Thirty-four-year architectural veteran Russ Drinker, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, joined the leadership team in HOK’s San Francisco office on Sept 4. as a new senior vice president and management principal.

As a pre-teen growing up in a 150-year-old Victorian farmhouse surrounded by an apple orchard in Saratoga, California, Russ built tree houses and forts. By the time he began studying architecture at the University of California in Berkeley in 1976, he had graduated to designing and constructing 2,000-square-foot solar homes.

“I had no business doing this, but I designed and built a custom house while an undergraduate at Berkeley,” said Russ. “It taught me about designing buildings from the inside-out and about sustainability. And I really enjoyed the client relationship.”

In search of a new experience, Russ took his undergraduate degree and headed east to New York City. Over the next 10 years, he worked for two firms while earning his Master of Architecture degree from Columbia University in 1986. He also ran his own firm, designing high-end residential and commercial projects. During this decade in New York, Russ had the opportunity to study with Steven Holl and work with architects including Thom Mayne, David Rockwell and Paul Rudolph.

“Working in an urban setting, managing lots of projects, absorbing how these world class architects ran their practices and worked in the studio, and studying history and theory at Columbia enriched my orientation to the design profession,” he said. “It was all quite distinct from anything I had experienced on the West Coast. But it also gave me a comprehensive grasp of project design and delivery.”

While in New York City, Russ also married Deb Holdeman, whom he had met while at UC Berkeley and was then working on her masters at Yale. They married in 1988 and in 1990 decided to move back to the West Coast to be closer to their families. Russ also wanted to have the opportunity to work on more new buildings.

Back in the Bay Area, Russ continued to enjoy design but found himself gravitating toward operations while in leadership roles at a series of mid-sized firms. “I was fascinated by what it took to run a successful architectural practice,” he said.

In 1997, Drinker joined MBT Architecture in San Francisco. Less than a year later, he was elevated to director of operations. Within three years, he was named CEO. In 2010, the MBT board agreed to have their 75-person firm be acquired by Perkins+Will, with Russ becoming managing director of the San Francisco office and then regional director of its practice in Southeast Asia. His experience there included research and academic projects on six University of California campuses and several at Stanford University. He also led a Green Mark Platinum project for the National Research Foundation in Singapore and a new 32-million-sq.-ft. campus for Princess Noura University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Russ joins HOK in San Francisco management committee members Paul Woolford, Lynn Filar and Rob Tibbetts in leading HOK’s offices in San Francisco and Seattle. He brings to HOK a reputation for leading large-scale, challenging, sustainable projects through innovative project delivery methods and a history of acting as an agent for strategic change.

What are the challenges facing architecture firms today?

Our clients are stressed by many issues related to globalization, the economy and technology. Their needs are changing rapidly. We need to help them look over the horizon to see what they want to be in the future and then create environments that will help them get there.

The ultimate measure of our success is whether we give clients what they need to thrive. I believe we need to provide design excellence, thought leadership, technical innovation and a great delivery experience. If we can act as their trusted advisors, and not just architects, clients will come back to us.

How is project delivery changing?

The rulebook for designing and delivering projects has been thrown away. From design-build to P3, every method is being looked at and new hybrids invented for every project. This experimentation with delivery methods is a huge challenge for design professionals and our clients.

Design is a team effort. I don’t think you can achieve excellent design or technological expertise or innovation without strong management. Design firms need to position themselves to lead projects in every kind of delivery method and then be fast and decisive. We can and should be leading these projects holistically.

You were named one of the “101 Leaders in Sustainable City Making and Theory” by Professor Steffen Lehmann in The Principles of Green Urbanism. What are the next frontiers for sustainability?

Technology that enables sustainable solutions is improving. The regulatory environment is changing to favor sustainability. Client support for sustainability is increasing because it can be achieved economically. All this means that building incredibly sustainable projects at market rates is no longer a pipe dream.

There has been a rapid pivot to looking beyond LEED to designing buildings that are net zero in terms of energy, carbon emissions, waste and water use. We want to look past that to creating climate-positive projects.

