Al has completed more than thirty-four years of local government experience in parks administration, park design, public art, and project management culminating as the Deputy Director of Public Spaces and Community Initiatives for the Township of Langley (TOL).
Al knew he wanted to be a landscape architect at the age of 16 and graduated in the first full class of the BLA program at UBC in 1983. Al started with the TOL in 1987, became a member of the BCSLA in 1989 and was the sole landscape architect at the TOL. Al was instrumental in expanding the role of landscape architects in the TOL development review and park development processes to where there are now over 7 landscape architects utilizing their expertise to make the TOL a better place to live, work and play.
Al was instrumental in researching and writing many policies and innovative standards that have established ongoing public and environmental benefits such as the Street Tree and Boulevard Planting Policy in 1990 and the Greenway Amenities Policies which garnered development industry support and secured over $320 million of payments towards greenway and ecological amenities. He co-authored the Community Connections Trails Plan in 1993 that established shared-use trail standards and incorporated landscape standards into the Subdivision and Development Servicing Bylaw using an Integrated Site Design Concept approach to tree protection. Al wrote the Sportsfield Development Plan 2003 – 2012 that supported the move to investing in synthetic turf fields. Al’s oversight resulted in over 50 parks being added to the open space inventory from acquisition to design to construction.
Al was on the 2018 CSA Technical Committee on Green Infrastructure for Stormwater Management. As a community member of the Tree Protection Advisory Committee, he has contributed to the creation of a Community Forest Management Plan. Al has been a director for the BCSLA, served on the Board of Governors for the CSLA in 1996, is a Past President of the BCSLA and has served a four-year term as Registrar. His most rewarding projects are those that develop partnerships with community members and organizations.
