Ike earned undergraduate degrees in Sociology and Urban Studies from Dartmouth College (where he was a National Achievement Scholar) and earned graduate degrees in Urban Planning from Harvard University (where he was a US Dept. of HUD Fellow) and in Public Administration and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He was also a Fannie Mae Foundation Fellow at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government’s Executive Program for State and Local Government. Having received his primary and secondary education in Charlotte, Ike returned to Charlotte after graduating from Harvard where he and his wife Patricia have raised a now grown son and daughter. Patricia (MSW, MBA) was the Executive Director of a small United Way supported social service agency and had a private counseling and family therapy practice. She is now retired.

Ike Heard worked for 13 years as a city planner in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg local government, for 3 years with private developers and homebuilders, for 9 years as the Executive Director of the Northwest Corridor Community Development Corporation (associated with Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte) and for 4 years as the Charlotte Office Director for the Enterprise Foundation. In addition, he maintained a private planning consulting practice working with community-based development groups, local governments, historically black colleges and universities, banks and the federal government in a variety of community economic development projects.   Overlapping these jobs and activities, Ike also worked  for 29 years as an adjunct lecturer and visiting assistant professor at UNC Charlotte in the Geography and Earth Sciences Dept., home to the urban planning program, and in the Political Science Dept., home of the Master of Public Administration program.  He retired in 2018.