ENR is pleased to announce that Al Barkouli, president, chief executive officer and chairman of the board with Portland-based David Evans and Associates, Inc. (DEA) is the 2023 Legacy Award recipient for ENR Northwest.

This awards program recognizes industry veterans with many years of experience and long lists of contributions to their profession and community. In choosing this year’s recipient, ENR editors weighed several criteria, including each nominee’s history of innovation, career highlights and an engagement within the industry and the surrounding community.

Barkouli joined DEA in 1988 and served as principal-in-charge and managed projects ranging from highways and light rail to roads and bridges for numerous public-sector clients, including Bonneville Power Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, TriMet, and Washington County, Oregon.

When Barkouli became the chairman and CEO in 2011 the company had 17 offices in seven states, today the company employs nearly 1,000 people in 31 offices in 13 states.

Under Barkouli, the firm has been involved with a number of light rail projects in the Northwest including the Banfield Light Rail Transit System-Related Improvements project, the I-205 Max LRT Extension, Green Line and the Airport MAX LRT Extension. He also oversaw the I-5 to 99W Connector Project, for Washington County, Metro and the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT), Portland, Oregon.

Barkouli is active in the industry as a member of the American Council of Engineering Companies and the Board of Directors of the Construction Industry Round Table. He is the current vice chair of the Portland State University Foundation Board of Trustees and has served on the Advisory Council for the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at PSU’s Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science.

He has served on the board of the Oregon Community Foundation which distributes more than $100 million in grants and scholarships annually, and has been a member of that organization's Black/African American Communities Task Force, Development and Marketing Committee and Education Committee.

To read more about Barkouli and his achievements, check out the Feb. 20 print issue of ENR Northwest.