Mark Pestrella wasn’t born with a passion for public service, but, as in a proverbial coming-of-age story, fire transformed him at age 17. In 1980, he and his family lost their home and humble possessions to the Panorama Fire, caused by an unknown arsonist in San Bernardino County, California. While still getting over his loss and anger, he went to college and became a civil engineer. When she later entered the public sector workforce and started helping people, “I realized how cathartic it is,” she says. “It gives you an opportunity to do something … to prepare people for the risk of life as much as we can.”
As Los Angeles County Public Works Director 45 years later, Pestrella is back on trial for a wildfire. Just two months ago, she almost lost her home for the second time to the Mountain Fire, narrowly escaping it by staying behind to fight the flames alongside her son. Now, it is in the midst of the worst wildfire in Southern California history, which has repeatedly tested key infrastructure. “There seems to be no end to the incident. It’s like a conflagration of incidents that are connecting, requiring response and of course leadership, to collaborate and think and plan together, unlike anything I’ve seen here in LA County.”
Serving more than 10 million people in the nation’s largest municipal public works agency, Pestrella leads a team of 4,000 employees with an annual budget of $4.1 billion. The agency currently oversees more than 500 active construction projects and provides vital infrastructure services.
But even with all that influence, Pestrella realized that it wasn’t enough for the agency to go it alone to mitigate major calamities (fires, atmospheric rivers, earthquakes) and major events poised to stretch regional infrastructure of LA to breaking point, such as 2026. FIFA World Cup and 2028 Olympics. But as a major contributor, Pestrella has fostered partnerships between agencies not only to prepare for such incidents, but also to help communities build more resiliently and equitably.
To that end, he envisioned and co-founded InfrastructureLA several years ago with agencies LA Dept. of Water and Power, LA Metro, Los Angeles World Airports and others, to provide a platform for project collaboration, coordination and alignment to seek funding holistically rather than as isolated agencies. “As much as you want to do things on your own, you have to have the humility to understand that you don’t control anything in your life on your own, that all success has to do with all the parts working together.” says Pestrella. “So I just apply that philosophy to both life and leadership.”
Key achievements include the adoption of the LA County Water Plan, securing approximately $2.5 billion in federal funding for projects, and preparing infrastructure and transportation routes for the World Cup and Games Olympic [ENR collaborates on an annual conference with InfrastructureLA].
“He is a leader who is not only deeply committed to improving Los Angeles’ infrastructure, but also to fostering a culture of collaboration, equity and sustainability,” said TJ Moon, Assistant Deputy Director of Public Works for the County of LA. “InfrastructureLA, under Director Pestrella’s leadership, has become a model for how regions can collaborate and improve infrastructure to maximize funding for the benefit of our residents.”
Other regions have begun to emulate InfrastructureLA’s success. Terri Mestas, former Los Angeles World Airports chief development officer and group representative, joined Seattle Sound Transit in 2024 as deputy general manager for megaproject delivery, managing about $54 billion in future infrastructure work . “I was so excited about the work we did at InfrastructureLA that I pitched the idea to the Port [of Washington] already
WSDOT … and they said, ‘We’re all in. Let’s figure out how we can do this,'” he says.
