GEORGE FOR MAYOR
Get to know George
BACKGROUND
Hello! My name is George Radnovich and I’d like to introduce myself.
I went to college at the University of New Mexico from 1971 to 1976 and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in architecture and a minor in geography. I first got interested in politics during that time and went door to door to campaign for my preferred candidate in the 1972 presidential race. Back in the 70’s, I also marched in the streets of Albuquerque to protest the Vietnam War. I’m proud to say that a group of my peers and I started New Mexico Public Interest Research Group (NMPIRG); this organization still exists to this day to help consumers in our great state. In the late 80’s, a small group of community organizers and I started the Xeriscape Council of New Mexico to change the way New Mexicans thought about and used our precious water and to infuse native landscapes into the lexicon of site and landscape design. I became president of the group and held that position until 2018. Our group successfully started a nationally recognized conference in 1987 which still carries on annually. I also assisted the City of Albuquerque and the Water Utility Authority (ABCWUA) in rewriting their rules about site and landscape design. Since that time, I have grown my career in landscape design. I sit on the State Board of Landscape Architects, appointed first by Governor Richardson, then governor Martinez, and again by Governor Lujan Grisham. I am also a Fellow in the American Society of Landscape Architects, a national distinction that few receive, for my work in water conservation in the southwest.
EXPERIENCE
Professionally, I have owned or partially owned three businesses in my life. I got interested in the business of design in the 1980’s and have been actively working to change the paradigm of design ever since. I joined an engineering firm and started a landscape architecture and planning group within the firm, Bohannan Huston, and eventually became an owner – the first and only landscape architectural or planning owner at the firm. At the end of that decade I had grown my group to 10 individuals and decided to leave the firm and start my own company in 1997, Sites Southwest. My business partner Phyllis Taylor and I grew the company to 27 professionals. Our vision was to base the firm’s mission on sustainability: design, economic, and environmental.
My second taste of politics and specifically the village of Los Ranchos’s needs came in the early 2000’s when then mayor Abraham appointed me to the Los Ranchos Planning and Zoning Commission. I decided to run for Trustee two years ago because I wanted to help guide our village to retain its past and grow its future. During that time, I have witnessed the village go through a lot of challenges. Interestingly, I started out thinking that the village should embrace growth. I still do, but now I believe that the growth needs to be controlled growth, quality growth, and sustainable growth. I believe that everything that we do as a community should be carefully weighed within the lens of our culture and our history with the goal of building who we are as a “place”.
Throughout my career, I have been an advocate for places, for their culture and people, their economy, their environment, and their evolution. Now, I feel that I can help direct that interest and intensity to Los Ranchos in more ways. I love the village and I enjoy spending time here and helping to enrich it. I have also helped to enhance it, being the landscape architect and urban designer for Phase I of the Fourth Street Revitalization Project.
OUR MISSION
George Listens!
Mainstreet not More Street!
Make Open Space Usable!
More Dirt, Less Asphalt!
George Listens to Residents!
