Published July 10, 2026 at 4:00 PM CDT

David Warm is retiring after spending 36 years as executive director of the Mid-America Regional Council.

MARC is a bi-state association of local governments that serves nine counties and 119 cities in the Kansas City region. It acts as a platform for government leaders to work together on multiple agendas, serving as a “back office” for individual community coalitions.

While he has been a key player in major developments to aging services, emergency response and early learning in the Kansas City region, Warm wouldn’t necessarily use the word “leader” to describe himself.

“My role is not to lead the town, but to help the town find a way forward and to be effective in the goals that it sets for itself,” Warm told KCUR’s Up To Date.

Since Warm’s first day on the job, MARC grew from a staff of 50 people to around 160. The association has taken on management of more programs such as Kansas City’s Head Start, which it took over in 2005.

Warm stressed the importance of planning. Early in his role, the association hosted a roundtable of landscape architecture students and city planners to talk about how to improve Kansas City’s greenways.

“Thirty-some years later, we have 1,200 miles of trails connecting the entire metropolitan area, another 1,200 miles of specialized trails and bikeways,” Warm said. “It wasn't a singular plan. It was the process of planning and keeping that plan and nurturing that plan over time that gave me satisfaction in part because we could see progress along the way.”

MARC recently tapped Geraldine Gardner, who currently serves as executive director of the Centralina Regional Council in greater Charlotte, to replace Warm as executive director. She will start the position Oct. 1.

• David Warm, executive director at Mid-America Regional Council