Former LTU head, adviser for mayor’s climate action plan takes job in LA | Local Government


Miki Esposito — the first woman to head Lincoln’s public works department and who later became a senior policy adviser to the mayor — has left Nebraska for a new challenge.

On Friday, she started her new job: As Los Angeles County’s assistant director of public works, one of the largest municipal public works agencies in the country.

The opportunity — to help run a department that employs 4,000 people, serves 10 million residents, covers 400 square miles, 88 incorporated cities, including Los Angeles, and hundreds of unincorporated communities — was too hard to pass up. 

She ignores most job opportunities that arise through a professional organization she’s a part of, but this one she couldn’t.

“I love a challenge and am always looking to be challenged. I’m a competitor by nature … and I want to make maximum impact. If it’s hard and purposeful, I want to do that.”


Miki Esposito: Inspired by her family

The decision was also personal: She grew up in southern California, and often competed in soccer, volleyball and softball in the LA area. She spent the first eight years of her life in Hawaii, still has a lot of extended family there, and in California her family developed a large network of Polynesian friends. 

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“This is my home state,” she said. “It’s been a place I’ve always been comfortable. … I will have to wrap my head around how big it is, but it’s a place I am familiar with and really love. I’m reaching back to where my roots are. … This is a place I can experience my culture fully and I’m reaching for that too, so it’s both professional and personal.”

Her last day with the city was May 6.

Esposito, who graduated from high school in Oceanside, California, in 1990, has been in the Midwest since college, when she came to Baker University in Baldwin City, Kansas, on a volleyball scholarship. She earned her undergraduate degree in biology and a law degree from Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas, in 2002.

In 2012, when then-Mayor Chris Beutler hired Esposito to head the public works department, now called Lincoln Transportation and Utilities, she was also the first non-engineer to lead the city’s largest department. 

The agency is responsible for street construction and repair, and oversees traffic operations, bus service, the water system, wastewater and solid waste systems and watershed management.


Esposito returning to job as director of Public Works & Utilities

At the time, Beutler said Esposito’s problem-solving skills and her ability to work with people was more important than being an engineer. Liz Elliott, her successor, also is an attorney, not an engineer.

Esposito had worked with engineers for several years before she became head of the department, first as an attorney with the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality and later as part of the city attorney’s staff, representing public works.

During her time as public works director, she led the development of a comprehensive water management plan and the 2040 solid waste plan, the completion of the Antelope Valley Project, the conversion of the StarTran fleet to alternative fuels, and the wastewater system’s biogas-to-fuel project.

In 2019, Esposito left the city to become marketing director for Olsson, a Lincoln-based engineering firm where consultants assist cities with many of the same issues Lincoln faces.


Antelope Valley project finished after 2-plus decades of planning, construction


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The following year, Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird hired Esposito as a senior policy adviser to lead the implementation of the climate action plan, also known as the Resilient Lincoln initiative. Her job for the next two years was to lead community engagement, review and feedback of what was initially a draft plan.

The City Council adopted the Climate Action Plan in March 2021.

“Miki’s knowledge and experience, combined with her passion for driving forward climate-smart solutions, significantly advanced my administration’s Resilient Lincoln initiative,” Gaylor Baird said.

Jennifer Williams, the mayor’s chief of staff, said they will name a new adviser to head the Resilient Lincoln initiative, but the timing for posting the opening hasn’t been determined.

During her time as an adviser, getting the Climate Action Plan passed was a big accomplishment, Esposito said, including getting buy-in from much of the community. Since it passed, she said, the city has initiated 24 of the goals from the plan. 

Gaylor-Baird noted Esposito’s work to help the city begin reducing local greenhouse gas emissions, and her work to help identify a second source of water.

In her new job, Esposito will be one of two assistant directors, under the director and chief deputy. She will oversee development services, construction management and emergency services, coordinating with other cities and regional authorities.

Her new job, she said, wouldn’t have happened without her experiences in Lincoln, where she built her career, which makes the move bittersweet.

“It’s just a very special place to me and I’m so grateful for the service I’ve been able to provide,” she said. “For me, it’s a new chapter, but Lincoln will always be a part of the story. I’m carrying it with me.”


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Reach the writer at 402-473-7226 or mreist@journalstar.com.

On Twitter @LJSreist

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