A personal mentor, Bob Foster, across two decades of meetings and interviews with our newsletters, is remembered less as a politician reacting to events than as an authentic, one-of-a-kind, systems thinker insisting on preparedness, institutional clarity, and physical reality. Whether speaking as President of Southern California Edison, Chair of the California ISO, or Mayor of Long Beach, Foster returned to the same uncomfortable truth: modern society depends on infrastructure that must be planned years in advance, paid for honestly, and governed without illusion.

FPH2’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jason Caudle explains how California’s hydrogen market is shifting from policy anticipation to market execution. As cities, transit agencies, and suppliers align around offtake, Caudle outlines how FPH2 is aggregating demand, supporting bankable supply, and keeping momentum in the hydrogen market moving forward.

In this conversation, Cole argues that 2026 will be a decisive year for Pasadena and Los Angeles alike, contending that the cities’ futures are deeply intertwined—and that the moment demands systemic reform rather than incremental fixes.

When TPR, introduced by then LA County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, spoke with Frank Gehry in Bilbao, Spain (1998), the Guggenheim had been open less than a year—yet it had already reshaped a city and reframed the role of architecture in public life. Gehry spoke not of icons or legacy, but of movement, emotion, and discipline. Remembering Gehry’s legacy is to remember the disciplined design process he championed, one that restores belief. His work mattered not for its spectacle, but for its fundamental respect for art, for makers, and for the cities it inhabits.

In conversation, Erin Rank, President & CEO of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Los Angeles, reflects on her 25+ years of leadership transforming Habitat LA from an all-volunteer, one-home-at-a-time nonprofit into one of the region’s most significant builders of affordable homeownership.

In conversation, River LA’s Board Chair, Harry Chandler, discusses the long arc of the Los Angeles (LA) River’s revitalization efforts and the sobering gap between visionary plans and implementation. Chandler recounts how The L.A. River Revitalization Corporation (renamed as River LA), founded by the City in 2009, with Chandler as its first board chair, was established to advance public and private partnerships along the river corridor with its fragmented governance landscape. Today, River LA’s signature project is the future park-to-be Taylor Yard, a former 100-acre toxic rail site.

Anthony Rodriguez, President & CEO of the LA Fashion District Business Improvement District (BID), lays out how pandemic losses, slow foot-traffic recovery, and the shock of recent federal enforcement have compounded pressures on the district’s predominantly immigrant-owned small businesses. He argues that rigid DTLA 2040 zoning—particularly in IX2/IX3—undermines reinvestment and adaptation in an area already defined by high vacancies and aging industrial stock.