You might say that I first ran for office for self-serving reasons. I experienced what I considered an injustice to our local development, and I wanted to do something about it.

In the late 1980s, DAG Architects, our partnership in Destin, Fla., was a small firm going through an economic downturn. Work had been pretty hard to come by in our Florida-panhandle Gulf Coast town, when along came a project in our community that we thought we'd have a good shot at doing. We even joint ventured with the other local architecture firm—at the time there were only really two of us in the Destin area—so the decision of picking a local firm would seem fairly easy.

The city council didn't choose our joint-venture team. They ended up picking a firm that was not even in the state. I found it frustrating that local taxpayers who are involved in the community and struggling to make ends meet are passed over for an out-of-state firm for services we could provide. That said to me that we had problems in Destin with how the city council was dealing with management of spending local tax dollars.

Another reason for getting involved was the tendency of the city at that time to be only reactive to growth opportunities. I wanted to change that to one of proactive planning. I didn't feel that it would hurt our firm if I were sitting on the council making procurement decisions. DAG would, of course, be exempted from doing city projects, but it looked pretty clear that we didn't have much of a shot of getting any work with them anyway. I wanted to try to keep our tax dollars in-state, and, if possible, within the local business community.

We were starting to experience some growth in the early '90s, coming out of the recession, and projects were being proposed. The city was rejecting some projects more on public sentiment than growth management statutes and principles and, in some cases, the city was being taken to court. We had laws in place that were difficult to interpret and so, when I got involved, one of my goals was to look at the comprehensive plan and land-development code and find out where the problem areas were.

One of the things about having a more proactive plan for growth and having a set of rules/regulations/criteria is that it gives your developers and people who want to do improvements to their businesses a much clearer road map of what they can do. When your process leaves more questions than answers, and people end up in court, it puts a black eye on the growth process.

While I was on the council, we conducted a visioning process, "Goals 2000," led by the chamber of commerce. I was one of the council members who participated with the chamber, and it was a very positive program. We brought in some outside consultants who led the community through a series of meetings and visioning exercises that brought the community a greater awareness of Destin's potential. The last motion I made before I stepped down to run for the Florida Senate was that the city adopt the Goals 2000 concepts, which passed. Since then, it has been slow-going, but some of that plan is starting to be implemented. There's a major effort in downtown redevelopment on the harbor that just now went before the city council.

Tapped for the statehouse
Going for state office was not something I was even thinking about, much less seeking. I still had two years left on the city council.

Usually, about once a week, I would meet with a group at the local diner to talk about politics and what's happening in the area. One Friday morning the discussion had drifted to some of our local politicians and how the local senator in the seat at that time was having some personal problems. Almost tongue-in-cheek, someone said, "Well Charlie, you ought to run for office." We all had a good laugh and went on to work. Later that morning a few people called to say they wanted to meet. So we had lunch. The group had thought some more about me running and decided it might be worth looking into.

A whole series of discussions followed, with area leaders, my family, the DAG partners. Running for state office is a commitment. It is a challenge. Financially, it can be very difficult. So you can't take it lightly. And finally, after a lot of discussion, particularly with the family, I came to the conclusion that there probably would never be a better time to run. So I did.

The hyphenated architect-politician
The Florida Senate has its regular 60-day session in March and April. January and February are filled with a fairly intense series of committee meetings to get ready for the session. And we will have a few committee meetings at other times, for instance as we go through an election cycle, which we are doing now. After the November election, there will be a reorganization session for about a week, and we may have a week of committee meetings. Then it's back again in January and February to get ready for session.

Balancing that with work at DAG has been quite a challenge. The fortunate thing for me is that I've had great partners who have been understanding and supported me in these endeavors. They understand the importance and the need for architects to be involved in legislative office.

We've definitely had to move some roles and responsibilities around. I've become more of the public relations and marketing side of the firm, although I do still get to do a little bit of design and design critique. If I didn't have the partners I have, there's no way being a state senator and whip would be possible, because it is a very time consuming, very demanding job.

I'll put it this way about balancing my roles as politician and architect: Once an architect, always an architect. I do acknowledge that I'm becoming much more aware of and involved in the political process, and it has taken me away from architectural duties. But, at the same time, it has allowed me to share in a forum that doesn't normally have an architect player. Legislatures suffer by not having the insight that the architecture profession can give, particularly from the inside. We've always had good lobbying groups and individuals who have come to share their concerns through testimony or with individual senators or representatives. But it really makes a difference when one of our own is one of the players.

We have 40 senators. And when we have major issues that come before us, say it's something on insurance, we will look to members who have their background in the insurance industry as one of our peers to take the lead and give guidance to the members. When we have issues related to growth, growth management, building construction, or any of a variety of other architecturally related topic, the other senators look to me to provide them with leadership. So it's been a great opportunity for me and the profession. I think we've accomplished a lot in the six years that I've been in the senate. And I think that it shows the impact that architects—and I'm not just saying me—can have on statewide issues.

Copyright 2002 The American Institute of Architects. All rights reserved.