the agency tasked with providing organization and resources to the westernmost region of Massachusetts and its 32 municipalities.
“Our organization is overseen from a policy perspective by one member from every planning board in the county," said Assistant Director Laura Brennan. "So that's a 32-person governance body, and that is also a huge amount of dedication that we are extremely grateful for, and that has been the case - that's how we have been operating for nearly 60 years. We're heading into our 60th anniversary in 2026. So that continuity and that commitment that we have from local volunteers and our partnerships with the staff at local municipal organizations is incredibly important for our ongoing success.”
Matuszko acknowledges that isn’t always easy to explain the complexity of the concept of “planning” to the wider world - a seemingly simple word that covers multitudes.
“Yeah, that's been a challenge," said the director. "It's been hard to describe what we do and how we work. And I think the greatest way that I can describe that, is that the municipalities have been increasingly wanting to work with us, that they value our work. And whether it's preparing a comprehensive plan for communities where we do a lot of outreach, or whether it's doing a real sexy culvert project that is really going to help prevent this road from washing out - we've been accused of not marketing ourselves better, but I don't think that's our intent. At least, that's not my intent is to do it for marketing. We do it for service. And I think public service has been devalued at many, many levels over the last several years with the divisiveness that we see in this country. But our staff at BRPC take pride in the public service we provide.”
Matuszko, who has led the commission since 2018, says that every day on the job has been different.
“Being open to the possibilities, being open to the opportunities, I think that's something that I've really learned,” he said.
Matuszko is only the third person to serve as the BRPC’s executive director since it was established in 1966, and he says he’s proud of the staff he’s assembled to support the body’s efforts in every community of the Berkshires.
His successor will have their work cut out for them.
“I think navigating the federal government situation and staying on top of that will be a challenge," Matuszko said. "I think dealing with the continuing housing crisis and bringing in additional resources to address that, climate change and the impacts of climate change will be an increasing problem that a new director is going to have to address.”
While Matuszko says he’s leaving the BRPC without regrets, he does wish he could have accomplished more to convince Berkshire communities to embrace shared services.
“What would be a good example of that would be a program, say, for shared building inspectors or shared accountants or shared conservation agents," he said. "We've had this group purchasing program where we've got, I think, 24 different municipalities participating in, that brings greater savings to those municipalities. So, I think if we could develop greater shared working relationships, then I think that there would be - not only do communities get better service for the most part, but there can be some cost savings as well to that.”
WAMC asked Matuszko if he felt optimistic about the future of Berkshire County.
“Oh, yes. Very much so," he said. "Very much so. There's so many great resources here that I think it's really going to be a strong, strong county going forward. It's great, it would be a great place to live. People should come to Berkshire County.”
