Kimberly Dowdell

Stacy Shoemaker Rauen: Hi, I’m here with Kimberly Dowdell. How are you today? Thanks so much for joining us.

KD: I’m doing well. Thanks for having me. It’s good to be here.

SSR: It’s so great to have you. We always start at the beginning. Where did you grow up?

KD: I grew up in Detroit, Michigan. Just at a time when Detroit was sort of undergoing a good amount of disinvestment, a lot of challenging things, the ’80s and ’90s, but for a long time, Detroit was one of the stronger cities in the country and I sort of came around when it was a bit on the decline. Then, over the last, let’s call it 10 years or so, I’ve been pleased to see Detroit coming back. It’s been known as the Renaissance city for quite a while, and so happy to be from Detroit, but also have spent time in many other great cities like New York and DC and Boston, and I’m now based in Chicago. I’ve gotten around a little bit, but Detroit is always home.

SSR: Did you always have a love for design or were you creatively, were you attracted to things that were creative? Talk to us about your early childhood.

KD: Yeah, well, I mean, two things come to mind. One, I definitely had and still have love for the arts. I have a number of close family members who are artists. That has been part of the story but then, as I mentioned, Detroit, is also the other part where having seen so many amazing buildings that were ghosts of their former selves because of the heyday and then getting closed down for one reason or another, and to seeing them boarded up. There was a very distinct moment when I was 11 when I decided that I wanted to become an architect because I wanted to fix the building. That’s kind of how that all started for me. The combination of a desire to help improve the built environment around me coupled with my passion for the arts.

SSR: Before 11, did you want to be something else?

KD: Yeah, originally, I wanted to be a doctor. Then, I realized that in a way, as an architect, it’s almost like it could be a doctor for cities. That’s kind of what I’m going with now.

SSR: I love that. Was there one building in particular or one moment that you remember?

KD: Yes. In fact, there’s an old department store called Hudson’s. The Hudson’s department store was an iconic building in downtown Detroit on Woodward Avenue for decades. It was built in the early 1900s, and it actually closed the year that I was born. I never actually experienced it, but many older Detroiters would say that that’s where they went and did a lot of their shopping for key events or that’s where they visited Santa Claus or all those kinds of key things that department stores represented in the 20th century. I only experienced it as this large building that took up a full city block in Detroit, but I never got to go inside but I just saw it kind of decay in front of my very eyes over the first 10, 12 years of my life as I was having this epiphany about architecture.

Then, unfortunately, it was demolished when I was in high school. I didn’t actually get to work on the building but there was a moment I was like, ‘I want to fix the Hudson’s department store.’ I didn’t get to do that, but I’m delighted now that that old Hudson’s department store site is now slated to become a brand-new building that’s going to be the tallest building in Michigan. I didn’t work on it, but also just glad that it’s going to become something else.

SSR: Yeah, no, for sure. I love how you said it’s like being a doctor, that you can fix buildings and I think especially sitting here in the middle of the pandemic, you can see how much buildings affect wellbeing and just your overall holistic wealth. I mean, is that part of it? Is that what you hope your buildings do and almost create these environments to help people thrive or live and feel good about where they are?

KD: Yeah, in fact, when I was just out of college, actually, technically, I was still in college, I came up with an idea about measuring the impact of buildings on kind of on the, not just the client and the client community, but also the larger community. It was actually while I was interning with the General Service Administration, so basically the federal government.

Back in 2005, the idea was to take, the idea of the LEED rating system but apply it to more social issues and basically looking at social economic issues, environmental issues. Basically, me and a small group of people came up with SEED, which is the Social Economic Environmental Design network. Our mission is to advance the right of every person to live in a socially, economically, environmentally, healthy community.

That’s been, I guess, over 15 years now, that that has been part of just kind of the profession. It was a small group of us that that it’s continuing to grow. I think in the wake of a lot of what happened last year, in particular, with the social awakening, there’s just a greater call for more thoughtfulness around social equity around and certainly climate change. Economics are always going to be a part of the equation.

I was excited to be a part of kind of the very beginning of those conversations back in 2005 around that time, but yeah, I mean, part of what my professional mission beyond the SEED mission, which is a separate organization with me personally, it’s about improving the quality of life for people living in cities. I think that buildings are very much a part of that. I think that public spaces are very much a part of that. Whatever we can do as building professionals to make healthier environments that are accessible to everyone within reason, I think that’s really what our goal should be to ensure that people can live their best lives and be healthy and have access to the resources they need.

SSR: So much to talk about, but first, were you influenced by your parents? Did they influence you at all in any sort of way to help you grow to this very thoughtful child?

KD: Well, my father was an artist. There’s a lot of artistic ability. Actually, on both sides of my family, but I would say that encouragement to consider the arts was part of his contribution. My mom has always been very encouraging of me to pursue education. Between those two things, I think that’s where a lot of this is anchored.

SSR: To meld these worlds, you have both a policy degree and an architecture degree. How do they inform each other today and how did you decide to go that route back then?

