I grew up wanting to be a veterinarian. After a series of personal defeats brought on by my own youthful stupidity, I found my way into construction, which suited me because I liked working with my hands and I liked working outside. I used to say it was a better use of my wildness (I occasionally described myself as “an outside dog”). One day, while working as a laborer at a particularly fraught job site, I smelled a gas leak and moved into action to have the project shut down. After that, I was promoted to foreman; I solidified learning Spanish and toiled in the Texas heat working on foundations of historic projects, such as St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Denison, TX, completed in 1876 and the McCulloch County Courthouse in Brady, TX. To me, construction is the greatest team sport other than Dallas Cowboys football. There is simply no way to detach the design and the people who work on it. I have a deep respect for the value of the build process and I carried this with me when I decided to go back to school to get my degree in Architecture. During my time at the University of Texas at Austin, I worked as a teaching assistant in order to pay the bills, and it was around this time that I found out I was expecting my first child. After I graduated, I went to work for a local Austin Architecture firm, Clayton & Little (now Clayton Korte), a firm built on the foundation of Emily Little’s legacy of Historic Preservation work. Even then, I was drawn back into the construction realm and, because of my experience, I became the site manager for the firm’s annex office remodel branded Design Office at 2201 North Lamar. I worked as liaison for Paul Clayton and was able to collaborate with many of the talented members of Burnish & Plumb Construction Co. Following that, I was recruited to work at Classic Constructors and later Risinger Homes. I doubt I’ll ever be done oscillating between architecture and construction—it feels more holistic and human to me that way. When COVID hit, I convinced my wife to let me start my own thing. It’s always been a goal of mine to be present in my children’s life and I wake up every day doing my best to soak in the sweetness.