Title: Senior principal, Hickok Cole Architects.
Photo: Pantawan Cooking School in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
Company: 90 employees in Georgetown; average 70 new projects/year; over 3,500 multi-family housing units in construction or on the boards; also working on large-scale office repositionings and new interior design models for office. Launched in-house ad agency last year and working on new launches for this year.
Job: Strategic planning, marketing, business oversight, project guidance, design critiques, and research on new market area.
Years on the job: 12 years as senior principal and owner after merging with Mike Hickok’s firm in 2003.
Memorable project: New NPR HQ – build to suit, 330k SF with 90k SF newsroom, LEED Gold, completed in 2013. Project had many complexities, including historic building on site, a large footprint, and complex tech infrastructure.
Current project: St. Thomas Episcopal Parish Church – small project associated with residential project on the same lot.
CRE career start: After music school, studied architecture and went to NYC as intern for Kohn Pederson Fox. Stayed 10 years and had opportunity to work on 1.2M SF, 42-story mixed-use project in Sydney, Australia.
Grew up: Columbus, Ohio.
Current home: 14th St., NW.
Why DC: Wanted a city with architectural character smaller than New York to work and raise a family.
Schools: Ohio State, University of Cincinnati, and Columbia.
Job in another life: Astro physicist.
Daily habit: Checking Fitbit stats.
Favorite app: OpenTable.
Favorite movies: The Usual Suspects and The Lives of Others.
Favorite restaurant: Rasika.
Favorite music: Play classical, and listen to jazz and contemporary rock/pop.
Favorite vacation spots: New York, Chicago, Paris, and Barcelona. Renting a canal boat in August with friends to cruise through Languedoc wine region in Southern France.
Guilty pleasure: Classic gin martini, up with a twist, dry.
Bucket list: Stay in resort hotel that hovers over water in shallow white sand of Maldives or Tahiti.
Family: Domestically partnered to jazz trumpet player and musical instrument technician; and one daughter (23) who lives in Portland, Oregon.
Hobbies: Play flute in DC Chamber Orchestra, play piano, cook, and follow fashion.
Startling fact: Cab driver in Dubai was a former Taliban. “He pulled out his Taliban ID card and handed it to me. By this time we were getting a little anxious, and luckily we were close to our destination.”