KD: Yeah, architecture, as I mentioned, that kind of became something I was interested in at a very early age, age 11, let’s say. I don’t think I knew what a policy degree was for quite some time, but I did decide to get my Master of Public Administration about 10 years after graduating from architecture school, mainly because I had just gotten my license to practice architecture, which was this Herculean effort. When it was all done, I was like, ‘Well, what am I supposed to do now?’

I just kind of did research on different academic programs and the Master of Public Administration seemed like a good path to take because buildings are very much a part of the public realm and I just wanted to have a better understanding of how public policy and the way governments are motivated by certain things to create development opportunities, and incentives and things of that nature.

I did that program, just an effort to see how that could help me be a better architect, be a better advocate for urban development and redevelopment and also I decided that architecture and development are both important aspects of how I want to spend my time and career. Ultimately, after graduate school, I worked in city government and actually helped developers work with the City of Detroit at the time.

Then, I went into development for a few years doing small scale work. Then, I had an opportunity to come back to HOK, which is a firm where I worked earlier in my career to help lead our Chicago office. It’s been, there have been a lot of different things that have happened over the course of the past two years, in particular, but I feel like there’s this thread of design and policy that has kind of permeated everything that I’ve done.

SSR: For sure, and they inform each other, right? They’re so much part of the process. The first job was with the U.S. General Services Administration, right?

KD: Well, technically, my very first internship was with McKissack & McKissack, which is the first black-owned architecture and engineering company in the country, founded over 115 years ago at this point. Since it’s black history month, I guess, I would just give a shout out to McKissack & McKissack because that was my very first summer. It was right after my third year of architecture school. Then, the next summer, I worked for the General Services Administration and that connection came through. Actually, I shared a cubicle with a woman named Kathy Dixon at McKissack & McKissack, and Kathy Dixon, who was a NOMA leader at that point connected me with another NOMA leader, Steve Lewis, who worked for the General Services Administration. That was kind of how that connection was made, which is really my first real introduction to NOMA because it’s an organization that is really about mentorship and helping connect people with opportunities. I got to experience that in real time there.

SSR: First, before we go on to NOMA, what did you learn at these two first jobs? What did you take away from them?

KD: Yeah, well, the very first job with McKissack, I learned so much just kind of sitting directly next to Kathy Dixon and asking her every single question under the sun. I appreciate the patience that she had but one of the things she would always say is there’s more than one way to skin a cat. Whenever there is a challenge, if I ran into an obstacle, she’ll like, ‘Try it this way or try it that way.’ That was a very good early lesson and just to be, you have to be resilient and to figure out different ways to solve certain problems.

Then, I would say, with the General Services Administration, I learned that even if you’re very new to a profession or you’re young, or what have you, you still have ideas that you can contribute. I credit Steve Lewis for actually encouraging me to flesh out the SEED idea because he handed me a magazine article, in that June of 2005 in Metropolis magazine and the article was entitled, “The Ethics of Brick” by Lance Hosey. It just sparked this idea that as architects, we should really be working on the triple bottom line, so social, economic and environmental issues. I just learned what the LEED rating system was in a college class the previous year. I said, ‘Well, we should have something like LEED for social issues. We should call it SEED.’ I mean, that was kind of how it all started. Steve Lewis was, like, ‘That’s a great idea.’ Then, it just kind of started this whole movement. What I learned from that is no matter how much experience you have, like you always have something to contribute. I try to tell younger people now, like don’t be afraid to think about the big, complicated problems in the world and just put out there what you think could work and who knows, maybe it’ll become a thing.

SSR: Yeah, and ask questions. I always tell people just ask. Don’t be afraid to ask and learn and take in as much as you can.

KD: Exactly.

SSR: Talk a little bit about SEED and what you’ve all done with that. How have you grown it? How have you implemented it into projects? How has it evolved from 2005?

KD: I was pretty heavily involved in the very beginning. By 2009, it was officially adopted by Design Core. It’s actually led by that organization at this point. I would say, over the years, there’s been a focus on creating an evaluator. It’s called the SEED Evaluator to help evaluate projects based on their social, economic and environmental impacts. There’s also the SEED Awards Program, which is part of the annual Structures for Inclusion Conference run by Design Core.

I mean, so those are some of the things that have evolved out of the SEED network and just generally, it’s been a community of people who care about these issues and are supportive of the mission and we all know each other and you can reach out when we’re working on a particular issue in a certain area where we know that we can reach out to one of the seedlings, as we call ourselves, to get some additional support. My involvement now is much more informal. I did have an opportunity when I was the NOMA president to help host or cohost the SEED Awards at the NOMA digital conference this past year because we had to go digital due to the pandemic, but it was a really nice collaboration between NOMA, SEED, and the NAACP. That was my latest interaction with SEED, but certainly encouraging all the seedlings to keep going with the mission, which again, is to advance the right of every person to live in a socially, economically, and environmentally healthy community.

SSR: Then, you’ve mentioned NOMA a couple times for those that don’t know, the organization, can you talk a little bit about it and how you got involved?

