DS educators, not necessarily practicing architects. I respect the educators, but I was thinking about buildings and stuff, and they were thinking education. Were you working during school? I worked during the summers, but I just was not capable of working part-time during school. Many of my classmates had to. I was able to work enough in the summers to earn enough money to squeeze by. I worked a summer for Richardson Design. Then I worked a little bit for a developer in their architectural arm. Then for a summer I worked for Dana Larson Ruble, which is a giant firm out of Omaha that briefly had a small branch office here. How did that inform your career? When I was in school, you needed to know how to hand draft. There was none of the software that we use today. It was me, a pencil, a T-square and the tools. All of this work experience was really just drawing and drafting. So, you graduated. What were your plans? Honestly, I did not have a plan. I was just going to finish school and take the test. At that brief moment in time, you could take the test right out of school and then do your internship. I was planning to take the test and thought, “Well, I’ll figure something out.” I got to my desk at school, and Tom Kass, one of my teachers, had written a note that said, “Call Ray Kingston, FFKR” on a little piece of yellow paper (which I still have). I called Ray and a couple of interviews later, I got a job and have been there ever since. I retired in January after 39 and a half years. I got there in ‘84, and the first thing I worked on was something for (Khashoggi’s) Triad project. There was a festival marketplace and some apartments; it was hand-drafting construction documents. Robert Fowler had sold some property to the developer with the proviso that they get some of the architectural work. In the end, when it all fell apart, we were one of the very few that came out whole. I know other firms in town really were hurt badly, but we came out good somehow because of whatever deal Robert Fowler had done. The office did a lot of grocery stores for American Stores. I worked on a couple of those. I worked on Sam Skaggs’ home (the owner of American Stores) in Laguna Beach with Ray Kingston. Then in 1987, Joe Ruben got me involved in remodeling the Hotel Utah into the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. That project changed the direction of my life. I worked with that client for the rest of my career. Who influenced your career? I had some really wonderful mentors at FFKR. The first person I worked for was Kip Harris, a great guy, good architect, kind, fair and demanding, but you were happy to do it. I worked with Ray Kingston on the Skaggs house. He was all about running around taking care of the client and left me to do all the work, which was great. Then I was with Joe Ruben, who taught me a lot. Joe was the architect’s architect. He could draw like a bandit. He could draw perspectives of things, which is a skill that very, very rarely happens. He was very practical and very sensible. 13
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