Treasurer

Dear NAC Members,
Thank you for asking my opinion on these matters of great importance to our profession. I've not repeated the questions here, but have provided my thoughts. They are substantive issues but I've tried to be succinct.

1. The AIA and the United States Conference of Mayors are working together to encourage city leaders to take a strong stance in favor of promoting integrated and high-performance building design with a goal of reaching a 50 percent fossil fuel reduction by 2010 and carbon neutral buildings by 2030. What are your plans to support this initiative and to implement the AIA's positions on the environment? More specifically, what role do you see the Associate AIA members playing now and in the future in furthering these objectives?

As Treasurer, I’ll fight to assure funding is available to support the AIA’s positions on sustainability. As a Board Member, I was a strong ally of then Board Public Director, Jeremy Harris, then Mayor of Honolulu, a powerful persuader on all things green. He, together with then AIA President Doug Steidl (again, with whom I was a strong ally), was very convincing in getting AIA to build bridges with the US Conference of Mayors.

The AIA must be vigilant in educating its members on high performance design, and must be vigilant in getting the message out to the public how essential architects are in performing that service for humankind.

Associate AIA members play a huge role now and in the future. Your grasp of the issues, your creativity and flexibility, your energy and enthusiasm, your passion and commitment to the world you and your successors will inhabit—all make you essential to the success of our joint effort. Hold the AIA’s feet to the fire. Keep coming up with fresh ideas. Insist that all do their best to enhance, not destroy our planet.

2. Where do you see opportunities for architecture students, emerging professionals, and recently licensed professionals to make the greatest contribution to our profession?

Join it! Become registered! Fall in love with it! Take responsibility for its future. Make it even better tomorrow than it is today. About 50 percent of today’s architecture students are women—and that’s progress. We still need to make great strides, but it’s improving. That’s not true with minorities however. We’re still where we were 30+ years ago – 1 percent African-American, 2 percent Latino, 3 percent Asian. That’s not good enough. We can do better and must.

Architecture students, emerging professionals, and the recently licensed need to help recruit and retain. You need to tell those of us who’ve been registered for 20, 30, 40 or more years— what you need, what you want. We practitioners need to give you our mentoring, loyalty, and support. You need to give the profession your dedication and commitment.

I’ve been involved as a Board Member as the AIA representative to the ACE Mentoring Board and the American Architectural Foundation Board. In my own community, I’ve helped start an ACE Mentoring Chapter and I’ve long been a High School Design Competition critic, so I’ve tried to help bring young people into the profession. I’d continue that effort as Treasurer.

3. Some statistics have suggested the rate of attrition among architects is steadily increasing. What initiatives do you suggest/support that will encourage younger members to remain in the field and also to become registered?

Actually AIA membership has never been higher, at over 80,000 members, so there is hope. But industry-wide—not just architects, but all fields of design and construction—we are shrinking. I’ve heard the average age is 52, and for every five who leave, one joins. We need to reverse that.

It’s hard work. It doesn’t always pay well. Deadlines can force long hours, but if I had it to do all over again, I’d become an architect again. It’s really rewarding to see people using something you’ve designed. It’s rewarding to pull a team together for two or three years to achieve a goal, to create something which will outlive us all.

Becoming registered is a natural. It’s the completion of years of blood, sweat, and tears—and money! It’s needed to take responsibility for your actions. You need to be goal-oriented to become an architect. You wouldn’t begin constructing a house then stop before putting on a roof. Similarly, in becoming registered, you stay committed through the good and bad, until the goal is met. The profession needs you! Don’t be discouraged. Stay the course.

We have incentives in our office: We pay for the test, give time to take the exam, and give a raise and a reward when the ARE is passed. Leading up to that, we work hard to support IDP, to give interns a variety of experience. We push and challenge our interns, trying to get people to take responsibility. There’s lots of encouragement and support. Most firms and individuals try to help the next generation.

4. As technology advances and new software is developed, at least some members of the public (including potential clients) seem to believe that it is becoming easier for any “Average Joe” to “design” a building. How do you propose we, leaders of the architecture profession, promote an architect’s value to society? Additionally, how do you see the role of the architect changing as technology advances?

We architects have a duty to always do good design. It doesn’t have to be expensive, but it must excite and inspire. It must be more than construction. There are too many examples of non architect designed conditions in the world. Architects must bring value.

Technology is merely a tool – albeit a wonderful tool, but it is not the creative human who can feel, who can relate, who can comprehend, who can think and plan and inspire. When confronted, we need to explain how we make a difference, how we save money over the long run, how we make that client more efficient, more effective, more healthy, more intelligent, and how that client is saving the planet with that architect-designed new building. We have to prove our worth with our work, with our outstanding professional service delivered over time.

Already technology’s advances have enabled us to work faster, to show more graphically, to point out interferences, to allow more complicated shapes, to transition easier from design to fabrication. That will continue. It will allow the architect more time to do the creative thinking while the more mundane is made easier and faster by technology.

5. How is the Intern process handled in your firm/office? Would you consider it to be "Intern Friendly"? What would you propose to help make the profession more "Intern Friendly"?

Yes, we would be considered Intern friendly. As discussed earlier, we strongly encourage architecture graduates to become registered. We counsel them frequently, give them exposure to all facets of the practice, incentivize passing the ARE (with paid time off to take the exam, paying for the exam, rewarding with a bonus and a pay raise upon passage). We pay for their AIA dues after licensing and pay for ongoing continuing education. We encourage them to take responsibility for their efforts both in the office and in the community. We strongly encourage them to provide community service and engage them in office pro bono services, so that becomes habit forming.

I’d encourage the profession to welcome, indeed to recruit and mentor Interns as we’ve done. My personal example of time and dedication to ACE, AAF, HSDC, and so many other welcoming/encouraging programs should be telling. If elected Treasurer, I’ll have even more opportunities to help make our profession more Intern friendly.

Thank you for asking for my opinions on these important questions. Hope to see many of you in San Antonio very soon.