Today the Association of Pedestrian & Bicycle Professionals (APBP) announced the winners of its annual awards program to honor excellence in the profession. Four Professional of the Year awards and the 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented at the APBP annual meeting at Pro Walk/Pro Bike/Pro Place conference in Vancouver, Canada, on September 12, 2016.
Among the many honorees, Tamika Butler, the Executive Director of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition (LACBC), will receive the award for 2016 Professional of the Year-Nonprofit Sector.
Tamika provides bold and effective leadership in Los Angeles County while working to build a more inclusive movement at the local, state, and national level. As a speaker, she challenges audiences to wake up and understand the ways that structural racism and privilege play out in our transportation system. Under Tamika’s leadership, LACBC led a diverse coalition to fight for L.A.’s Mobility Plan 2035, a groundbreaking transportation plan that the Alliance for Biking and Walking recognized as the 2016 Winning Campaign of the Year. Last year, Tamika and LACBC helped to launch the Los Angeles Vision Zero Alliance, a diverse coalition of walking, biking, and community-based organizations, to support Mayor Garcetti’s Vision Zero Initiative, which aims to eliminate all traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2025. Tamika and LACBC are now active in supporting a countywide half-cent sales tax measure to fund transportation projects, including many biking and walking projects, across Los Angeles County.
With Tamika’s leadership, LACBC sets the pace for what it means to live a commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion in its work, and has built a network of allies that is both broad and deep.
Tamika became the Executive Director of LACBC in December of 2014. Prior to leading LACBC, Tamika was the Director of Social Change Strategies at Liberty Hill Foundation, and before that, she worked at Young Invincibles as the California Director. Tamika currently serves on the Boards of Directors of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Lambda Literary, T.R.U.S.T. South LA, and New Leaders Council – Los Angeles, and is an advisory board member for the Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center’s Fair Play for Girls in Sports program.
We at LACBC would also like to congratulate all of the honorees: Barbarba McCann, Ryan Johnson, Dan Goodman, and Carlos Hernandez. We’d especially like to congratulate Ryan Johnson, a Senior Planner for Alta Planning + Design and an active LACBC member and volunteer, who will receive the award for 2016 Professional of the Year-Private Sector. Ryan has successfully managed large planning projects throughout Southern California, is the co-founder of APBP SoCal, and dedicates so much time volunteering to make L.A. a better place to bike and walk.
Photo by Serena Grace Photography.