The technical nature of highly sustainable projects means we need to include great engineers as part of the team from the beginning. HOK’s in-house engineers are critical to our ability to designing integrated, sustainable building systems.

I am interested in restorative projects that go beyond individual buildings to impact entire communities. I have spent time in developing cities across Asia, the Middle East, the Americas and Africa that are stressed in every possible way. We need to be leaders in working with clients and local governments on long-term sustainable planning, which would preserve natural resources and environmental quality but, just as importantly, protect the local cultures. The more we can look at all the interrelationships of the large-scale systems, the more effective we can be at the building level. There is a huge opportunity to move away from the idea of individual high performance buildings to looking at the entire social and economic community.

What do you like to do when you are not working?

Whether it is drawing, building, literature or music, I have always been pulled to creative endeavors.

I have played bass guitar since the fifth grade. As a kid, I played in some bands and thought maybe I could make a living in rock and roll until I considered that I was not an extraordinarily gifted musician! But I still enjoy playing and collecting all types of instruments. I have basses, marimbas, steel drums and collect musical instruments from all over the world.

Family is important to me. My wife and I have an 18-year-old daughter and we live in Oakland in a 100-year-old home that we restored. We live in the Rockridge neighborhood of Oakland, which is a model of mixed-use urban development and walkability. We can walk to shopping, restaurants and the BART station.

I like to travel. I enjoy the cultural traditions, history and people of Asia. I also participate in all types of sports – activities like snow or water skiing, mountain biking or kite boarding at Lake Tahoe.

Twenty-year architectural veteran Stan Chiu, AIA, LEED AP, an industry leader in lean design and integrated project delivery (IPD), joined HOK’s Los Angeles office on Sept. 4 as a new senior vice president and management principal.

After earning his B.A. from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., and a master’s degree in architecture from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design in 1992, Stan was awarded a fellowship to study in Japan, with a focus on comparing traditional and contemporary creative processes. He worked for a black-cape architecture firm in Tokyo and also as a carpenter on an island off Kobe, Japan.

“I have always been interested in the creative process,” said Stan. “Especially how a design idea that originates in the mind of an individual moves to a different team that constructs it. The seeds of a lot of ideas about project delivery that I have been exploring throughout my architectural career were sown during my time in Japan.”

Returning from Japan in 1993, Stan landed a job with Ellerbe Becket in Minneapolis. He quickly was drawn into the firm’s healthcare design group, and one of his first significant projects was the 1.6 million-sq.-ft. Gonda Building for the Mayo Clinic. “After learning to collaborate with constructors in Japan, I was now able to collaborate with Mayo clinicians on ideas about planning and designing for patient care,” he said. “Mayo has an amazing collaborative practice and infrastructure.”

In 1999, Stan and his wife, Ali, who he met in Minneapolis, moved to Los Angeles and he began working with NBBJ. His highlights there included providing strategic master planning and design for a dozen Catholic Healthcare West (CHW) campuses.

Two years later, Stan joined Perkins+Will, where his responsibilities included serving as lead designer for the award-winning Oregon Health & Science University Peter O. Kohler Pavilion in Portland.

After forming his own architectural practice and working out of his garage in Venice, Calif., Stan began consulting to a friend at HGA Architects. That relationship resulted in Stan accepting a position as the firm’s West Coast design director in 2004. This is where he first worked with David Chambers, now a director with HOK’s healthcare consulting practice, on using lean design to create a hospital prototype and process improvements for Sutter Health. Based on his expertise with lean design and IPD, Stan also was named chief engineer. In that position, he led a 70-firm team in delivering the design for the California Prison Receivership hospital prototype project, which had a requirement for 10,000 beds and a $6 billion budget.

Stan joined RTKL in 2010 to lead the Los Angeles office and direct its healthcare group. At RTKL, he helped design the 2,200-bed, 3.9 million-sq.-ft. Shanghai Changzheng New Pudong Hospital.

What attracted you to HOK?