KD: Sure. NOMA is the National Organization of Minority Architects. It was founded, actually, 50 years ago, this year, 1971, at the AIA convention, an American Institute of Architects convention in Detroit, my hometown. That’s especially meaningful to me. Over the last 50 years, the organization has really been focused on advancing diversity in the field of architecture, specifically looking at how to empower and support black architects but certainly all architects of color and women who have been underrepresented and in the profession.

My initial introduction to NOMA was actually as a student, because NOMA has had for a very long time, an annual student design competition. Schools from all over the country can compete in the annual competition and get to see how their work stacks up against other architecture schools. My first competition was as a college student 2004. I went to the conference and actually reconnected with Kathy Dixon, who I mentioned earlier, who was really my first introduction to a NOMA person. I mean, that’s how it started for me to one have this nice lady, kind of like, show me the ropes in the context of the firm and then see her at this conference with, I mean, I didn’t know there that many black architects. I mean, there’s still like, actually not a ton but like to see almost everyone in the same space. I remember, we had the first conference that I went to was in Midtown Manhattan, and it was just magical to see just all these people like dressed up and talking about architecture that many of them own their own firms or just doing really great things. I was inspired just really from the very beginning and continues to grow as a student.

Then, after I graduated, I was actually invited to join the board as a university liaison to help support students in the Northeast region, because I was living in the northeast at the time. I served on the NOMA National Board for four years. Until about 2010, when I decided I need to unplug so I could get focused on licensure, which was a whole other story. I did that work. Then, I was like, ‘Okay, I kind of did my NOMA duty.’

Then, I got a call in 2016 about coming back. Actually, I got a call in 2014 about coming back to support the board. I had just started graduate school. I was just like, ‘No, I cannot do that but thank you for thinking of me.’ Then, I graduated. In 2016, I got a call asking if I would have any interest in serving as the NOMA president. I had to really think long and hard about that because, I mean, even though I’m still connected to the organization and still went to the conferences, it had been a while since I’ve been on the board. Also, at the time, I was like 33. Most of the NOMA presidents have been in their 40s, 50s, 60s. That just seemed like it didn’t necessarily add up for me.

SSR: Right, that’s a big role.

KD: It is. To lead a national organization but the then incoming president, Bryan Hudson said, ‘It’s time for a new voice. It’s also been a while since we had a female president.’ In fact, the last NOMA president was Kathy Dixon quite some time ago. It took a little time to think about it. Obviously, I said, yes. Yeah, I wasn’t the youngest NOMA president in history. I was actually the second youngest. There was someone in the ’80s. He was a little bit younger at the time. I decided to just take it on and asked lots of questions and just see how it would go, and I think it went pretty well.

SSR: What do you think were some of your accomplishments as president there? What were some of the things you were able to achieve while you were there?

KD: Yeah, well, I think from a quantitative perspective, something I’m really proud of, and I certainly give credit to the entire board and our staff for making this happen, but we more than doubled our membership. When I started, we had 902 members. When I finished, we had 2,464 members. It’s a two-year term. Over the course of two years, we had pretty significant growth.

I think we also did very well with fundraising. I feel good about the fact that we left the organization in a strong fiscal condition. For the first time in our history, had the ability and the confidence to have fulltime staff members. When I started, I kind of created this kind of motley crew of consultants to kind of help me figure out how to do things and expand the capacity of the volunteer board because myself and everyone on the board, we’re all volunteers. We love the organization, but for the most part, we all have day jobs. We had to figure out how to grow the organization and expand our impact, but also do what we have to do for regular jobs and lives and things of that nature.

I felt it would be important for us to start to hire people. For the first time, in a long time, well, perhaps in the organization’s history, we actually have the available funds to hire people kind of on a more consistent basis. Over the course of my two years as president, we just continued to work with our consultants, basically, by the end of my term, so December 2020, I was really proud that we were able to sign not one, not two, but three fulltime employees as our first employees with benefits and all the things that people want in fulltime employment. That was very exciting for the organization.

I mean, a lot of different things happen, but I was also really proud of how we responded to just the racial and social awakening. In response to the murder of George Floyd, we put out a pretty compelling statement about what people should be doing. I encouraged everyone to be BRAVE, which is an acronym that gives people specific steps they can take to ensure that they’re being a good human to one another. That’s kind of what it all comes down to. That same statement provided our new mission statement, which is more focused on not just diversity in the profession, which is important, but advocacy and empowering communities to help rebuild and support one another.

There have been a lot of different things that have happened over the last few years but among them are membership growth, financial strength, really messaging to our members what they can and should be doing to create a stronger profession and society, and then also building bridges with other organizations within our profession so that it’s not just NOMA on an island trying to increase diversity, but we really need the other architecture organizations to chip in as well. Those are a few of the things, but it’s a pretty long list. Actually, I was asked to put together a list for our 50th anniversary commemorative book, if you will. I was like, ‘Wow, we did a lot.’ I credit, certainly the board, but also our consultants and staff because we couldn’t have done it without them.

