Christopher Dacus, FASLA
Category: Service
City and County of Honolulu (Retired), Honolulu, Hawaii

Christopher Dacus, received his nomination, in Service, from the Hawaii Chapter. Now retired, Dacus worked for the Hawaii Department of Transportation and Honolulu Department of Parks and Recreation for 18 years, contributing immeasurably to the improvement of the state's open spaces and the preservation of its natural beauty. Devoted to his community and his profession, he has worked pro bono on 17 boards to champion environmental causes, including the effort to decrease the use of invasive plant species and promote the use of the state's native plants in landscape designs. To share his enthusiasm for Hawaii's natural world with the public, Dacus developed a wildly popular Hawai'i Native Plant Poster that features the 25 most popular native plants for landscape use. He took a leadership role in fighting invasive species and helped develop best-management practices to reduce irrigation water use. Over a 10-year period, he wrote articles for Hawaii's landscape industry professional magazine and established a seed bank for the long-term propagation of native plants. Throughout his career, he has been a strong advocate for his profession and served in leadership roles in the Hawaii chapter of ASLA and is now applying his prodigious ethic of public service to improving the lives of people living with Parkinson's disease.