Bruce Rasher, RACER Trust Redevelopment Manager, Named Linda Garczynski Brownfields Person of the Year

National Award Recognizes Outstanding Individual Work to Champion Redevelopment, Promote and Enhance Significant Community Revitalization

 

RACER Trust Redevelopment Manager Bruce Rasher has been named Linda Garczynski Brownfields Person of the Year by ICMA, the International City/County Management Association.

The announcement was made Wednesday afternoon at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Brownfields Training Conference in Oklahoma City. Mr. Rasher was recognized as part of ICMA’s Phoenix Awards, the premiere national awards program for brownfields redevelopment.

Bruce Rasher addressing a group from a podium
Bruce Rasher, RACER Trust's Redevelopment Manager (Photo: Gary Henry)

The Linda Garczynski Brownfields Person of the Year recognizes an outstanding brownfield leader who recently championed brownfield redevelopment to promote and enhance significant community revitalization. It is named for a former longtime director of the EPA’s brownfields program.

“Bruce’s dedication to returning idled and impaired properties to productive reuse for the benefit of communities is unsurpassed in my experience,” said Elliott P. Laws, of EPLET, LLC, administrative trustee of RACER Trust. “His ability to find opportunities amid obstacles, and to work collaboratively to remove those obstacles, is a major reason why RACER has completed more than 90 property transactions, attracting buyers and end users whose investments are supporting thousands of jobs, billions in annual economic output and contributing to the revitalization of communities that were hit hard by previous manufacturing job losses. Bruce is an outstanding leader and colleague, and all of us at RACER Trust are pleased and proud to see him earn such a well-deserved honor.”

“Successful brownfield redevelopment is driven by committed professionals who have a community-first mindset. Bruce Rasher and RACER Trust have demonstrated that leadership and commitment over time,” said Tad McGalliard, ICMA Managing Director, Research and Technical Assistance. “Their efforts have brought new jobs and investment to communities large and small across the RACER portfolio.”

“RACER Trust’s success is the result of each individual team member’s commitment to fulfilling our dual mission of cleaning up contaminated properties, where necessary, and selling them for redevelopment and reuse that benefits and is supported by the communities where these properties are located,” Mr. Rasher said. “The Linda Garczynski Brownfields Person of the Year award is a tremendous, deeply appreciated honor for me personally, but it really honors the results RACER has been able to achieve as a whole, from removing risks of contaminant exposure and improving communities through environmental cleanup to attracting new buyers capable of maximizing a property’s redevelopment potential. There is real satisfaction in knowing the work we are doing is benefitting so many communities and so many people.”

Among the many successful redevelopments of former RACER Trust properties are M1 Concourse in Pontiac, Mich.; the American Center for Mobility in Ypsilanti Township, Mich.; Sirmax North America, Inc., in Anderson, Ind.; idX Corporation in Fredericksburg, Va.; Amazon.com near Wilmington, Del.; and Lear Corporation in Flint, Mich.

Before joining RACER, Mr. Rasher was Vice President of CBRE, the world's largest real estate services firm, where he was based in Detroit and managed CBRE's North American manufacturing and brownfields specialty practice groups. He is a former mayor of Marshall, Mich.

Bruce Rasher with the Brownfields Person of the Year award

Bruce Rasher, recipient of the Linda Garczynski Brownfields Person of the Year honor at the 2022 National Brownfields Training Conference. (Photo: Gary Henry) 

About RACER Trust: RACER (Revitalizing Auto Communities Environmental Response) Trust was created to clean up and position for redevelopment properties and other facilities owned by the former General Motors Corp. before its 2009 bankruptcy. When it was formed in 2011, RACER was one of the largest holders of industrial property in the United States and was the largest environmental response and remediation trust in U.S. history. Its initial property holdings were at 89 locations in 14 states, principally in the Midwest and Northeast. The Trust was created by a settlement agreement in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court between the U.S. Government, the 14 states where the former GM properties are located, and the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe, which owns land adjoining one of the properties in Upstate New York. For more information, please visit our website: www.racertrust.org.