Deborah Allison Deets, FASLA
Category: Leadership/Management
City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California

Deborah Deets, of the City of Los Angeles, received her nomination, in Leadership/Management, from the Southern California Chapter. As a leader of the Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation's Watershed Protection Program, Deets has demonstrated the value of her skills as a landscape architect in an engineering-dominated professional culture. A leader in defining new standards and landscape-based strategies for green infrastructure projects, she has been a key team leader for the most significant stormwater projects in the region. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti lauded her exceptional leadership and management skills that have benefitted the city for more than 20 years, commending Deets for serving her community with grace and ability. Her implementation of passive biofiltration and irrigation systems within a phased planning approach convinced her fellow flood-control professionals that a resilient strategy for building connectivity among open spaces and streets is both technically feasible and well understood by landscape architects. Her award-winning work and community leadership have raised the profile both of the landscape architecture profession and the sustainable principles to which she has devoted her career.