David Schreiber’s dedication to raising the professional status of landscape architects through licensure is one of many accomplishments that recently made him the worthy posthumous recipient of the Wisconsin Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects’ 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award. The story of this tireless professional – who died in 2016 while pursuing another passion, horseback riding – is one of dedication to raising the stature of his profession, advocating for clients, and boosting the effectiveness of dozens that he mentored along the way.

Tim Anderson, who partnered with Dave in 1984 to form Schreiber Anderson Associates, says Schreiber placed a high value on raising the standing and integrity of landscape architects and setting standards for the proper execution of their craft. “He was very instrumental in getting the legislation passed for licensure,” Anderson says of Schreiber’s efforts to establish professional landscape architect licensure in Wisconsin. That legislation passed in 1995, and Schreiber was among the first to be licensed that same year.

Schreiber understood that their unique training allows professional landscape architects to be excellent start-to-finish project managers who visualize the big picture from the beginning and see it through to the final details at the end.

In a 2014 interview with the Wisconsin State Journal, Schreiber was quoted as saying: “My goal was to put the landscape architect in control of these projects. I started approaching landscape architecture with the view that I and my employees could tackle everything outside the building, and (clients) could really just work with us to get their whole site designed.”

Schreiber wanted his staff to be fully licensed, Anderson notes, and he did what he could to make sure the firm supported and assisted them in pursuing licensure. He also spent many hours sharing his wisdom and expertise with many of the 140-plus employees who worked with him over the years. “Mentorship was a big deal with him,” Anderson says.

Clients benefited from Schreiber’s vision

Ultimately SAA Design Group was recognized for the quality of its work and its effective approach to waterfront planning and downtown revitalization, Anderson says, noting that Schreiber helped raise clients’ expectations of landscape architecture firms from ones that did plantings to ones that did planning and civil engineering. Another hallmark Schreiber helped usher in was sustainable design. “That was really embedded in the culture of the firm,” Anderson says.

Clients appreciated the long-term relationships Schreiber forged with them, and perhaps none more typifies that than Beloit 2020 Development Corporation, which the firm started serving in 1989.

Jeff Adams, executive director of Beloit 2020, valued Schreiber’s dedication to Beloit, South Beloit, and the private sector planning organization in which Adams has provide leadership for decades. Adams worked with Schreiber from 1990 until shortly before his death in 2016. Much of Beloit 2020’s success is owed to the fact that Schreiber did such a good job of holding the group’s hand, Adams says, noting that he was good at connecting the dots, looking forward, and foreseeing things that needed to be done. So many conversations included Schreiber pointing to a potential issue and saying, “You really need to start thinking about this,” Adams says.

A great example was Schreiber’s invaluable advice to take advantage of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation’s plans to reconstruct U.S. 51 through the heart of the area that Beloit 2020 was developing along the banks of the Rock River. The highway closely parallels the river near its east bank. Schreiber figured WisDOT expected to hold a poorly attended public meeting where they laid out their plans for some fresh concrete and that would be that, Adams says.

Because Schreiber got out in front of the opportunity, representatives of Beloit 2020 were at the meeting. When WisDOT said the community would need to show a plan, they already had one. A $16,000 planning effort the group had engaged in with Schreiber’s team ultimately paid huge dividends as the highway project was leveraged to provide a handsome boulevard that visually extends the linear park space along the river. “When you enter the city center, suddenly you see this is different, this is cool,” Adams says. The highway project also brought traffic calming to the corridor, and extensive parking was established along the green space in coordination with the highway project.

A pioneer in downtown revitalization and waterfront planning

“He saw water as a tremendous driver of economic activity,” Adams, a professor emeritus of economics at Beloit College, says of Schreiber, and he had the technical expertise to properly deal with the issues that come with waterfront projects. Schreiber’s vision also allowed him to identify compact, dense, pedestrian-friendly urban centers as desirable and effective – long before this became widely fashionable, Adams says.

Besides Beloit, notable downtown revitalization and waterfront planning projects included Monona Terrace in Madison and Phoenix Park in Eau Claire. The transformation of Madison Area Technical College was another key project, but Schreiber’s influence was felt through numerous projects from Antigo to the Quad Cities to points around the Midwest.

Schreiber’s enthusiasm came through in his community involvements as well. He was active on several committees of Madison’s Downtown Rotary, including being the design committee leader for the implementation of the Rotary Centennial Plaza in downtown Madison. Schreiber worked on horseback riding trails at Dane County’s Donald Park, and he was president of the park’s Friends group from 2005 to 2009. Under his leadership the 120-member group pursued strategic planning and project grants and recruited project partners. The group participated in park improvement projects such as master plan updates, multi-use trails, site archaeological research, historic landscape restorations, and a site interpretive plan.

Schreiber’s relationship with the Beloit area is still nurtured today as Ayres manages the Nature at the Confluence project, which will reclaim a 34.4-acre area of South Beloit as a park and preserve dedicated to connecting people of all ages and abilities with the unique ecology and historical significance resulting from the confluence of Turtle Creek and the Rock River. The park will combine hands-on learning in ecology and science with recreational hiking, biking, boating, and agility in the form of a ropes course. Ayres has provided a seamless transition under Blue’s leadership, so in some sense Blue’s hiring was another gift Schreiber gave to the community, Adams says.

The gifts of Schreiber’s well-planned, well designed, well-executed projects continue to bear new growth each spring and new fruit each day all around the Midwest.