I was attracted by HOK’s design excellence, thought leadership and reputation for being best-in-class in areas like project management and making operational improvements. This is a critical, exciting time for our profession. HOK is a leader in lots of areas that are important to me in terms of improving the project delivery process to bring value to clients.

Will you continue to work on projects?

Being engaged in project work as a designer brings new knowledge and value. I appreciate HOK leadership’s model, which allows me to remain active in projects. This makes the firm stronger. I see myself collaborating with our Los Angeles management committee group — Ernest Cirangle, David Hollister, Elaine Kanelos and Alicia Wachtel — to work toward the success of the Los Angeles office. I will be a strong voice for our customers.

You have a long history of writing and speaking about lean design principles and acting as a leader in lean IPD. Will you bring that to the office?

The lean design principles that came from the original group that studied Toyota’s manufacturing processes in Japan have been applied to improve both the delivery of projects and the delivery of healthcare.

To me, lean design for improving projects means developing innovative ways for architects, engineers and contractors to work together more effectively as part of an integrated team. These innovative ideas have the ability to impact HOK’s entire practice in terms of minimizing waste in the design and delivery process — doing more with less and maximizing value for clients.

Your focus was sculpture as an undergrad at Wesleyan?

Yes, my medium was ceramics. I have the urge to create physical things with my hands. Someday, I will have a studio again to do pure art. For now, it is a hobby. We have boys who are five, seven and nine, so time is at a premium.

 What else do you do in your free time?

I am a winemaker. My family has a 40-acre vineyard in Paso Robles and we make Cabernet Sauvignon in our garage. At this point, it is purely for family and friends.

We live in Venice, about a half-mile from the Pacific Ocean, and I like to surf. I try to get out three or four times a week. It is a balance thing. Surfing is physical but also very mental. You are interacting with these bits of energy that come from very far away. You predict what the waves are going to do and move in a way that is responsive but not reactive. You have to be in control while giving up control. And sometimes you get drilled! It’s a lot like architecture.

Who inspires you?

Rafael Moneo, who designed the Los Angeles Cathedral, inspires me. He was my critic during my first semester at Harvard and later was my thesis advisor. Rafael is amazing, thoughtful and humble. I love his work.

What drives your interest in healthcare design?

There is a lot of medicine in my family. My father is a neurosurgeon, my grandfather is a surgeon, my great-aunt is an OBGYN and I have cousins who are doctors. My first real job was in a hospital in 1982, during the summer between high school and college. When I was younger, I had ideas about being a doctor and actually had a dual major of fine arts and neuropsychology at Wesleyan. I ended up dropping the neuropsych and focusing on art. Art won at the time, but healthcare design has enabled me to blend the two.

We just hosted a great group of Penn State design students who participate in a group called SEED.  One of the participants reached out to me afterwards to ask for job advice and how to stand out in a crowd.  I get asked this sort of thing a lot so I figured I would share here too. Please add any words of advice I forgot!

