various disciplines, so that concept came very early to me. If I hadn’t succeeded in architecture, I would have gone into computers. I remember when Steve Jobs started marketing the Apple II — I wanted to buy one but couldn’t afford one for a few years. And I saw our industry change through the years in trying to figure out how to adapt to the computer capabilities. I was in large firms at the time, and even the large firms struggled with the financial investment that was necessary to make the conversion. I was at an age that learning what we used to call CADD, did not make sense for me. But I did use simpler computer programs on the Macintosh to do a lot of the planning. Many of those same tools are used today in the early planning stages. I was made a Principal when I turned 35. At 37, I was involved in a buyout of the founders. It was a horrendous task, and one I was unprepared for. We ended up using an employee stock ownership plan, which gave the founders an increased value and also provided some tax benefits by having all of the employees be able to share in the ownership. Once I started bringing together Jensen Haslam and Thomas Peterson Hammond, I realized that 85% of the ownership of the two firms was held by people that were 55 or older, and I was the youngest. Guess who was going to have to hold the bag. So, I learned from the earlier experience, and we established an ESOP program that we grew into. And now Architectural Nexus is 100% employee owned. And that’s an achievement that I’m really proud of because it really is an opportunity to be able to return to those who create the wealth of the company, the value of that wealth. I started out my career visiting older hospitals that had walls that were painted a dull green. I asked one of my mentors, “Why do we see so much green?” And he said, “Have you ever looked at the color wheel?” I said, “Yeah.” “Do you know what color is the opposite of red? The color of blood? It’s a dull green. And if blood gets on that dull green, it looks brown. That’s why.” Oh, my gosh. I noticed that the operating room suites were on the top floor when we visited an old VA hospital. I asked that same mentor, “Why would you put them on the top floor,” and “We never do that anymore.” He said, “Well, this is a sixstory building. The theory was that flies can’t fly up past five floors.” Talk to me about the changes in the architectural profession. Everything about the architecture of healthcare today has changed from when I began my career. One of the AIA committees I joined was Healthcare. It was called a committee in those days, now it’s called an academy. My first meeting was in the AIA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., and there were 14 of us. Today, when the academy meets, 3,000 or 4,000 people come. We’ve seen a vast change. And I’m pleased to have been on the forefront of humanizing hospitals. That’s why I did what I did. When I started out, we drew with pencils on vellum. Quickly, it became ink on vellum and then trying to figure out how to do computers. One of the interesting things that HLM had explored in their early days was minimizing drawing by using what they called pen register drawing where multiple layers of vellum would be put on top of each other, much like the layering that now exists in some computer programs for developing Have there been any disappointments along the way? Oh, heavens, yes. I talked about the University of Virginia project. We lost that, but I won the opportunity to be part of Hanson Lind Meyer. When I first moved to Utah, I had done the studies for the site selection and the programming for the McKay replacement hospital. One of the greatest disappointments was not being selected to do that. But everyone wins projects/loses projects. You can’t let that be too big of a disappointment. You get to do the ones that you’re supposed to. What advice would you give a young architect starting out now? Have a vision of what you want added to the world when you’re done. Architecture as a profession shouldn’t be just an employment. I know that I’ve changed lives. I know that matters. I volunteered at the Huntsman Cancer Institute after I retired, and I can’t tell you how many people, when they squeezed out of me that I had been the architect, thanked me for the experience they had there. Would you do it all again? Be an architect? Oh, yeah. I might do it a little differently. I asked my mentor, Dick Hanson, what he would do again, and he said, “I’d spend more time with my family.” It is a very demanding profession. There’s no way about it. And you have to put in who you are as one of the ingredients in order to achieve what you set out to do early in your career. 11
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