SSR: What was it like to be leading this organization last year when everything was going on after George Floyd’s murder and the Black Lives Matter movement? I mean, what was your feeling going through all that and leading this organization? Even for us at HD to start really everyone realized they should do better and could do better and having those conversations that we always thought we were having but should be having more of. A lot of the response was ‘We’ve been doing this for a while. Thanks for noticing now.’ Was there some of that at that same time that you’re in charge of this organization that’s trying to promote diversity and get the word out? Just talk to me about being the president at that time.

KD: Yeah. Well, I mean, I certainly don’t have to remind you that that was also the same time that there’s growing uncertainty around the pandemic and then also the kind of economic situation in the country and, frankly, throughout the world. We called it dealing with almost like a triple pandemic. The racial pandemic, the health crisis, obviously, and so many members were losing jobs and things of that nature. We were really trying to address all those things at the same time, which is very challenging but certainly, things became much more focused on the racial awakening after the murder of George Floyd. Let’s call it June and July, we’re very active in terms of people reaching out to us saying, ‘How can we help?’

Many white Americans would send emails to NOMA members or to me directly, or the general inbox or what have you and just say, ‘We want to help. We want to donate. What can we do to get involved because we’ve been kind of on the sidelines for a long time and we want to help?’ That was actually really refreshing, honestly. I mean, it did generate more work that we had to do to kind of respond and figure out what to actually do to make sure that we were taking care of all the different new opportunities that were popping up.

 

Overall, I felt really positive about the response that we were getting, and I just hope that it wasn’t kind of a flash in the pan kind of thing and certainly the volume of inbound has gone down, but I hope that the companies that we’ve been working with and individuals that have reached out, they still kind of keep us on their radar and remain supportive, this year, next year and into the future because it’s not just a one and done kind of thing. It’s like we have to continue to work on fostering that diversity and inclusion.

In fact, one thing that, I was once told to consider is that diversity inclusion, if we start to look at it more like profitability, you don’t just achieve profitability, and you’re, like, ‘All right, I’m done.’ It’s like you have to keep you have to keep reviewing your numbers and everything pretty regularly. I think that if we do something similar for diversity, equity, and inclusion, I think that we’ll all be in a better spot sooner rather than later.

SSR: What do you think the industry can do to help create more diversity and inclusion? Are there any kind of high-level things that you have said or in the BRAVE acronym or in your statement that you think are some of the top things to keep in mind to keep thinking about?

KD: Yeah, I mean, I think one of the key things that I encouraged, particularly leaders of either architectural firms or organizations that support the profession, are look at who’s missing from the table. If you’re in a boardroom and there aren’t any women or people of color or there’s just a perspective that’s missing, you should actively seek ways to fill a seat that represents that missing perspective, or that missing voice. I think that once we all start to do that more often, a lot of the issues or the inequities that we see will start to shrink because all of a sudden, you have someone who can say, ‘Hey, I noticed that we’re not doing this,’ or ‘We are doing this,’ whereas before that voice was at the table, it would just go completely unnoticed. I think that’s one of the key things that can happen at the very highest levels.

When I think in terms of how we sort of fix the disparities, at least, in terms of representation. To give a very specific example, there are about 116,000 licensed architects in the United States. Of that number, only about 2,300 are African-American. That’s less than 2 percent. Then of that number, only 500 are Black women. We mostly all know each other. In fact, there are so few of us that we know the number of which when we were licensed. I’m like number 295, for example. My hope is that years from now, not too long from now, but some years from now, we’re not going to keep track of numbers anymore because it’ll be like, ‘Okay, why are we still doing this, right?’ But it’s going to take a while to get there.

A couple of things that we can do to at least start to address those issues is to look at how we’re creating access to the profession. Specifically looking at K through 12 education and how are people getting information about architecture as a potential career path? Are they seeing people who practice architecture? Do at least some of those people look like them just so they can imagine themselves in those positions later on? Then, once they decide that architecture school might be for them, how do we get them access to scholarships for summer programs so they can experiment and see how it is to study architecture before they commit. Also, many architecture schools, almost informally, require those pre-summer programs but they can be very expensive. Ensuring that students have support to do those kinds of things is also critical.

Then, once you get to architecture school, ensuring that you have the financial resources to make it through school because it’s actually one of the more expensive things to study. It’s either five, six or seven years of study. Then, you have to purchase sort of top notch technology to run all the programs. You also have to have funding for physical models that have to be built and printing drawings and all kinds of stuff. I mean, it’s far more expensive than just buying books, which is what most other majors require.

There are all these economic factors. It’s no secret that communities of color just tend to have fewer economic resources. That’s another reason why architecture isn’t always the top choice. Then, that coupled with compensation rates not being as high as other professions upon graduation, like the legal profession, the medical profession, and increasingly, the tech field. We’ve got a lot of competition in architecture, and I think we have to do a better job of articulating the value proposition.