1. Highlight real job experience if you’ve got it. Student projects are nice but real experience will set you apart.
2. Take the LEED GA exam if you have the time to prepare and the money to pay for the exam.  Everyone says they are into sustainability, but the credential shows you know what you’re doing. Take the BD+C if you have experience working on a LEED registered project and have already taken the GA.  I took the LEED AP exam before I graduated and it said a lot to prospective employers about my commitment to sustainability.
3. Highlight specific skills – software, professional writing, etc. that might not be universal to all graduates.
4. Participate on committees in professional organizations like AIA COTE, USGBC, etc. so you can build relationships with the professionals you want to hire you upon graduation.
5. If you get an opportunity to do an internship while in school TAKE IT – every second of real job experience will help.
6. Use a simple and easy to read font on your resume and cover letter, this is not the time to be “unique”.
7. Make sure your portfolio is large and clear to read/see when you print it – no teeny tiny little books. We can’t read them.
8. Make sure you research the firm, the job opportunities at the firm and their body of work before you speak with someone. Ask to whom your cover letter should be addressed and send a cover letter explaining why you are the best fit.
9. If you email a resume or portfolio, REDUCE THE FILE SIZE. We all have inbox limits at work and will have to delete your email w/ attachments if the files are too large.
10. Be honest about your strengths and weaknesses. Most firms can train you where you need it but they need to know you can meet expectations when they hire you.
11. Be willing to take a ‘regular’ design job and become a sustainable leader within your firm by educating your colleagues, organizing green events and even trying to green firm operations. Also be willing to step up and champion sustainability on your project teams.  Most firms won’t hire you to be a sustainable expert right out of school, they need to see your track record.
12. Ask for an Informational Interview if the firm isn’t hiring. It lets them know you’re serious about working at the firm and not just taking any job.
13. Don’t be afraid to ask if the professionals you speak with can recommend any other firms you should approach. Ask, “who should I contact?” and “may I use your name when I request a call or meeting?”.
14. Constantly participate in education events and read, read, read so you can improve your knowledge and skills. As a student you can usually ask for free or reduced conference registration fees if you are willing to volunteer at the event. It’s a great networking opportunity!
15. Send a thank you note. Email is ok, but a hand-written note is even better.
16. Don’t ask the firm to be responsible for letting you know when a new job opportunity appears. Go on their website often and stay in communication with the firm you want to hire you!

The reason I say Oprah is smart today is (once again) due to an article I ran across on CNN: “The New Rules for Succeeding at Your First Job.”  There are some great ones in here (like “never stop taking notes”), but there were a couple that REALLY stuck out to me:

“Think About Presentation” – Oprah suggests that you format everything beautifully.  I agree.  For starters, do not EVER give your boss something that hasn’t been spell checked and read to make sure you didn’t say “panty” instead of “pantry.”  She doesn’t want to see it, and she wants to have confidence that you will not send something like that to a client. The rest, is always appreciated – it shows you put some thought into the work.  That said, beautiful format does not mask lack of content, so don’t waste your time if you didn’t put the effort in to making a good piece in the first place.

“No. Tiny. Tanktops.” – Amen, sista!  To this day, we still talk about the intern from summer of 2005 that used to dress in tiny tanktops, short shorts, and high, high heels.  No, we do not remember her in the way she would probably like (i.e., “darn, that girl was really smart, talented, hard working, whatever.”). 

“Remember Your Boss’s Plate.” Oprah is 100% right.  If I give one of my teammates something to do, I want her to take full responsibility for it (yes, I still want to see it before it goes to the client), but I do not want to nag her about it. That makes me feel like a pest, and also makes me feel like she’s not up to the task.  So, if your boss gives you something to do, own it. Make her confident that you’re going to get it done on time. If you have questions, ask them.  If you don’t understand, let her know.  The sooner the better.  Not five minutes before the final is due. If you think you need more time, let her know.  The sooner the better.

What other advice would you give to newbies in the office?

Someone recently asked me, “What would you tell me if you had just five minutes to mentor me?”  

This got me thinking about how important it is to slow down for a few minutes every now and again to share a few things you’ve learned along the way with others.  Here are a few things I will share with you in our five minutes together:

• Mentors don’t just have to be people.  I have learned a lot from “The Donald” and his Apprentice show and from Cathie Black’s book “Basic Black” about how she climbed to the top of Hearst Magazines.
• Surround yourself with good influences…friends, colleagues, leaders outside HOK.  Soon you’ll take on their traits and become a better professional. 
• Ladies, wear lip gloss.  It helps people focus on all the wonderful things you have to say.
• Know who would go to bat for you if/when the time comes.
• When you need a relationship it’s too late.  Learn how to work a room like your life depended on it.
• Being in a car traveling with a colleague is a great opportunity to ask your captive audience member if there is anything you could tune up.    
• Don’t giggle as a nervous reaction when having a challenging conversation.
• Dress for the position you want, not the one you have.
• If you have kids and you travel, always buy two copies of your kids favorite books, one for you and one for them so that you can read to them when away.  Even better, Skype and read out loud to your kiddos.
• When in doubt about a situation, be conservative in your approach, in your presentation, in your dress.
• Work/life balance is overrated.  Just make sure you love what you do and it will skew the whole work vs. play thing.
• Be nice to people on your way up or you may see them on your way down.

