Lighting Los Angeles
Every Monday, I will share a resident of the South Bay contributing to making our community a better place.
Today’s MCM title belongs to Zouhair Shehab who despite spending nearly half of his academic life in a different country and culture, works extremely hard in providing the community with improved lighting and safety.
Zouhair Shehab , 34, was born in Daytona Beach, FL. He later moved to CA as a child but his parents decided it would be best to move to Lebanon so he and his siblings could learn the Arabic language and become familiar with their Lebanese traditions.
He continued most of his high school years in Lebanon and completed his last year in 1999 in Los Angeles. After growing up in two different cultures, he spent some time adjusting and balancing both the Arab and American lifestyles. “It was definitely a great life time experience I always share with my friends and will share with many in the future,” he says.
After his senior year in high school, he wasn’t sure what field he wanted to follow. He says, “I had the love for food and after my dad's pizza shop and eating pizza three times a day, I really wanted to become a Chef.” He asked many for advice and was not impressed with the time, effort, and long working hours one had to put in to make a living being a chef. In result, he began to seek alternative careers and continued to cook as a hobby.
He felt he was poor academically in Math and Science but always had a drive in competing against himself. “I motivate myself for new challenges and find ways to become better so I looked into engineering,” he says. Zouhair found that the beauty of engineering is that always has issues and obstacles to overcome and different ways to overcome them.
Although academically poor in Fundamentals of Science and always struggling to pass, he had the drive and knew if had the right mindset and focus, he could overcome the struggles and become successful. He then broke down all the engineering majors and felt electrical engineering was the most fitting of all majors. He went to El Camino College and later transferred to Cal State Long Beach and graduated in 2006. He began working professionally with the City of Los Angeles in 2007 shortly after he graduated.
Graduating was a great accomplishment for Zouhair, especially for all the extra effort and dedication graduating as an electrical engineer. “It was a great milestone in my life to be proud of academically,” he says.
Today, Zouhair is currently working as a Street Lighting Engineer for City of L.A. The position itself is a very unique Job Classification. He is in charge of improving lighting for the general public and for public Safety throughout the City of L.A.
A typical day consists of evaluating tunnels, roadways, and sidewalks and seeing what type of street lights are needed so the public can feel safe at night. After, he will do illumination calculations on the roadway and evaluate where to locate his lights and then draft a plan doing engineering work on how to power the lights. Finally, the plans are signed sign and approved. A Contractor is then awarded the bid and begins construction. He makes sure the project is built per his specifications and design.
Zouhair says the exciting part of his job is making a change and being a part of the change to the environment. “Seeing the community happy and satisfied with the changes, you will be amazed in what improved lighting can do at night., especially on the road and sidewalks,” he says.
The most challenging and most difficult part of his job is tunnel lighting. “I got fortunate enough to be given the hardest task to tackle and it was a very difficult project,” he says. Tunnel Lighting is a special application that has to be designed very well. The Lighting in Tunnels transitions from very high illumination to lower Illumination at Exit during the day so the drivers’ eyes have to adapt and he has to make sure that the lighting is adequate enough and safe for the public to drive thru any time of the day.
He remembers the most difficult project he designed and coordinated was construction for the LAX Tunnel. “Over 100 thousand Cars travel thru this Tunnel daily, so the Retrofitted LED Lighting design and construction was one of the hardest and most challenging tasks to overcome,” he says. He is most proud of this accomplishment when it was completed.
When Zouhair is not busy working, he enjoys spending his weekends with family, cooking and barbequing. He enjoys trying new marinades on his meats including chicken and ribs. When together, they enjoy eating, trying new restaurants, watching/playing sports such as basketball and more. He says his life motto is to simply, “Eat good, do good and be patient with your life...good things happen.”
He pays it forward by giving advice and helping others as much as he can. “I feel with advice and support, it is my duty to spread good and help others succeed in life. .I have to be a good role model for my family and friends and help others reach their goals,” he says.
Thank you, Zouhair, for being the guiding force in providing light and safety to our roads and making it a priority to help others succeed. The South bay is fortunate to have you as a member of our society.
