Office of Resilience
Leadership
Liza Milagro Ms. Milagro serves as DeKalb County's Chief Resilience Officer, bringing more than 15 years of experience leading sustainability, resilience, climate action, and environmental innovation initiatives across the public and private sectors.
A nationally recognized resilience and ESG leader, Liza has built and managed environmental strategies impacting more than 110 million people annually and supporting over $10 billion in infrastructure investments. Her expertise spans resilience planning, energy performance & policy, stakeholder engagement, circular economy initiatives, and large scale infrastructure development.
Prior to joining DeKalb County, Liza held leadership positions with Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the Georgia House of Representatives, and international sustainability organizations, where she successfully developed and implemented award-winning environmental programs, sustainability master plans, and resilience strategies. She is widely recognized for creating the groundbreaking #GreeningATL initiative and helping position Hartsfield-Jackson as one of the world's leading airports for sustainability and environmental stewardship. Under her leadership, the airport launched innovative programs that achieved a 58 percent waste diversion rate, diverted more than one million meals to families in need, and advanced emissions reduction, renewable energy, and circular economy initiatives.
Liza has also advised government leaders on sustainability and resilience policy, contributed to the development of environmental and renewable energy legislation, and guided organizations in achieving ESG, climate adaptation, and net-zero goals. Her work has helped shape sustainability strategies across local, national, and international organizations.
Throughout her career, she has earned numerous honors, including Environmental Leader of the Year, Environmental Project of the Year, and recognition as a United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Ambassador. She is also a published author and thought leader whose work has been featured in national industry publications focused on sustainability, resilience, and environmental innovation.
As Chief Resilience Officer, Liza leads DeKalb County's efforts to advance resilience, energy performance, and innovative solutions that support the county's long term environmental, economic, and community goals. Working alongside county leadership, departments, residents, and community partners, she is helping position DeKalb County as a leader in resilience while building a stronger, healthier, and regenerative future for generations to come.
What is Resilient DeKalb
Resilience is how a county protects and absorbs what it cannot predict.Resilience is the practice of insulating a county from sudden shocks and the chronic stresses that wear it down. Shocks are the storm, the flood, the heat wave, the multi day outage. Stresses are quieter and constant, and they decide how hard a shock lands and how long recovery takes: aging facilities, rising utility costs, energy burden carried by households, canopy lost from neighborhoods, maintenance deferred until it becomes an emergency.
The path runs through operational efficiency. Every dollar taken out of a utility bill is a dollar available when conditions turn. Efficiency is what makes a resilient future affordable, and affordability is what makes it last.
Reimagine. Regenerate. Restore.
Resilient DeKalb. One County. One Mission. One Goal. #WeReDKB
The Flagship System
Every part of this work starts with the same word: Re. Renew. Rebuild. Restore. It is the language of doing something again, and doing it better. Fourteen flagships carry the program, each one covering a different part of county life, from energy and water to buildings, canopy, and jobs. As the work grows, new flagships join the system.
Cheaper, cleaner power for county buildings and streets. New LED streetlights, solar panels on county facilities, and neighborhood power networks that keep running when the grid goes down
Fewer fumes from county vehicles. The trucks and cars the county drives are going electric.
Cleaner creeks and rivers. Bringing the South River back, generating power inside the water pipes we already have, and training residents to keep watch over their own watersheds.
Less trash going to the landfill. A composting facility for food and yard waste, and a facility that turns waste into fuel.
Getting more life out of what we already have, instead of throwing it away and buying new. Just getting started.
Better ways to get around DeKalb, whether you drive, ride, bike, or walk. Just getting started.
Places to plug in. Building the charging stations and battery storage the county and its residents will need. Just getting started.
County buildings that cost less to run and last longer. New construction built to a net zero standard, and existing buildings tuned up to keep performing.
More shade on your street. Planting trees back into the neighborhoods that lost them, which cools the air and lowers cooling bills.
Solar power for households that have been priced out of it. The Solar Equity Bank opens access to families and neighborhoods clean energy usually skips.
Jobs and training for DeKalb residents. The Climate Corps prepares people here for the work this program creates.
Food, air, and neighbors. A community youth farm, better access to fresh food, and an agreement that holds large facilities accountable to the people living next to them.
How all of it gets paid for. Green financing, a revolving fund that recycles dollars back into new projects, and commercial financing so private property owners can do this work too. ReInvest runs underneath every other flagship.