Now, what say you if you had five minutes to mentor another?  

Beth Bernitt joined HOK in 1993 as an interior designer. She eventually served as the director of interiors for the Florida practice before being named management principal of HOK Florida. In 2002, Beth left her position at HOK to accept a new job as corporate marketing director at The Beck Group, a leading U.S. construction, development and design services firm.

We’re elated to report that, in March, Beth boomeranged back to HOK as our new chief marketing officer. In this new role, she is providing global strategic leadership for all HOK’s marketing, communications and business development efforts. Beth is based in Tampa but working across all 25 offices. In fact, she is currently in the midst of a whirlwind tour to visit each HOK office in her first 90 days!

1.  Tell me about your career journey to your new position as HOK’s CMO.

BB: I got my degree in interior design at the University of Arizona in Tucson. I went there because my father was Dean of the College of Mines. He is a Ph.D. chemical engineer with a master’s in metallurgical engineering and an undergraduate degree in geological engineering. I also have a sister who is a metallurgical engineer. From the time I was “hatched,” my family thought I was this odd thing – a designer!

When I graduated from Arizona in 1982, the U.S. was in the midst of a recession, but I headed to New York City with a goal of working with one of the world’s best design firms. I hit the streets of Manhattan with my portfolio. For a year, I supported myself working as an unpaid intern at a major architectural firm during the day and working at night at a Macy’s in Stanford, Connecticut.

I eventually accepted a job and worked for a year with a design firm in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Next, I spent five years with a firm in White Plains, New York. During those five years, most of my work was on projects in New York City. I worked on a half-million square feet of high-end interiors at the World Financial Center in lower Manhattan for Oppenheimer and another half-million-square-foot project for Ralph Lauren. Then I got married and moved to Long Island for eight years. My husband was in the advertising business working for Young & Rubicam on Madison Avenue. When the firm was purchased, he took a retirement package and I accepted a job as an interior designer in HOK’s Tampa office.

I started as an interior designer – at the time there was only one other in the office and we didn’t do any standalone interiors work in Tampa – and helped build that practice before ultimately ending up running the office. I love to build businesses.

2. What brought you back to HOK?

BB: HOK never lost touch with me and I never lost touch with HOK. My responsibilities at Beck were similar to what I am now doing at HOK. What brought me back to HOK was a desire for a broader set of responsibilities over a much larger footprint.

I have always loved the people who create the unique culture at HOK. I have interacted with many design firms, but HOK’s people have what I think is a uniquely overwhelming desire to do great work for clients. They care about each other and their clients and about making a positive impact on the world. That’s just in HOK’s DNA.

3. Do you have advice for people in the design profession?

BB: We are witnessing disruptive changes in the design and construction industry. There is rapid A&E industry consolidation, contractors are expanding their services by bringing on architects, and the use of IPD practices and BIM technologies show tremendous promise to improve the building delivery process for our customers.

At the same time, the face of our traditional customer is changing as the global recession has redefined the capital “spend” for projects and our clients are becoming truly global organizations.

In this new world, HOK has a tremendous opportunity to become the most client-centered design organization. To do this, we need to be intently aware of what our clients see as important to increasing their bottom line. Whether it’s branding, recruitment and retention, or increased productivity, I believe we need to use design as an enabler to make our customers more successful in the ways they are ultimately measured.

4. The Beck Group built the Dali Museum, which was designed by HOK’s Tampa office. What do you like most about the building?

BB: I love the simplicity of the building and the strong message. It’s a building that represents a big idea. On the business side, the building has directly enabled the Dali Museum to outperform its financial goals through record-breaking attendance.

5. What do you like to do when you aren’t working?

BB: One of my favorite places in world to visit is the Lake District of Northern England. My mother’s family is from the Lake District and I still have relatives there. It was the home of Beatrix Potter and is known for its gorgeous lakes and mountains.

