It isn’t exactly Time’s Person of the Year, but for a guy who spends a lot of his time trying to figure out how to create more efficient sewer systems in Los Angeles, being the Trenchless Technologies Person of the Year is, as he put it to me, a pleasant surprise.

Azusa Councilman Keith Hanks, who doubles as a civil engineer for the Los Angeles Public Works department working on sewer systems, was recognized by Trenchless Technologies recently in a piece written for the business magazine.

The piece is a little inside baseball and if you are like me, a lot of it might as well be in French.

But it does offer a lot of background on Hanks, including his engineer filled family, how he climbed the ranks in his business, and the fact he has traveled the world in search of new technologies, as well as other items of interest.