Award given at Hoosier Environmental Council’s Annual Summit
Dyer, Ind. – Pedestrian and bike transportation planner and leader Mitch Barloga, Active Transportation Manager for the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission (NIRPC), was named Sustainability Champion of the Year by the Hoosier Environmental Council (HEC) today at the 2022 Greening the Statehouse event in Westfield, Ind.
Since 2003, Barloga has worked with governmental entities in Lake, Porter and LaPorte Counties to design and secure funding for pedestrian and bicycle facilities in the NIRPC region and beyond. He holds a masters degree in urban planning and policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a bachelors degree in landscape architecture from Purdue University. Barloga serves as board president of the Greenways Foundation of Indiana and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners.
“You’d be hard pressed to find a more determined, passionate voice for trails than Mitch Barloga,” said Tim Maloney, senior policy director of HEC. Northwest Indiana has been a leader in bike and pedestrian trail development, and Mitch spreads his enthusiasm statewide through his work with the Greenways Foundation. We are delighted to recognize his work.”
The HEC Annual Awards is part of Greening the Statehouse (GTS), Indiana’s largest annual gathering of environmental-minded Hoosiers, now in its fifteenth year. In addition to Barloga, eleven other entities around the state received awards. GTS 2022 featured panel discussions on progress toward cleaner waterways in Indiana, and the outlook for pro-environmental legislation in the 2022 election and the 2023 state legislative session.