that I attended in Springfield, Ohio, we were administered a math test and if you passed it, you were put on a college track. Being from a small, provincial Industrial Belt town in Ohio, I dutifully headed for college to study engineering. No one encouraged me to pursue art. The short of this story is that it did not work out. I was misplaced and miserable. Then I turned to architecture, which I saw as a combination of right brain/left brain thinking. The only problem was that I had to pass the physics and math classes. On the brink of flunking out and being suspended, a college counselor helped me discover my calling. I transferred to the Department of Product Design and Visual Communications in the School of Fine Arts at The Ohio State University. I graduated with a BFA in Product Design. This was lucky moment #1. I became a designer and I cannot imagine any other course in life. Design is an applied art form. It solves problems while creating beauty.
Tell us about your early work as a designer?
During the 1970s, I was in discovery mode, not yet finding my
2002 San Francisco International Airport, International Terminal Concessions/Wayfinding Program Design/build collaboration with ScottAG. Photo: Sharon Risedorph
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way. While at OSU I was an intern at Westinghouse, working in their product design studio on consumer products. After graduation the economy was in one of those cyclical downturns, so I spent a season as a “ski bum” in Vail, Colorado. When I returned to Ohio, I worked in space planning and interiors for a firm in Columbus for three years. It was there that I met Carol Mayer, my future wife and business partner. We struck up an affinity and then a romance and three months in, she told me she was heading to Utah State University for graduate school! This was my #2 lucky moment in life. I followed a girl to Utah sight unseen. During our two years there, the vast inter-mountain landscapes and the national parks left an indelible mark on my subconscious that was a near religious experience. While Carol was pursuing her masters in landscape architecture, I started a space planning and interior design practice in the garage of the house we rented in Logan, Utah. By the time Carol graduated, we knew we were not going back to Ohio. We had become westerners in our thinking and our spirit. She was offered a job in Portland and we moved there in 1977— once again, sight unseen.