I enjoy working out and being physically active. One of my dreams is to go on an adventure vacation like hiking Machu Picchu or riding on horseback across England.

In August, my son will begin his first year at Duke University. He will compete in the 400 meter hurdles for Duke. He has absolutely no interest in the design profession and wants to do something in medical field. I plan to be very busy with work to keep me from thinking about how much I will miss him.

Lake District photo by David Iliff – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Keswick_Panorama_-_Oct_2009.jpg

1. What attracted you to HOK and what will your role involve?

What attracted me was HOK’s great reputation and long and successful history of design quality and putting people first. I also was attracted by the wide portfolio of sectors and projects and the fact that HOK is a sufficient size to influence the construction sector globally.

My role will involve building workload in existing and new markets, building teams in our sectors, expanding the London office in terms of portfolio and geographic spread, and ensuring we undertake the highest quality design while making a good profit.

In five years time, I’d like to see HOK influencing the wider global construction market in terms of buildingSMART, sensible and innovative contracts, superb design quality on complicated, large buildings and helping to open up new markets — an extension of what we are doing now!

2. What are the biggest challenges for the construction industry at the moment?

Ensuring that architects remain relevant in an industry that is still focused on lowest cost rather than best value. The increase in standardization of products and designs means that the profession will have to adjust to embrace a contractor-led industry, working with manufacturing and estates to provide innovative solutions to the bigger issues before, during and after design. HOK is well-placed to make a big difference here. I think the architect’s role should be much wider, but much more focused on clients and end users.

3. What are your top five tips for aspiring architects?

a. Be humble.
b. Be a superb communicator.
c. Learn to work with everyone in the building process and understand their issues.
d. Spend the first few years in practice trying out as wide a range of skills and experiences as possible.
e. Remember the industry is very compact — be careful in burning bridges!

4. When did you first know you wanted to be an architect and why?

I always enjoyed drawing, especially cutaway sections through buildings and ships. After watching Star Wars when it first came out, I realized I wanted to design structures and futuristic buildings. So roughly when I was 17 years old! How sad is that!

Frank Lloyd Wright and Peter Zumthor have been the biggest influences on my architectural thinking. Each emphasized the rooting of architecture into place and context. The knitting together seamlessly of architectural design and landscape design for me is essential in ensuring that our buildings ‘belong.’

5. What do you do when you are not working?

I spend time with my family. Walking, hiking, skiing, sketching, playing sports and watching rugby rather than playing it —  I had to give it up as I am too old and it started to hurt too much!

There are many different ways to find a job opening these days.  Websites such as Monster or Career Builder are a available . Checking the company’s website is a must and don’t forget word of mouth.   Well how about this… new job via blog!

Dallas is looking for a Marketing Professional with 5 years experience in marketing for architects, engineers, or contractors(preferred).

Responsibilities include:

• Gathers, inputs and formats information and graphics, proofreads text, assembles and binds proposals and other documents to support the Marketing department and office-wide needs.
• Assembles, writes and coordinates proposals and qualifying statements.
• Prepares materials for client presentations and interviews.
• Maintains and updates existing marketing materials and files.
• Maintains marketing/client databases and visual library.
• Coordinates work with outside vendors, consultants, and members of other HOK offices (electronic transfer of data, reprographics, binding, etc).

Also, must compliment me in front of the “higher up’s”.

Example – “Wow Kurt, that PDF looks marvelous!”

To find out more  see here and enter job number 02367

Carl Galioto, FAIA, joins HOK from SOM, where he was firm-wide partner in charge of SOM’s Technical Group. He’ll wear three hats as a member of the HOK New York management committee, chair of HOK’s project delivery board and leader of our buildingSMART initiative.

Jeff Goodale, RA, ACA, is the new co-leader (with John Eisenlau) of HOK’s Justice group and is based in Chicago. Jeff spent the last 10 years at HDR, where he most recently served as national director of detention and corrections.

Welcome to life at HOK, Carl and Jeff!

Click here to view the embedded video.