From there, and I could go on and on about this one topic, so I’ll curb it in just a moment but once people do graduate, they have to have access to good jobs and be supported in firms and ensure that they see a future for themselves in the firm where they are or they see a pathway to owning their own firm and having a sustainable business. There are so many different things from basically kindergarten through retirement that we have to, as a profession, be able to help make sure people have the support that they need.

SSR: You didn’t even talk about licensing because that’s a whole another.

KD: Right. Okay. Yes, thank you for bringing that back into … Yeah, so licensure, that’s kind of how we get to the 2,300 people. Actually, NOMA, one of the other things I’m actually really proud of is creating the 50 by 50 challenge for NOMA toward the end of my term, where we partnered with Black Spectacles, which is a test prep company to ensure that as many of our members as possible have access to those seats that they offer that basically give unlimited access to the Black Spectacles exam resources.

The 50 by 50 challenge is essentially to …  NOMA has this really great tradition where we pin our newly licensed architects. It’s like a pinning ceremony where someone’s mentor gets the different color NOMA pin because you have a certain color, if you’re a student or non-licensed professional, and you get a different pin when you get licensed. Everyone’s excited about their pin color changing. The goal is to get 50 people pinned in Detroit for this year’s conference, assuming that it happens in person, which is our 50th year, 50 by 50 is what we’re calling it. This Black Spectacles partnership is basically enabling us to give more, very deeply discounted exam study resources to our members because, I mean, it’s super expensive to go through the licensure process. That’s one way that we’re trying to help, but yes, definitely, thank you for reminding me of that.

SSR: No worries. Just bringing it all back around. Then, what is the ALL In for NOMA platform?

KD: Yeah, that was my platform during my presidency, so 2019, 2020 that was, it’s all being ALL In for NOMA, meaning it’s an acronym because I love acronyms. ALL in for NOMA stands for Access, Leadership and Legacy. How do we create access to the profession so that K through licensure piece in the beginning? Then, leadership, how do we foster leadership within our ranks to make sure that people are best positioned to either open their own firms or climb the ladder at their existing firms or get involved in boards and public service, etc. Then, legacy, how do we look at ways to support our more-seasoned members and thinking through things like succession planning, so that their firm lives on beyond them? How do we celebrate people’s achievements through design awards and things of that nature? It really was a way for me to break down the almost lifecycle of an architect the very beginning, the middle part of their career, and then towards the end of their career in ways that people could resonate, like, ‘Oh, I want to help create more access,’ or ‘I want to help people with leadership challenges,’ or ‘I want to help people build legacy.’

The other part of ALL In for NOMA is, you’re really signaling that we want all people to be engaged in this work. It’s not just about Black architects or architects of color or women architects, we need white architects to also get involved and say, ‘Hey, we’re in this together.’ If we’re ALL In for NOMA, then I think we can do a much better job of creating the profession that’s going to be most sustainable and effective for a wider variety of community. That’s actually technically no longer the platform because there’s a whole new president, and he’s got a whole other thing, which I think is also very exciting but that was my thing, and it was great fun.

SSR: Love it. Love your acronyms. Let’s get to HOK for a minute, because I do want to talk about your role there. How long have you been in HOK? What is your role? What kind of projects have you been working on over the last couple years?

KD: Sure. My HOK story actually started at a NOMA conference. There’s a nice little bridge there. When I was working in DC, I went to a NOMA conference. I worked for a smaller firm called Ayers Saint Gross at the time and Ayers Saint Gross did not have … actually to make it tie back again to NOMA, Steve Lewis, who I mentioned, his roommate in college was Adam Gross of Ayers Saint Gross. He made that connection. Then, I started to work with Ayers Saint Gross or ASG. It was a great firm, had a great time, but they only had offices in certain areas, and New York was not one of them. As I went to college in Upstate New York and most of my friends were in New York City, I was visiting New York a lot. My friends were like, ‘Why don’t you just move here?’ I didn’t really have a good reason as to why not. I just started to think about, ‘Well, which firm might I switched to, to get to New York?’ I went to a NOMA conference and there’s a gentleman there who worked at HOK in the Atlanta office, actually, at the time. He’s like, ‘Why don’t you come to HOK, interview in Atlanta and interview in New York and just see what happens.’ Long story short, I did those interviews. and I got an offer from the New York office in 2008, which was great timing, I would say …

SSR: The industry is flourishing.

KD: Exactly. I mean, it was actually before everything went haywire but yeah, I arrived in New York in April of 2008 and then in September, it was a very different world, but luckily, I was able to kind of stick through that whole stormy time. I ended up leaving HOK in 2011 to do real estate project management. I got to kind of sit on the owner’s rep side for a while, which is really great experience and I think it helps to inform my work now back on the architect side.

I started out as a young designer. Architectural technician was the technical title back then. I really got interested in marketing. In fact, the acronyms was just part of it, but it’s just like, I have this real interest in, I guess, some level of talent with thinking of ways to express things in a way that’s very easily digestible. That’s part of what marketing is.

