Theodore Higgins
Chief Environmental Compliance Inspector
22 years of City service
Photos courtesy Public Works and the California Water Environment Association
A Memorial Service was held Aug. 14 at Forest Lawn in Cypress.
“I truly appreciated the opportunity to collaborate with Theo on conferences,” remembered Amy Lai, Director of Education, the California Water Environment Association, in which Theo was active. “I will always remember him as a humble chair with a great sense of humor, and who was well liked and supported. Theo’s laugh was loud and infectious, and he added an element of fun to the conference planning meetings. The P3S Community has lost a wonderful leader who will be greatly missed, and I know he’ll be with us in spirit at next year’s conference.”
Theodore Higgins began his career with the Public Works/Sanitation and Environment’s Industrial Waste Management Division as an Industrial Waste Inspector, now called Environmental Compliance Inspector. He worked as a Chief Environmental Compliance Inspector at his death.
After being promoted to Sr. Environmental Compliance Inspector, he worked in the Significant Industrial Users group and Sanitation’s new RECYCLA Program, which was Sanitation’s exciting new innovative program designed to move Los Angeles closer to achieving “zero waste” through pioneering waste reduction, reuse, recycling and recovery programs. Theodore was promoted to Chief Environmental Compliance Inspector I in 2017.
Theodore’s past City activities and recognition included (but are not limited to):
- Serving the division as a Sector Champion for the Car Wash Industry, where his role was to maintain collaborative partnerships with the car wash business sector and to strategize how to make businesses grow and become more sustainable.
- He represented IWMD by participating in a national focus group on micro beads/micro plastics pollution with the National Pollution Prevention Roundtable.
- He represented Sanitation on the SCAQMD Environmental Justice Inter-Agency Task Force.
- Theodore was the recipient of the IWMD Employee Excellence Award 2012.
- In 2018, Theodore was honored as one of the Emerging Leaders by the California Water Environment Association (CWEA).
- He received the Pretreatment, Pollution Prevention and Stormwater (P3S) Person of the Year Award by the LA Basin Section of the CWEA in 2019. He served as the Chair of the Pretreatment, Pollution Prevention, and Stormwater (P3S) Committee of the CWEA.
- Theodore played a key role as part of a team in creating LA Sanitation and Environment’s Environmental Compliance Inspector Professional Development and Work Exposure Program (ECIPDWEP), known as the ECI Rotation Program.
- He was part of the LA Sanitation and Environment’s Clean Up Green Up (CUGU) Implementation Plan Working Group, where he played a role in the department’s strategic goals to ensure the health and well-being of disadvantaged communities.
The Club sends its condolences to his colleagues, family and friends.
