American Society of Landscape Architects, North Carolina Chapter, 2008 Landscape Architectural Firm Award

Greenways Incorporated is a unique, award-winning, North Carolina-based landscape architectural firm that has earned a national and international reputation for providing specialized planning and design services to clients in the public and private sector. Established in August 1986, the firm has completed greenways, open space, bicycle, pedestrian, green infrastructure and park planning, design and implementation services for clients in more than 135 communities, within 35 states, and internationally in Argentina, Canada, Japan, and the U. S. Virgin Islands. Greenways Incorporated has contributed significantly to the way in which communities are planned, designed and developed. Through the work of the company, tens of thousands of acres of land have been protected, thousands of miles of new trails, bicycle and pedestrian facilities have been developed, and hundreds of millions of dollars have been committed to finance land conservation and facility development. The measurable impact that this firm has had in North Carolina and across the nation is both well known and highly regarded. Greenways Incorporated is rightfully credited with having helped to establish the modern American Greenway movement, and to have been involved in planning and designing some of the most significant and signature project work in the nation.

Greenways Incorporated has garnered 35 local, state and national awards for its work, including: 2001 Merit Award from the American Society of Landscape Architects for the Grand Canyon Greenway Plan; 2003 Award of Excellence from the Prairie Gateway Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects for the Kansas City Metro Green Plan; 2005 Award of Excellence from the Nevada Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects for the Northwest Las Vegas Open Space Plan; 2006 Outstanding Planning Award, Large Jurisdiction, from the South Carolina Chapter of the American Planning Association for the Charleston County Greenbelt Plan.

The company has received an ASLA Chapter Award for Excellence for five separate projects in five different states and is the recipient of two ASLA Merit Awards. Additionally, the company has been featured for its unique work in three Landscape Architecture Magazine articles (1991, 1999, 2008), as well as in National Geographic, Walking, American Planning, Good Housekeeping, Buzzworm Environmental Journal, Southern Living, Hemispheres (United Airlines) and American City County.

Greenways Incorporated has been a pioneer in North Carolina in the areas of landscape architecture and environmental planning. In 1989, the firm co-authored the state’s first local government open space plan (Durham County). In 1991, the firm prepared a master plan for North Carolina’s first rails-to-trails project, the American Tobacco Trail in Durham, Chatham and Wake Counties. In 1992, under the newly adopted Intermodal Surface Transportation Act, Greenways Incorporated authored North Carolina’s first Regional Bicycle Plan for the Durham, Carborro and Chapel Hill Metropolitan Area.

In the past three years, the firm has authored bicycle master plans for four of North Carolina’s five largest cities. In 1994, the firm designed the nation’s first greenway built from recycled trash, the Swift Creek Recycled Greenway in Cary, NC. In 1996, the company pioneered the first use of Geographic Information System technology and applied a Bicycle Level of Service model in preparing a Bicycle and Greenway Master Plan for Birmingham, Alabama. In 1999, the company produced the first greenway master plan that made use of GIS technology for Charlotte-Mecklenburg County. During the past two decades, the firm has authored more than 40 local government greenway plans in North Carolina. In 2007, the firm donated services to plan, design and develop the first “green” Habitat for Humanity community in the state; Hope Crossings, in Durham.

The company is lead by founder and President Charles A. “Chuck” Flink, FASLA, who has been a licensed landscape architect since 1986. Flink was elected a Fellow in the American Society of Landscape Architects in 2003. Currently the firm has six full-time employees.