Contributor Profiles
Aditya Oruganti in San Francisco
Originally from India, Adi is part of the Aviation architecture group in HOK's San Francisco office.
Anica Landreneau in Washington, DC
As the Sustainable Design Practice Leader in HOK’s DC office, Anica is one of HOK’s greenest greenies. This woman walks the talk, and she is excited that her projects truly can improve our world.
Anna Sigler in London
Anna is a consultant for HOK's Advance Strategies group in London. She studied mathematics at Kings College London, and is the go-to person at HOK London for all problems mathematical or Excel-related.
Austin Murray in Chicago
Originally from St. Louis, Austin learned about HOK in the seventh grade. He joined HOK's Los Angeles office in 2005, worked in HOK's New York office and is now with HOK in Chicago. He lives to "never stop making things better," to work out at the gym and to catch up with gadget news.
Barry Sutherland in St. Louis
Barry is a marketing coordinator for HOK’s St. Louis office. He writes, he designs…he helps win important new projects. There’s never a dull moment.
Blake Gallagher in Seattle
Growing up in the disconnected suburbs of Southern California played a huge role in sparking Blake’s interest in transportation design. His recent years spent in Seattle have helped him build an appreciation for responsible design and its role in the formation of dynamic, socially interactive environments. These interests, paired with his lifelong love of flight, eventually led to his recent joining of HOK’s Aviation group in Seattle.
Bryant Bosland in New York
Bryant is a senior architectural technician in the New York office of HOK. He has a strong interest in sustainability, adaptive reuse of abandoned industrial sites, and the reinvention of a city's identity through urban planning and infrastructure.
Chip Crawford in St. Louis
Chip Crawford is a Landscape Architect and the practice director of the HOK Planning Group. His 25+ years of experience and leadership has left a profound mark on the profession of landscape architecture. Chip is a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects, serves on HOK’s Board of Directors and Design Board, as well as the ASLA CEO Roundtable, and is President-Elect of the Board of the Landscape Architecture Foundation.
Chris Laul in New York
As HOK New York’s newest member of the Management Committee, Christopher Laul has been a key contributor to expanding HOK’s tri-state presence. With more a decade of experi¬ence in marketing and business development in the A/E/C Industry, Christopher joins five other members representing the strategic marketing efforts for HOK’s New York practice.
Colin Rohlfing in Chicago
Colin is the sustainable design director in HOK’s Chicago office and a co-founder of the Young Designer Networking Group, aka, “YoDeNG.” He graduated from the University of Kansas with an Architectural Engineering degree and is horrible with names, so don’t be offended if he stares at you blankly.
Daimian Hines in Houston
Daimian’s passion for architecture has taken him from his native Jamaica to Detroit, Chicago, Houston and as far away as India. You'll usually find him in the design studio, where he gets in early and leave late — somehow finding time to stay fit, learn French, keep his wife happy and probably save the world from tyranny.
David Ivey in Chicago
David is the BIM manager and co-buildingSMART champion in HOK's Chicago office. In 2008 he founded a BIM/IPD user group for the Chicagoland area.
Ekaterina (Katja) Lichtenstein in London
Katja works as an architect/urban designer in HOK's London office. She was born in Russia, grew up in Germany, studied in Berlin and New York, and has worked in Paris.
Elsye Alam in Los Angeles
Originally from Indonesia, Elsye has been living and working in the States since 2002. She lives in downtown Los Angeles and lives for spicy fried chicken from the city of Padang in Sumatra. She thinks that CMYK and RGB should rise up and smote all other colors.
Gerald Callo in Houston
Gerald is the groupwide graphic design technician for Advance Strategies based out of the HOK Houston office. He is part of the marketing team and is responsible for ensuring the brand and graphic standards are the way they should to be. He basically makes things prettier.
Han Hsi Ho in St. Louis
Han Hsi Ho is an urban designer for the HOK Planning Group in St. Louis. She's currently participating in a multi-month journey to HOK's Asia-Pacific Offices preaching the word of Revit to her colleagues. Follow Han Hsi's journey abroad!