In any case, long story short, I became pretty good friends with the marketing principal in the New York office, who kind of took me under his wing and just kind of essentially offered me an opportunity to work with him directly. Pulling away from architecture a little bit but obviously still in the context of HOK supporting our marketing and communications efforts in the New York office. Through the years, I remained in touch with my former boss there, his name is Chris Laul. Years later, I remember having a conversation with Chris about HOK supporting NOMA in which he certainly was in favor of. He went back to the leadership of HOK, and they decided to support NOMA in a pretty major way, which was amazing because as I was stepping into the presidency, it was good to kind of have this high level of support from a major firm. In those conversations, we were just talking about what I was doing with my career and what some of the potential needs were within HOK.

Long story short, again, I ended up having an opportunity to consider a position with HOK Chicago. Chicago is a city that I’ve always admired, but I’ve never lived there. What’s nice about it is it’s pretty close to home in Detroit, but it’s also like an amazing city for architecture and it has so many amazing qualities. I moved to Chicago in April of 2019. That was my triumphant return to HOK, which is exciting. I was coming in as director of business development, really in an effort to ensure that the Chicago studio was raising our profile in the Chicago marketplace, but also helping to bring in new projects to help grow our practice.

I’m still working on that to this day and I’ve been very appreciative of HOK’s support of my role with NOMA because I, frankly, could not have accomplished as much as I did as a NOMA president if it weren’t for HOK’s support. They’re just very, very vocal about how important it was that I put NOMA first when I needed to kind of make a choice, and HOK will certainly be around when my presidency is over. I can always kind of make up for it on the backend. Here we are on the backend now, and I’m primarily focused on my work with HOK but still on the NOMA board as the immediate past president. I’m in that position for the next two years and just kind of providing advice and some level of support to the current president and then the board. That’s what I’ve been up to over the last 31 days post my NOMA presidency.

SSR: What kind of projects would you like to see HOK take on, especially with your new role, and also, how are you helping to create a culture that’s diverse and inclusive and all the things that you’ve been striving to do at NOMA within HOK?

KD: Yeah, no, that’s a great question. I think in terms of the types of projects that I want to bring into the office or help my team bring in are, really a wide variety of large scale transformative projects. I don’t want to get too specific because I think we’re pretty open to anything that’s large and complex and impactful. We’re very focused on sustainable design. In fact, in the ’90s, HOK issued the HOK guidebook to sustainable design before most firms really knew what that was about. We were building upon that legacy, and we have great leadership on the sustainability front.

I think another iteration of that is our renewed focus on adaptive reuse. Helping to look at our existing building stock, those buildings like the Hudson’s department store that I never got to work on but some of those buildings still exist, maybe not at that scale, but how can we repurpose these existing buildings and ensure that they have a future because there’s a saying that the most sustainable building is the one that that already exists. How do we take some of that existing building stock and certainly looking at new ground up development is exciting as well but really looking at a wide variety is going to be important to us.

Then, along the lines of how my NOMA work is kind of dovetailing with the HOK work, one of the three co-chairs of HOK’s Diversity Advisory Council, which is been around for about eight years at this point and essentially, each of our 23 offices have representatives who are part of the Diversity Advisory Council and then firm-wide, we have three co-chairs, myself, Shiva Mendez, and Damon Sheppard and we’re all in different office locations. We all have different leadership roles within the firm, but we come together to help lead this group of people to essentially talk about what’s happening in each of our offices and what’s happening firm-wide, to ensure that we’re collectively helping to foster a sense of belonging in HOK.

Anyone who works with the firm feels like there’s a place for them. If there are challenges or issues that come up, we kind of deal with that as a small group and work closely with our HR director to make sure that we are being inclusive and facilitating diversity, equity, and inclusion programming that helps everyone strengthen their approach to those things. For example, we have a career opportunity survey that comes out every other year, surveys the whole firm and then we look at the survey results and we talk to each individual office or the leadership of each office to talk about what they’re doing well and what their employee’s saying are not going as well and how do we address those issues. Another thing we’ve done more recently is instituted unconscious bias training to ensure that people are able to get some of that stuff under control so that we can make sure that everyone feels welcome at HJOK.

Another initiative that I’m really excited about is a new program called HOK Tapestry, which we’re actually planning to roll out this week. That’s what I’ll be doing as soon as we’re done here but Tapestry is sort of a two-part approach to ensuring that HOK is being a strong partner for our consultants and project partners. For example, especially the MBE, WOBE, DBE, for those who don’t know, those acronyms, which I did not make these up, by the way, it’s Minority Business Enterprise, Women-Owned Business Enterprise, Disadvantaged Business Enterprise, and there are many others. But essentially, how can we create diversity within the project teams that deliver on behalf of our projects or on behalf of our clients, I should say?

There’s a database that we are launching that enables us to collect information about all these different types of companies, large and small, but they can designate what special sort of certifications they have so we can very easily search. No matter what location we’re in, looking for project partners, we can see who’s there and we can … Because they’ve signed up or opted into our Tapestry program, essentially, we can do a smart search for those companies and put together teams that will help us to diversify the group in which are serving a particular client for a particular project.

