ASCE Los Angeles Section

City of Los Angeles, Bureau of Engineering
1149 S BROADWAY 7TH FLOOR,
LOS ANGELES, CA, 90015

1984 B.S. in Civil Engineering from Cal State Long Beach
M.S. in Civil Engineering

N/A

Deputy City Engineer Mike Kantor has dedicated thirty years to building the City of Los Angeles through a career with the Bureau of Engineering (Engineering). His contributions span across multiple disciplines and leadership roles in wastewater engineering, stormwater management, and private development. Throughout his career, Mike has consistently optimized systems, led strategic planning efforts and continues to support automating systems that help the City to become more transparent and sustainable.

Right after graduating with a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Cal State Long Beach, Mike pursued his passion for Environmental Engineering by joining the City’s Wastewater Systems Engineering Division in 1984. He designed facilities for the Tillman Water Reclamation Plant Phase II project and the Terminal Island Treatment Plant. Within four years, he began supervising a group of engineers in design and construction management for wastewater treatment facilities. During this time, he also completed his master’s in Civil Engineering and obtained his PE License.

In 1989, Mike was promoted to Civil Engineer and served as a founding staff member in the creation of the City’s Stormwater Pollution Abatement Program. His experience in wastewater and leadership ability helped him quickly transition to the new discipline and make an impact at a challenging time of changing State and Federal regulations on stormwater management. Mike led the development of the Stormwater Pollution Abatement Charge fee structure and ordinance, participated as a key negotiator for the City’s first two National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) stormwater permits, and directed the preparation of Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plans for compliance with the Clean Water Act of 1987. He led a team of nine employees to develop and implement the City’s National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), the Floodplain Management Plan, the Stormwater Condition Assessment Program and the flood control project prioritizaton system. His early interest in technology was demonstrated through managing a $4M stormwater GIS consultant services contract, which resulted in the development of a stormwater GIS mapping/modeling system. With Mike’s leadership and his team’s commitment to complying with the NFIP and participating in the Community Rating System, City residents within federally designated special flood hazard areas were able to obtain flood insurance premium reductions of up to 15%.

Mike took an opportunity in 2001 to learn a completely different business function, and transferred to Engineering’s Central District Permit Counter, which ultimately became a pivotal career move. He immediately took a leadership role in budgeting, public counter services optimization, and implementation of computerized information systems to improve efficiency. With Engineering’s implementation of online construction permits in 2001, Mike led Central District efforts to fully transition into electronic permits and initiated efforts to integrate legacy data systems with the new web-based permits.

Mike promoted into the wastewater program in early 2003 as a Senior Sanitary Engineer and Assistant Division Engineer where he managed a team of 50 multi-discipline engineers and technicians. This team delivered designs for large, medium and small capital improvement projects for the City’s wastewater treatment plants. Mike continued his pursuit of technology by developing a web-based resource estimating tool as a process improvement for work program analysis which is now a part of Engineering’s Uniform Project Reporting System.

In late 2004, Mike was promoted back into the Development Services Program as the Valley District Engineer, where he resurrected the office in light of nine retirements and tremendous growth in development. Through his leadership and management, from 2004 to 2006 all vacant positions were filled, including 12 in-house promotions, and customer service levels were drastically improved to meet established goals. He empowered staff to identify and implement process improvements, he refined the work breakdown structure for the program, and began the revenue/expenditure reporting process to increase program cost recovery.

In 2007, Mike was promoted to Deputy City Engineer to be responsible for Engineering’s Development Services Program. The program includes four District Offices (Central, Harbor, Valley and West LA), the Land Development Group, the Mapping and Land Records Division, the Survey Division, and the Systems Division. Engineering provides development and subdivision services and issues permits for all construction within the public right-of-way in Los Angeles. The district offices issue over 18,000 permits each year and serve over 1,000 customers each week. Engineering has implemented development reform initiatives including the Planning Case Referral Form and enhanced the customer side of all of the online permits. Engineering has also led the City in public counter customer service since 2008 by serving 81% of our customers, on average, within 15 minutes.

Mike’s leadership in optimizing systems and services is demonstrated by enduring the greatest economic downturn of recent history while maintaining customer service and revenue goals. Development Services Program staffing decreased over 40% from 2005 to 2010, and since 2010, with the same staffing, customer volume and permits has increased over 30%. Mike has continued to support, challenge and motivate staff by always delegating authority and decision-making down to the lowest responsible level. The recent development services customer satisfaction survey, completed in May 2014, showed that 96% of Engineering’s customers rate their experience as satisfactory or very satisfactory.

Mike represents Engineering in the City’s Development Reform process. He has provided significant input into the Development Reform Strategic Plan, and has been a key stakeholder in the BuildLA process. Through BuildLA, the City’s development process will be completely redesigned, eliminating the “customer as the courier”, increasing transparency, and providing for a comprehensive online system for “one stop” shopping. It will reduce trips to public counters through web-based services, which is the key to a more sustainable and more efficient City government, and the overall economic recovery of the City of Los Angeles.

Mike is invested in mentoring employees and maintains open communication with his staff at all levels to promote staff engagement and morale. He has contributed to a “high-involvement” Engineering Strategic Planning effort resulting in publication of a Strategic Plan in April 2012 at a time when Engineering was experiencing 10% in budget cuts, mandatory furloughs, hiring freezes and the lowest number of employees. Despite increased work load, all of the 120+ Engineering first-level supervisors and over 25% of all employees volunteered to join teams to implement “action plans” in addition to their normal workload.

Mike is a 30 year member of ASCE. He has also served as the Chair of the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) and in the Engineering liaison committee for the past six years. This committee serves to provide a forum for the private engineering community to interact with Engineering, to present issues for resolution, to share information, and to improve Engineering processes and efficiency. Besides engineering, Mike is a handyman, fisherman, musician and enjoys the simple things in life. The Bureau of Engineering is proud to recommend Mike Kantor for the ASCE Lifetime Achievement Award.

Mr. Michael Kantor exemplifies public-private partnership. He has helped the Bureau’s Development Services Program overcome the greatest economic downturn of recent history while maintaining customer service and revenue goals.  He is a champion of City services optimization through the Development Reform Process, BuildLA and through leading the Engineering Strategic Plan Vision towards “the transformation of Los Angeles into the world’s most livable city”.

Deputy City Engineer Mike Kantor has dedicated thirty years to building the City of Los Angeles through a career with the Bureau of Engineering (Engineering). His contributions span across multiple disciplines and leadership roles in wastewater engineering, stormwater management, and private development. Throughout his career, Mike has consistently optimized systems, led strategic planning efforts and continues to support automating systems that help the City to become more transparent and sustainable.

Mike is a 30 year member of ASCE. He has also served as the Chair of the American Council of
Engineering Companies (ACEC) and in the Engineering liaison committee for the past six years. This committee serves to provide a forum for the private engineering community to interact with Engineering, to present issues for resolution, to share information, and to improve Engineering processes and efficiency. Besides engineering, Mike is a handyman, fisherman, musician and enjoys the simple things in life.

Please Note: MLAB is submitting this nomination on behalf of the original nominator as Michael Kantor has been selected to receive this year’s MLAB Lifetime Achievement Award.