2025 Year in Review: The Strategy Work Behind Our Biggest Projects (and What’s Next in 2026)

2025 was a momentum year for Rivers & Roads Consulting.

We took on more complex work, helped clients navigate higher-stakes decisions, and grew the capacity of our firm so we can serve more communities and mission-driven organizations across Maryland.

This Year in Review is the written companion to our end-of-year recap video. If you’d rather read than watch, you’re in the right place. Below, we walk through the signature projects that defined our year, the regional challenges we were trusted to help solve, how Rivers & Roads grew in 2025, and what’s coming in 2026.

What Rivers & Roads Consulting Does

Rivers & Roads Consulting is a strategy consulting firm.

We help municipalities, nonprofits, and mission-driven organizations get unstuck and advance—especially when the stakes are high, the path isn’t obvious, and progress has stalled.

Our work typically shows up in a few familiar ways:

A municipality needs to make a major decision about a public asset, a redevelopment opportunity, or an economic development strategy—but the conversation is noisy and direction is unclear.
A nonprofit is experiencing rising demand and needs a plan that strengthens the organization, not just a document that sits on a shelf.
An organization is preparing for growth and needs credible analysis to make smart, values-aligned decisions.

At the core, we bring clarity, structure, and forward momentum.

2025 at a Glance

This year was defined by two things: bigger work and more capacity.

We were trusted with projects that required not only strong analysis, but strong judgment—work that helps leaders make decisions they can defend, communicate, and implement. At the same time, Rivers & Roads grew meaningfully, expanding our ability to deliver complex strategy work without compromising quality.

The best way to understand the year is through the projects.

Signature Project #1: Municipal Development Consulting for the Upper Shore Regional Council

One of the most meaningful arcs of our year was our work with the Upper Shore Regional Council (USRC).

USRC is a regional public agency that supports local governments across three counties on Maryland’s Upper Shore. Their role is to help communities plan, coordinate, and move important initiatives forward—especially the kinds of initiatives that are difficult for a single town or county to advance alone.

In 2025, Rivers & Roads developed and delivered a Municipal Development Consulting Program for USRC. The purpose of the program is straightforward: help towns move from big, complex community problems to clear decisions and practical next steps.

Rock Hall Marine Trades Workforce Development Feasibility Study

As part of this program, we produced the Rock Hall Marine Trades Workforce Development Feasibility Study—work focused on what it would truly take to build workforce capacity around the marine trades.

This kind of work matters because the marine trades are not a “nice-to-have” for waterfront communities. They are a backbone industry—supporting livelihoods, preserving working waterfronts, and sustaining regional identity.

We were proud to see this study picked up by The Daily Record and Chesapeake Bay Magazine. That coverage was meaningful not for the attention, but because it signaled something larger: when a small town tackles a big workforce challenge with serious analysis and a realistic plan, the work travels.

Regional Economic Development Impact Analysis for Charlestown

We also completed a Regional Economic Development Impact Analysis for Charlestown.

This engagement focused on helping leaders and stakeholders understand potential economic outcomes in a way that supported real decision-making—not just discussion. We worked to quantify impacts, frame the story in plain language, and create an analysis leaders could use to weigh tradeoffs and communicate clearly with the public.

That work was covered by The Cecil Whig, helping ensure the conversation could be grounded in substance rather than speculation.

A Soon-to-Be-Released Highest and Best Use Analysis

Finally, we recently completed another analysis—soon to be released—that helps guide the redevelopment of a municipal-owned lot into its highest and best use.

The purpose of the work is universal: help local leaders make a confident, defensible redevelopment decision that unlocks value and prevents years of drift, delay, and second-guessing.

Across all three efforts, the theme is the same. Municipalities don’t need more opinions. They need clarity, decision support, and a plan that can actually be executed.

Signature Project #2: Strategic Planning and Implementation Support for St. Vincent de Paul in Easton

In 2025, we developed a strategic plan for St. Vincent de Paul in Easton.

St. Vincent de Paul serves neighbors facing hardship through direct support and essential assistance—work that is increasingly critical as the cost of living rises and more families find themselves one emergency away from instability.

A strategic plan was necessary for a simple reason: need in our community is growing rapidly. Organizations on the front lines of fighting poverty are being asked to do more than ever, and growth in demand can strain even strong organizations if priorities, capacity, and direction aren’t clear.

We are proud of this engagement because it reflects a belief we hold firmly: making frontline organizations more resilient makes the entire community stronger.

This wasn’t planning for planning’s sake. The work focused on helping the organization clarify priorities, strengthen alignment, and build a practical roadmap that supports action. And importantly, we were retained to support implementation—because the real value of strategy is what happens after the plan is adopted.

Signature Project #3: Research-Driven Strategy with Fello

We also deepened our work with Fello in 2025.

Fello is an organization built around the power of inclusion, supporting people with disabilities through community-based services that help individuals live fuller, more connected lives.

We love working with Fello because their work sits at the intersection of services and community development. Inclusion isn’t a program. It’s a community value—and when communities make inclusion real, they expand opportunity, belonging, and participation for everyone.

This year, we published a white paper on immigration and disabilities and completed two market studies designed to guide decision-making on service expansion across Maryland. While we won’t reference specific regions publicly, the purpose of the work was clear: help leadership expand with intention, protect quality, and make smart decisions that scale impact without losing what makes the organization special.

