After my second year of university, I was out for three years. I went on a mission, and I had to earn money to go back in. Then I ran out of money in my fourth year. My family had no money. I had no money. It was in an expensive school even though I was working, I had run out of options. I went to the dean and said, “I need to drop out,” and told him my situation. He said, “We knew that; I wanted to see if you were going to exhaust all your resources. We have money for you. We’ll make sure that you can graduate”. I don’t know if he saw that there was some ability, but that was a gift. In 1970, I graduated with a five-year degree. I got a job — $700 a month, $8,400 a year — at a premiere firm: Fitzhugh Scott. I was so excited to work around these very talented people. Some of the first work I did was the expansion of Eero Saarinen’s War Memorial in Milwaukee. That was a privilege. One of the first renderings I did was on the cover of Progressive Architecture. But one thing you learn in architecture is that the market goes up and down. I got caught in a downturn, and they laid off three of us. Next, I went to a developer firm. They did condos and rental units; everything was quick. I learned to design quickly and how to work in a team. The boss would come in and say, “I need this by 1:00,” and it was 11:30. We’d all get around a table and draw. I saw that that wasn’t taking me where I wanted to go, so I worked for another firm that did medical, housing and financial institutions. My wife comes from California, and we decided to move. I interviewed with firms in California and Arizona. They said, “You have a nice portfolio, but if I were you, I’d go to a small town in Mid-America and hang out your shingle.” I said, “Why? You have this beautiful firm.” They said, “It’s not all it’s cracked up to be; find a little firm, a little town, and hang out your shingle.” I was coming through Logan, and I missed Main Street. I stopped at the red light, and there on the side was a sign that said Schaub Haycock & Associates (the forerunner of Design West). I had my portfolio with me and thought, “Why don’t I go in and interview?” Then the light turned green, so I drove back to Milwaukee. A couple of years later, I met Tony Wegener at a conference in Michigan. I said, “You’re from Logan?” He says, “Yeah, what do you know about Logan?” And I said, “Well, if I’m not mistaken, your office has two curved fences, and it’s a green bungalow on the north side of the street.” Then I told him a fib, “My family’s coming out to Yellowstone this summer. Do you mind if we stop in and see you?” He said, “Yeah, you might as well come in.” I went up to my hotel room and called my wife, and I said, “We’re going to Yellowstone this summer.” So, I came out and was very audacious and said, “I want to be a partner.” I was 28 or so. I wasn’t ready, but that’s what I said. They said, “Well, I don’t know if you can do it now,” but he called me eight months later and said, “We have a position.” I joined them in ’76. They put me in charge of the Logan Regional Hospital. I had done one addition to a hospital prior to that, so I had no experience. I had never done shop drawings, I had never done construction administration and I had never led a team. I had designed, but I had never done working drawings, and I was in charge of this 180,000-squarefoot new hospital. But you learn, you watch, you listen and the best thing is you find the people that have talent, and you learn from them; so, the team does it. The project won an AIA award. The project made money because I learned how to manage. After three and a half years, I was burned out. I wanted to do something that was quicker, smaller, nimbler. So, I started my own firm. I had no money. This was 1980, during a bad recession and nobody was hiring architects — nobody was investing, and interest rates were 14 or so percent. It was the dumbest time to start a firm, especially in Logan, not really the center of design. People told me, “You’re never going to survive. There’re too many architects.” I said, “They’re going to have to move because I’m going to do it.” Again, stubborn. Pretty soon, I had an LDS Stake Center, and then I had another Stake Center, and we had the city hall. Then I had a manufacturing plant and I had to hire people and get more work and get more work and hire people. The key to success is having great people. The first key person was Kim Campbell, who now has his own firm in St. George. Bruce Haslem was a great partner because he also had a magna cum laude degree in business finance, so he could manage the money. I hired John Erdman over the phone from Wisconsin. He became the most profitable member of our company ever. We hired Brent Hardcastle out of Texas. We got into industrial work and then into healthcare. Bruce, Brent and I had healthcare experience, and Intermountain Health Care hired us. Then Don Finlayson connected with us. He was from Hansen Lind Meyer, an international firm. He first came as a consultant, and then finally, we realized, “Let’s work together.” Here, we had an internationally famous healthcare planner. He had been used to working in firms of 8,000-9,000 people. We had 15, maybe 20. I put him in charge of the new
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