Then, the other component of HOK Tapestry is creating programming specifically to help build capacity, whether it’s workshop in risk management, or just helping smaller firms overcome some of the obstacles that we often see them struggle with. HOK has been around since 1955. We’ve kind of seen a lot of different things and can give some advice. Certainly, not unsolicited advice, but we’ll have specific seminars and workshops set up to again, empower more of our project partners, so that, again, as a collective team, we can be more solutions-oriented for our clients.

SSR: I love that because as you talked about like who’s sitting at the boardroom or who’s sitting at the table, and it goes so much further than just that, right? Then like who are the manufacturers? Who are the project managers? Who is every facet of a team? I love that it digs even deeper than just the obvious, if that makes sense. That’s amazing. Is that something you’re sharing with the industry because I think that’s what the industry needs too is have these resources?

KD: Yeah, I mean, we’re building it right now. It’s still a work in progress but we’re super excited that we’re going to start to invite different companies and again, large and small firms or other consultants that we work with, whether they’re owned by minorities or women or not. We want everyone to be in the system so that we can just see who’s out there, even though I think we know, in the back of our minds, we know who we tend to work with but what the system is looking to do is look a little bit beyond who we have existing comfort with and see who else is out there so we can start to grow the pool of people that we work with and diversify that pool as well. We’re excited about it. I think that other firms will probably start to look at similar things because that’s how this works, but we’re glad to be kind of at the forefront of that.

SSR: You’ve mentioned some, I love how part of this is to make sure that people within HOK feels supported. We started a Hospitality Diversity Action Council, and part of a lot of the conversations we’re having is making sure that there’s mentors. They see themselves in the roles. Who have been some of your—I know you’ve mentioned a few mentors—have there been any other mentors along the way that have really helped shape your career or helping you get to where you want it to be?

KD: Yeah, I believe in this thing I like to call 360 mentorship. Certainly, there are people who are more experienced than I am and I get lots of great advice from them. The Kathy Dixons and Steve Lewises and Chris Lauls of the world, but then there are also people who are younger than me who, they asked me like, I’m technically their mentor, but then I make an effort to ask them questions as well because there are things that they know that I have maybe not caught up on in terms of other like technology and stuff like that. Although I do try to stay on top of those things, but the point is, it’s like seeing a wider variety of people as mentors and people, and even the people who I mentioned as mentors to me sometimes they’ll ask for my input on things. It’s really just trying to be very open-minded about what mentorship is. I mean, there’s so many people within NOMA, throughout HOK and previous jobs that I consider as mentors. I feel like if I start to name more names, I might get in trouble but I see a lot of people kind of in that position because I have a sort of expanded notion of what mentorship is and what it can be. I’ll leave it at that, so I don’t get in trouble.

SSR: One interview we did with you. You did talk about Sheila Johnson because you were at the Kennedy School, right?

KD: Right, you’re so good at this. Thank you. Sheila Johnson, she sponsored this fellowship called the Sheila C. Johnson Leadership Fellowship. Those of us who did the fellowship, we call her Mama J. just for fun because it’s like, she paid for us to go to school. She sponsored our education. What’s really great about the fellowship is that she was very intentional about curating this group of people who had expertise in different things. I’m the only architect in the group, but we have multiple lawyers and doctors and public health officials and educators, you name it, people in finance, people in technology. The intent of the fellowship was to help address disparities and communities of color. By empowering people through getting this degree at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and essentially putting them together, I think that was a brilliant idea. I certainly appreciate the fellowship support to actually be able to afford the education.

Yes, definitely, Sheila C. Johnson is a, for sure, major mentor of mine. We keep in touch to this day. I mean, she’s just built this incredible empire. She’s one of the only Black woman billionaires in the world. Not that it’s about the money, but it’s just like, it takes a lot to get to that point and the fact that she’s so generous and so thoughtful about how she can give back to communities that have historically been under invested in, I think that’s an amazing thing. Definitely appreciate Sheila C. Johnson and thank you for bringing that up, especially because she has this incredible hospitality business, which, I guess is obviously a major link here, but I remember visiting her Salamander resort in Virginia, and she has other properties as well. Also, I went to her property in New Orleans. I mean, it’s just amazing to see, because there are not many Black women who are in a position to have these kinds of empires, if you will. I’m just really proud of the work that she’s done and excited to be a part of that legacy.

SSR: I know we touched on this a bit and you just mentioned but I think this could be a nice transition as we get to the end of our talk, but how can design and architecture help build these more inclusive communities?

KD: It’s a great question. I think that a major aspect of building more just an equitable and inclusive communities includes having developers and designers and other key stakeholders that are of that community. I think that developers and designers and stakeholders should be of all different varieties. It’s not like there should be less of another, but I think there should be more people of color in those visions, especially when we’re talking about communities of color.

