Resilience through adversity as Steer Puerto Rico forges ahead

During the last few years hurricanes, earthquakes and the COVID-19 pandemic have created significant challenges for Puerto Rico. These periods of uncertainty helped us to develop our resilience as individuals and as a company. Undoubtedly, these events brought adverse effects to the Puerto Rico office where our most regular clients also suffered changes and interruptions in their projects.

Our team was affected by voluntary resignations and staff cutbacks as a contingency to the crisis. This left Liza Rios as the sole employee of the office for almost a year, during this time she supported projects across the company, while strengthening market relationships with our clients and identifying how and when new opportunities might arise.

These adversities led us to adapt to a new reality, including moving to a smaller office and relying on the invaluable support from team members at Steer across the world. During this period, the office never ceased to operate and continued to generate proposals aligned with emerging needs, mainly with assistance and support of the US and LATAM teams. Today, a year after seeking the best way to be resilient, we can enjoy the results of this work.

Results

We have a favorable work won in the last year with close to $ 3 million and we continue to be leaders in the transportation consulting industry leading most of the emblematic projects of the island among them: Multimodal Long-Term Plan 2050, Strategic Highway Safety Plan of Puerto Rico and several municipal strategic plans.  Due to the increase work won we have grown to a team comprising 5 consultants

Our team in San Juan

Liza Rios Berrios – Office Leader

Liza joined Steer 11 years ago as an assistant consultant in the Puerto Rico office. During this time, she has had the opportunity to work on several local and international projects, actively supporting the teams in North and Latin America, including a secondment in Bogota where she had the opportunity to strengthen her technical skills in traffic simulation. She has worked on projects focused on transportation plans, such as mobility master plans, non-motorized modes and strategic plans. She also has vast experience in infrastructure projects, delivering demand forecasts and supervising large data collection processes. She has led modeling, design and road impact analysis, traffic congestion management and mass transit related projects.

During the last few years Liza has been increasingly involved in office management tasks and in building and strengthening client relationships. Currently Liza is the office and market leader for Puerto Rico, collaborating in the development of the local and regional strategy.

Gabriel Quiñones Zambrana – Senior Consultant

Gabriel has over 7 years of experience in transportation planning and urban planning projects. His areas of expertise include planning and consulting services in issues related to transportation, mass transit, mobility of people, citizen participation and urban planning. In July 2021, Gabriel returned to Steer as a Senior Consultant after working in the public sector, he currently has management responsibilities, including being the project manager for most of the planning projects, however given the structure of the office he participates in all active opportunities in the office.

Michelle Sánchez – Consultant

Has a bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from UPR, Mayagüez Campus and recently completed a master's degree in Planning from UPR, Río Piedras Campus. Since high school she has been involved in transportation work and initiatives, especially in pedestrian, bicycle, and complete streets issues. For the past 6 years she has been working in consulting firms in the areas of market analysis, economics, planning and historic preservation, especially supporting the areas of GIS and data analysis. She is excited to begin her career at Steer and is confident that she has a lot to learn and contribute to the projects in Puerto Rico and the other offices in the region.

Andrea Iguina – Consultant

Andrea started working as a Consultant and holds a master’s degree in Planning with a concentration in Urban and Territorial Planning from the University of Puerto Rico and a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the same university. She began her professional life as Project Coordinator for the Agenda Ciudadana Foundation; where she coordinated over 30 participatory dialogue sessions on the topics of Environment, Economy, Energy, Families, Early Childhood and among others. In 2018 she was part of TFEC, a community foundation located in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where she worked as a Program Officer distributing over one million dollars in grants to non-profit organizations in the area.

Grace Delgado Navarro – Assistant Consultant

Grace has a bachelor's degree in Business Administration with a concentration in International Trade from the University of Puerto Rico, Humacao Campus and recently completed her master's degree in Planning with a concentration in Economic and Community from the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus. Within her professional development she has worked as a logistics coordinator exporting wagons to different countries, was a statistics tutor, has participated in data collection through ArcGis Pro for the creation of an environmental risk mitigation plan and has participated in the planning for the creation of a linear park within the city. She is excited to be able to support, learn and help Steer and the communities through our projects.