I have been a professional carpenter since I was 13.  Designing began even earlier with tree houses and forts, projects that speak more to a desire for adventure then an interest in designing and building.  For a good part of my life planning and constructing was the natural method for creating the spaces we needed.  My parents were late 80’s homesteaders, who decided that an undeveloped island would be a good place to scrape out an existence.  It was a part of daily life to take a concept and make it real.  The problems of living were solved by building.  At some point the enjoyment I got from taking ideas and giving them form became as important for me as the finished structure. 

 

After a few years of carpentry I gave timber framing a try and became seriously hooked.  I loved the process of working out a design, selecting the standing trees for the frame, the raising day when it all came together.  Still, the buildings only truly came alive once they became the context for people’s activities. 

 

During my fifteen years of timber framing I learned that the elements that make up a successful design are attainable, but elusive without training.  It was this realization that led me to enter the UMA B.Arch program.  The newness of the program appealed to me, and I know achieving accreditation for the program will be something I’ll be proud to look back on.  Over and over I have been impressed by how much I did in fact have to learn.  It has been exhilarating and challenging, and as I approach my final semester I find myself increasingly grateful that I have been able to build my skillset beyond the jobsite to those of a designer, from digital and graphic design, to delivering presentations with a newfound confidence.  I look forward to a future of applying my skills professionally and creating spaces for clients that bring them the same joy I found in those earliest childhood projects.