Niagara Parks' Senior Director of Parks, Environment, and Culture has been elected to a new role.
Steve Barnhart will be taking over as President for the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects.
He has worked in the public sector for the last 17 years, including working as the Manager of Landscape Architecture Services for the City of Hamilton for 12 years.
In a video he thanks the OALA for their confidence and says one of the big issues for him includes the COVID-19 pandemic driving more people to explore nature and venture outdoors. "As people discover nature in numbers that we've never seen before they understand the importance of that reconnection. But that does come with a lot of challenges," he acknowledges. "The fact that we have to maintain our sense of environments and also accommodate people's desire to reconnect with nature."
He will serve as the president for the next two years.