AUSTIN, Texas—The Envision Central Texas (ECT) Board of Directors today announced the election of Frederick R. Steiner as its 2006 chairman. Frederick (Fritz) Steiner is the dean of the School of Architecture and Henry M. Rockwell Chair in Architecture at The University of Texas at Austin. Steiner served as ECT treasurer in 2005 and has served on the board of directors since its inception.
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Dean Frederick Steiner
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“I’m looking forward to continuing to help realize our vision for the future of Central Texas,” said Steiner. “2005 has been a very productive year for ECT as we began the implementation phase of the vision. We established seven implementation committees focused on some of the primary aspects of the vision and held several successful events before capacity crowds. I am enthusiastic about building on the momentum that we have gained this year.”
Other ECT officers elected for 2006 include Vice Chairman Jim Walker, director of the Central Texas Sustainability Indicators Project; Immediate Past Chair Bill McLellan, vice chairman, Treaty Oaks Bank; Secretary Betty Voights,executive director, Capital Area Council of Governments; and, Treasurer Cid Galindo, principal, Cid A. Galindo Inc. In addition to the officiers listed above, ECT Executive Committee Members elected for 2006 includeTravis County Judge Sam Biscoe; Williamson County Judge John Doerfler; Pete Dwyer, Dwyer Realty Companies; Jay Hailey, Locke, Liddell and Sapp LLP; Bastrop County Judge Ronnie MacDonald; Hays County Judge Jim Powers; Robin Rather, Collective Strength; Charles Urdy; and Caldwell County Judge H.T. Wright.
The Envision Central Texas Board is comprised of 67 members representing broad and diverse constituencies from the five-county Central Texas region.
In 2004, Envision Central Texas unveiled a quality growth Vision for Central Texas after an unprecedented two-year public input process by citizens throughout the five-county region. The Vision paints a compelling portrait of the how the region can address inevitable future growth in a way that preserves and enhances quality of life. In 2005, ECT began its first year of seeking ways to implement the regional Vision. In addition to forming seven Implementation Committees to focus on promoting the major tenets of the vision, ECT hosted several public events about quality growth including the upcoming SH 130 Corridor Summit on Saturday, Nov. 19 in Creedmoor which is co-hosted by the Greater Austin-San Antonio Corridor Council.
Steiner previously served as director of the School of Planning and Landscape Architecture, College of Architecture and Environmental Design, Arizona State University, and taught planning, landscape architecture and environmental science at Washington State University, the University of Colorado-Denver and the University of Pennsylvania. As a Fulbright-Hays scholar in 1980, he conducted research on ecological planning at the Wageningen Agricultural and Environmental Science University, the Netherlands. In 1998, he was the National Endowment for the Arts Rome Prize Fellow in Historic Preservation and Conservation at the American Academy in Rome. He is a fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects and an Academic Fellow of the Urban Land Institute.
Steiner has worked with local, state and federal agencies on diverse environmental plans and designs and has written numerous books, articles and papers. He teaches courses in the areas of environmental impact assessment, landscape analysis and landscape architecture theory. Steiner received his Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in city and regional planning and a master’s of Regional Planning from the University of Pennsylvania. He earned a master’s of Community Planning and a B.S. in Design from the University of Cincinnati. Steiner received an honorary M.Phil. in Human Ecology from the College of the Atlantic.
Envision Central Texas Mission
The mission of Envision Central Texas is to assist in the public development and implementation of a regional vision addressing the growth of Central Texas, with an emphasis on land use, transportation and the environment. By working with the people of Central Texas to build a consensus, we can preserve and enhance our region’s quality of life, natural resources and economic prosperity.
Envision Central Texas is a nonprofit organization composed of concerned citizens—representing the business community, environmental organizations, neighborhoods and policymakers—who share the common goal of addressing growth with sound planning that has the interests of the region’s existing and future citizens in mind. The organization has no regulatory powers and does not seek to forcibly impose a plan on the region or its local governments. Instead, Envision Central Texas’ mission is to work cooperatively and in partnership with all entities and individuals to help guide the region toward a common vision for the future.
For more information contact: Diane Miller, Envision Central Texas, 512-916-6037.