The Broader Impact: Strategy Work Tackling the Region’s Biggest Problems

Beyond our three signature projects, 2025 showed a clear pattern: Rivers & Roads was trusted to help solve some of the region’s most persistent and complex challenges.

These are not simple problems, and they aren’t solved by good intentions alone. They require clear thinking, coordination, and a practical strategy that can withstand real-world constraints.

Cambridge: Wayfinding and “How a Place Works”

In Cambridge, we completed a wayfinding study to help the city become easier to navigate, more welcoming, and more functional. This type of work directly influences visitor experience, business activity, and how a community is perceived.

Cambridge: Building Workforce Capacity to Tackle Lead Hazards

We also worked with the City of Cambridge on workforce capacity-building to tackle lead hazards in homes. This sits at the collision point of housing, public health, and workforce development—and it requires strategy strong enough to move beyond crisis response and toward a system that can solve the problem at scale.

Upper Shore Aging: A Needs Assessment in a Changing Environment

We are wrapping up a needs assessment for Upper Shore Aging at a time when the landscape for seniors is changing quickly and demand for services continues to rise. Work like this helps an organization anticipate what’s coming and make smart choices about partnerships, programs, and sustainability.

University of Maryland, Baltimore: Strengthening the Healthcare Talent Pipeline

We supported the University of Maryland, Baltimore in building infrastructure to help more Eastern Shore students access world-class education in Baltimore and then return to the Shore to fill critical healthcare gaps. This is long-term systems work—strengthening the pipeline and strengthening the region.

Cumberland: Turning a Housing Working Group into a Functional Board

We built a strategic plan for the City of Cumberland to help transition its housing working group into a fully functional board. Housing progress can’t rely on informal effort forever. It needs governance, accountability, and a structure that can drive implementation year after year.

Taken together, this body of work reflects what we aim to be known for: leading strategy that helps communities move from stuck to strategic.

Rivers & Roads Growth in 2025: Capacity That Made the Work Possible

Work at this level requires capacity. In 2025, Rivers & Roads grew in a way that fundamentally changed what we can deliver.

We acquired two boutique consulting firms, expanding expertise and increasing our ability to deliver complex, high-stakes work without sacrificing quality. We added three new consultants and hired an operations coordinator to strengthen internal tempo and consistency.

That expansion contributed to strong year-over-year revenue growth, and it created a practical necessity: we opened an additional office to support the team and match the pace of work.

One of the most meaningful milestones of the year was launching our own nonprofit. We did that because we want to better control our own destiny—opening pathways for grant-funded projects, piloting ideas that matter, and building long-term capacity to serve communities in ways that aren’t always possible through traditional consulting alone.

Visibility in 2025: Sponsorships, Speaking, and Training Partnerships

As Rivers & Roads grew, our visibility grew too.

In 2025, we sponsored the AIA Maryland Conference, the Rural Summit hosted by the Rural Maryland Council, and the Main Street Maryland Conference. We believe in backing the ecosystems we work in—and showing up consistently where leaders gather to learn and move ideas forward.

We also expanded our speaking footprint. Sam Shoge spoke at the Maryland chapter of the American Institute of Architects and at the Rural Summit, sharing lessons and perspectives shaped by on-the-ground work across Maryland communities.

Additionally, we continued our training and capacity-building work through DHCD’s Maryland Main Street program and began working with Preservation Maryland and the National Park Service on another video training series. When knowledge is shared well, it scales—and that scaling strengthens leaders and communities far beyond a single project.

What’s Coming in 2026: A Bigger Tempo and Wider Reach

The tempo we built in 2025 is setting up a very different kind of 2026.

We will be rolling out a new Rivers & Roads website built to clearly reflect who we are as a strategy consulting firm and to showcase our case studies, analysis, and insights.

We will publish new research, analysis, and white papers—not as academic exercises, but as practical tools that help leaders make smarter decisions.

We will disseminate our case studies and project wins more widely and more consistently, because a strategy firm should be able to show what it delivers.

And we are leaning into multimedia production: more videos, the launch of a YouTube channel, and the launch of a podcast. We’ve seen how powerful it is when good ideas are communicated clearly and repeatedly—when leadership lessons aren’t trapped inside one project, one town, or one organization.

Most importantly, we will serve more clients and help more organizations get unstuck and advance.

When to Hire a Strategy Consulting Firm Like Rivers & Roads

The best time to engage a strategy consulting firm is when you know something has to change—but you’re not sure what the next move should be, or you’ve been circling the same issues for too long.

That might look like:

You need alignment across leadership or a board.
A major project is on the line and you need clarity quickly.
You’re facing rising demand and need to strengthen internal capacity.
You’re making a decision the public will scrutinize and you need a defensible direction.
You’re ready to move, but you need a strategy that can survive real-world constraints.

When you work with Rivers & Roads, you can expect a clear diagnosis of what’s really going on, a practical strategy that people can rally around, and an implementation-oriented roadmap that drives progress.

Follow Along and Stay Connected

If you want to follow our journey as we work to become Maryland’s leading strategy consulting firm, we’d love to stay connected.

Subscribe to our newsletter, follow Rivers & Roads Consulting on LinkedIn and Facebook, and keep an eye out for new analysis, case studies, and multimedia content coming in 2026.

And if you’re stuck and need to advance, reach out. We’d love to help you move forward.