After working with Bill McDonough, I wanted to raise a family, so I decided to move back to Michigan. Initially, I worked as a designer with a sports architecture firm, ROSSETTI, where I learned how to think big and create the gesture for large scale projects.

I became the Director of Design at ROSSETTI which positioned me years later to shift to Director of Design at Minoru Yamasaki’s office. Although Yamasaki himself had passed away, I was able to work with some talented technical architects that had worked with him. They taught me how to touch a building; how to detail exact and precise.

About ten years ago, I heard about SHW Group, a national firm specializing in education architecture that was focusing on differentiating themselves through design. I thought it was great opportunity to use my design skills, so I took a position and now have worked in education architecture ever since. In 2014, Stantec acquired SHW. It gave us an opportunity to take a deeper dive into learning and exploring the conversation on a larger scale. We are able to be positional about the work we do in education, as learning is an intrinsic goal rather than an incidental outcome.