Teresa on her Alaska Trip (she is second from the left)

 Teresa is passionate about her profession and an example that it is never too late to follow your heart. When her daughters were both in elementary school, she decided to leave a 12-year career in television production to pursue landscape architecture.

I hope you enjoy getting to know this amazing wife (married to Ed Buffman for 28 years), mother, friend, and HOK rock star!

 Q:  What led you to make the professional leap to landscape architecture? 

Seriously, take a look at my high school yearbook picture (18 years old) and note the quote at the bottom. (“dreamy idealist with hippie poncho”) I should have probably been a forest ranger or better yet a forest fire fighter!

The High School Graduate

 Q: Who or what inspires you?

I am inspired by people who are fearless, courageous, persistent and achieve success against all odds….people like Wangari Maathai, founder of the Green Belt Movement in Kenya.  I recommend her book ‘Unbowed’. It is her memoir and chronicle of the work that led to her winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

 Q:  Who do you consider your mentors throughout your professional journey?

I learn from everyone around me all the time, every day. But if I had to pick one person in my professional life it would be Leslie Sauer. She helped me find my voice and believed in me. To this day I have a million sticky notes marking pages in her book, The Once and Future Forest. She taught me that we must participate with action in the process of ecological restoration with good science and accurate information, constantly question and revaluate our conventional practices, educate the public and promote the ecological aesthetic.        “,,, while many worry about the cost of ‘going green’ the real issue is the price we have already paid and will continue to pay for exploiting and degrading our environment.” (Leslie Sauer)

 Q: What is your most embarrassing professional moment?

From my film days…..Please see photo with giant kangaroo. I really cannot explain what I am doing here!

Back in her film days!

 Q:  What is one thing people would be surprised to know about you?

On a recent trip I camped for a week in the wild on the Prince William Sound in Alaska with two friends and my daughter Hayley. It was a magical experience to be totally unplugged from the modern world and surrounded by the magnificent splendor and beauty of nature, listen to the songs of the whales every night, kayak beside them and every day share the landscape with bears, otters, sea lions, and bald eagles. On the last morning, we awoke to the spectacle of a beautiful ice sculpture that was swept up onto our beach as we slept.

Alaska Trip

 Q: What is your dream project?

My work at Avalon Park over the last twelve years has been a dream project. The project was the design, construction and ecological restoration of a degraded site in NY on Long Island to what is now an 86 acre Park and Preserve with five different ecological habitats. The site is only a few hundred feet from the Long Island Sound and so provides a rare experience of an intact forested landscape in a coastal area. We built and restored wetlands, created meadows and planted over 7,000 trees and shrubs and 60,000 native grasses, ferns and wildflowers. The park continues to thrive, delight, inspire and educate visitors under the careful stewardship of the Paul Simons Foundation.

Avalon Park

This is interview is part of HOK’s ongoing series highlighting inspirational women across the firm!