District 7 photo
By Colleen Park
District 7 public information officer
For Senior Landscape Architect Kathleen Hamer, who created the design for the U.S. 101 Lankershim to Beaudry Beautification project with Design team members Keith Sellers and Mark Perez, the culmination of the Clean California project in 2025 held a special significance.
From its inception, the U.S. 101 beautification project was both a challenge and a dream. The $1.2 billion Clean California initiative, launched by Governor Gavin Newsom in July 2021, was an exciting but limited opportunity for each district to propose improvements along corridors that needed it most.
While a typical Plans, Specifications, and Estimates (PS&E) project would have three to four years from initiation process to design, Hamer recalls having four to six months to get the U.S. 101 beautification project from initiation proposal to Ready to List (RTL).
“We worked very hard and very fast, using as-builts, using the knowledge I already had of the sites, so I could just quickly do the plans,” Hamer said. “That was a challenge, but we knew the opportunity we had and we did not want to let that go.”
In addition to long hours for the Design team, Hamer credits the resident engineers (REs) Jacky Chan and Jeanette Vong, as well as the project team for working to make the project proposal a reality.
“It just had so much invested into it, there's so many people that believed in it, including the REs. We all put in a lot of time and effort,” she said. “The overall project and the importance of the route deserves that attention.”
For the design of the sculpture, Hamer drew upon the history of this stretch of U.S. 101, also known as the “Hollywood Freeway.” With a husband who has worked in the film industry, she recognizes the current era of filmmaking has faced difficulties keeping the film industry in Hollywood, with financial incentives and outsourcing to other states and countries.
“Hopefully, this will inspire people to remember what Hollywood was founded on. Maybe that's wishful thinking, [but hopefully] this will inspire a resurgence,” Hamer said. “I know there's a lot of things happening in the industry that is making it tough right now in Southern California, but it's hard to move forward if you're not reminded of your history.”
Designing the 23-foot-wide steel filmstrip sculpture was also a balancing act, following Caltrans standards and guidelines. The Design team wanted the sculpture to be beautiful but not distracting, iconic in its simplicity, and above all, relatively easy to maintain.
“As responsible landscape architects, we do have to follow Caltrans guidelines for safety and maintenance reasons … if we do something that's super colorful, super artistic, maintaining it creates a problem for our maintenance staff, and it's not worth putting their time on busy traffic, putting their safety on the line,” Hamer said. “We want to make their lives easier. We value what they do. So, it creates an interesting problem-solving [exercise] for us to be creative, find something that's beautiful, low maintenance, and sustainable.”
The U.S. 101 beautification project also marks the end of a chapter in Hamer’s career, as the final project she directly designed as a project landscape architect. Her role now as a senior involves being an asset advisor and programming. “But I'm always available to help teams with designs and the problem-solving of landscape challenges.”
As a native Californian with 19 years of service at Caltrans, and whose mother immigrated to the United States from Cuba, the beautification project is one more way for Hamer to pay her success forward.
“It does give me a lot of pride to be able to give back with my talents, to a state who's that's provided me so much, including an education, a job, an opportunity, my career,” she said. “It’s wonderful that I can use my talents to beautify the state that I love. “
Kathleen’s identity as a Californian and Angeleno were further cemented this past year after the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires. As a resident of the Pasadena/Altadena area forced to evacuate during the Eaton Fire, her life and community were upturned by disaster. Despite the challenges, Hamer says she was touched by how neighbors, friends and family came together to help each other out.
“I still have a home, so I'm one of the fortunate few, but just seeing people come from other places and even people that were really impacted, they gave whatever they could and that was just amazing to see that support and resilience,” Hamer said. “It's hard, but I am grateful for our community. Neighbors came to support and strengthen one another. It makes me truly proud to be a part of the community.”