Please give a current update on yourself (college/ graduation year, major, grad school, work/ career, family, other interests, services, or hobbies).
I graduated Geneva in 2015, and attended the UT School of Architecture, graduating in 2020. I’ve hopped around a bit for work, spending time in Montana and Portland during my undergrad and in Colorado after graduating. I am now back in San Antonio working at Overland Partners where I met my wife Sidney. We are currently self-renovating an old bungalow house, serving at our church, dreaming about our garden and falling in love with the city!
In what ways did your Geneva education/training prepare you for the work you are doing right now?
The recurring impacts from my high school education have been my time competing in debate with Mrs Moeller, the art classes I took with Mrs Lester, and the love of classics the school handed down to me. Debate equipped me with skills in oratory and presenting work publicly that architecture school rarely emphasizes but rewards nonetheless. Art class prepped me for later drafting and drawing exercises, and creative problem solving. And the love of the classics goes hand in hand with a life of learning: we have to know where we have come from to know where we are going!
Please describe the most significant value you learned from Geneva.
It’s easy to look at the academics or the extra-curriculars like the ones I mentioned above as being the main draw of the school, but I think teachers, students and parents alike find the true value in a community of fellowship and faith. I walked away with a knowledge that no matter what paths life takes us on, I belong to a family, a faith much bigger than my personal struggles, and ultimately can find my value in that community of Geneva (and far beyond) as opposed to my own accomplishments.
How would you encourage a Geneva Rhetoric School student to make the most of their Geneva years?
Enjoy high school! Be in the present, attempt to not be in a rush. Life trucks along all the same. This is not to say life is not stressful or anxiety ridden right now, or that there are no struggles. I only want to say that there is a lot of beauty as I saw it at Geneva, and I hope you might too.
Describe Geneva in one word. Explain.For me, at this exact moment that word is anticipatory. At Geneva I was a high school student, and not yet an adult, and wanted to skip to that part. Now as an adult I still struggle with wanting to skip ahead, but am reminded of the lifelong journey of anticipating the “not yet” that began at Geneva.
Please share one or two of your Geneva extracurricular activities and then contrast them with one or two of your current non-work activities.
Debate really did consume a portion of my high school years. It was a ton of fun due to its intensity but also because of the wonderful community that formed around it. I missed debating and seeking truth in deep conversations so much that our community in San Antonio has formed what I lovingly refer to as debate nights: times of meaningful, intentional conversation between people of all backgrounds to dig into both spiritual truths and completely nonsensical topics.
What are your future career goals and how do you feel prepared for them?
I am currently testing to become a licensed Architect, which will be the conclusion of part one of the architecture career journey. From there on after it will only be about a lifelong pursuit, like with everything else mentioned above, about growing. I anticipate this future growth excitedly, but am leaning into the joys and struggles of the current journey to really find the fun in the process, in what life has in store for me right now.
How are you impacted by your work now? What is something you have learned about yourself and God’s world?
Being an architectural designer has a ton of variety in the day to day. What I have recently taken from it has been that there is always more to learn. No piece of art can ever be perfect and set aside as truly complete, and the same might be said for architecture. I have learned through this that our God of creation is one who knows when to work and when to rest, a God that provides just enough for us in this moment.