By empowering more developers to get involved and to actually have real access to capital, that’s going to be a gamechanger because then they’ll probably more naturally hire a more diverse team of consultants, including architects and engineers. The contractors would also probably be more diverse, which would actually give money back to those communities through ideally workforce development programs and other things that are more thoughtful around how do we keep as much money in this community as possible while building it up and creating more opportunity for other people to come in, but also to not displace the people who are there. It’s a balancing act, but I think those things can be done with diverse and really thoughtful, creative teams that are focused on almost like a project or development mission statement that’s around avoiding displacement or creating job opportunities or being diverse.

I think that when those things are called out as important and those things are followed up on and there’s accountability. By empowering community members to get involved, I think that’s one important thing. Then, to the extent that the public sector is involved, which is pretty much almost always, especially when public funding is involved, making sure that the public leaders are tuned in to what’s happening and making sure that their constituents are being well served, and essentially holding the leadership of the project accountable for doing what they said they would do.

I guess to simplify it, really check in with the community and see what’s important to them. Obviously, the client or the developer, the owner, they have certain objectives they need to meet, particularly from a financial perspective. Obviously, those things must be met. Then, essentially, ensure that the promises that are made are kept throughout the duration of the project so that at the end of the day, everyone feels like they’ve gotten what they set out to get, whether it’s a more equitable community or more diversity of the team or more open space or a profitable project. It’s possible to get a lot of things accomplished within a project with intentionality and just careful management of expectations and things of that nature.

SSR: Has there been one project that you’ve seen throughout your career been involved in that you think really showcases this?

KD: I mean, I feel like there’s so many different projects that I’ve been involved in. It’s hard to pick just one to highlight, but I guess if I were to pick one, not as an architect but as a project manager, so when I was in ownership for a while in New York, the company got a contract with the Military Park project in Newark, New Jersey. It was right in the heart of downtown Newark, New Jersey and it’s a triangular shaped park called Military Park, and it had this or still has this iconic statue, there’s like a sword flowerbed. I mean, it’s kind of a cool looking dynamic park that. For years it had been sort of seen as somewhat of a place where you wouldn’t want to spend time because it was well lit. There’s like drug activity for a while. Basically, a group of people got together and created a public private partnership to establish funding to actually provide programming for the park, to provide lighting, security, to build comfort stations so that people could use the facilities, if they’re spending time in the park. Then, also, there’s like a little restaurant pavilion that was created as well as seating and all kinds of things that really activate a public space. To see that transformation happen over the course of several years, that was pretty magical, especially to see the community input and to see how the different public private partnership components came together to solve these problems. I think that’s probably one of my favorite stories that almost anyone can experience because you can easily just kind of go to a park and check it out, whereas if I’m talking about a building, you have to be able to see the inside, which is not always accessible. I love public parks because they really are kind of like the lungs for cities. When they’re truly a strong amenity, it improves everything around it.

SSR: Right, right. Love it. With everything in the last 11 months, how have you stayed inspired or where do you find inspiration these days?

KD: Yeah, that’s a great question. I mean, I have to say that, I talked about the contributions of my parents earlier in our talk, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention my grandmother, who I spent a lot of time with as a kid. She was a woman of faith and she’s passed on at this point, but she really instilled upon me this foundation in faith. I think when things got really, really difficult, just kind of having that anchor every day, kind of like reading my Bible and just meditating more and kind of centering myself, has been really important because I mean, a lot of crazy stuff has been happening for everyone, but I think especially when there’s so much death around particularly the Black community, I think it’s no secret that Black and Brown communities have been ravaged by the Coronavirus more than others. Certainly, that’s hit very close to home. Then, also leading a national organization amongst these multiple crises that are happening, it was tough. I would say that, that foundation has been important.

Then, in terms of inspiration, which I consider that to be part, I think just working with my colleagues every day, both on the HOK front and the NOMA front, and just seeing their resilience. We kind of build off of each other. Those have been the people that I see mostly on my Zoom screen, if you will. Going outside is no longer a thing, but also just talking to different family members, and just seeing everyone else staying strong. Yeah, I think those are the things that have been important and certainly having my binge-watching sessions on Netflix and whatnot, so just try to mix it up a little bit.

SSR: Yeah. Exactly. We always end this podcast with the title of the podcast. What has been your greatest lesson or lessons learned along the way?

KD: I would say my greatest lesson to learn along the way has been about finding your voice and being resilient. I think that particularly looking at my NOMA presidency, I had to really find my voice to speak on behalf of a whole organization and to help build bridges between NOMA and other organizations and help raise money and all this stuff. I had to stand for something. I had to really articulate what NOMA was about, what I’m about as an architect and as a leader and get other people on board. I think a big part of my journey, particularly over the last few years, has been about finding that voice and tapping into a kind of reservoir of resilience to keep fighting for another day to do the work that’s so important.

SSR: Well, I commend you because it’s been a very challenging year for many reasons. All that you’ve done has just been remarkable. Thank you so much for sitting down with me today. It’s been such an honor and hopefully we’ll get to see each other in real life.

KD: Yes. That will be amazing.

SSR: Sooner rather than later.

KD: Absolutely.