Back in January, when Pam Radtke Russell, ENR’s deputy editor for national news, started reporting the cover story (see p. 34) on this year’s Award of Excellence winner Cris Liban, she tried to keep up with his hectic cross-country schedule.
Eager to see LA Metro’s Liban in action, Russell booked a ticket to Los Angeles to meet Liban’s family and attend Metro’s Sustainability Council meeting, where Liban was promoted to chief sustainability officer. Then she booked a round-trip ticket from L.A. to D.C. to shadow him at a Transportation Research Board meeting and back for an LA Metro Board meeting. But her next ticket was home to New Orleans. “I simply couldn’t make the last leg,” Russell said. Liban was heading to D.C. again the next day for an American Society of Civil Engineers’ sustainability committee meeting.