Jaki Jefferson in St. Louis
As the firm's first Diversity Manager, Jacqueline K. "Jaki" Jefferson currently splits her time serving the Construction Services, Human Resources and Marketing/Communications groups. She's currently completing her Ph.D. from Capella University in Minnesota.
James Vandezande in New York
James is a firm-wide BIM leader based in HOK's New York City office. He is a registered architect and a regular blogger on architecture-tech.com and allthingsbim.blogspot.com. spent almost 20 years as a DJ for weddings and bar mitzvahs – a journey that took him to venues in Chicago, Los Angeles, London and Brussels.
Jason Hamlin in Los Angeles
Jason is the senior graphic designer in HOK’s Los Angeles marketing department. He became a graphic designer when it turned out professional poets were no longer all the rage.
Jeannette Thompson in St. Louis
Jeannette lives a double secret-agent life at HOK as a vital part of both the Communications and Planning groups. She calls the St. Louis office home but works with team members across the world. She earned her B.S. in Community Development from the University of New Hampshire, and is halfway through a masters of Urban Planning and Real Estate. She is a licensed Real Estate Agent at Upper End Properties, a boutique agency in St. Louis.
Jeremy Smith in Atlanta
Jeremy is part of Atlanta’s architecture group but likes to dabble in S&T and the interiors group. He hopes to get some time helping the planning group soon. He is very passionate about the sustainability that HOK strives so hard to achieve.
Jessica Rowen in Toronto
Jessica is one of the reasons that the Canadian marketing team is such a fast-moving machine. It doesn't hurt that she is brilliant, a metrics freak and an articulate writer!
Jodi Williams in Washington, DC
As a senior consultant and leader in the Washington, DC HOK Advance Strategies group, Jodi focuses on predesign services such as programming and workplace strategies, taking advantage of her mixed background in sociology and urban planning. She’s also involved in a number of sustainable projects. Her favorite part of the job is that her work improves people's lives.
John Gilmore in St. Louis
John brings the story of HOK to life for the world, literally. As a senior writer based in St. Louis, his words shine an intelligent light on the people, projects and experiences of the firm on the web, in print and in speeches given all over the globe.
John Cantrell in Atlanta
John is part of the interiors group in Atlanta and one of the firm’s most adamant Sustainable Champions. Though he claims to exist in an erratically confused state about what is right and wrong in design and life — and says that his sentences are “oddly coherent” — most people don’t have any trouble understanding what he is saying.
Katie Dufresne in Washington, DC
Katie is an interior designer in the Washington, DC office. When she's not designing wildly colorful and funky interiors, she can be found cracking up audiences around town with her comedy improv group. Lookout Tina Fey!
Kelly Bathe in St. Louis
Firmwide Marketing Manager Kelly “get it done” Bathe is a key member of HOK’s small but highly effective Corporate Communications and Marketing team. She came to HOK nearly a decade ago. Over the years she has parlayed her incredible organizational skills into various knowledge manager capacities and now, among other responsibilities, is chief brand sheriff.
Kimberly Dowdell in New York
Kimberly Dowdell is a public relations specialist based at HOK New York. Using her background in architecture, Kimberly is focused on articulating and promoting the value that HOK brings to the design process. She is an active member in the National Organization of Minority Architects, AIA, the Association of Real Estate Women and is involved with the development of Social, Economic and Environmental Design (SEED).
Kurt Griesbach in Dallas
Kurt is a newly hired Interiors Technician in Dallas but has been interning with the firm since 2007, and is already a regular to the office. When approaching design, Kurt enjoys interpreting his ideas into tangible solutions that equally impact the environment and the people within it.
Leigh Stringer in Washington, DC
Leigh sits in HOK's Washington, D.C. office. When she is not taking care of clients, listening to her husband talk politics, or playing with her three year old, she writes a lot. Her book, The Green Workplace: Sustainable Strategies that Benefit Employees, the Environment and the Bottom Line, is a spin-off of from her blog of the same name, where she is the founder and editor.
Marta Willgoose in New York
Marta is HOK’s Human Resources Manager for the NY office. She plays a significant role in making sure we find, hire, support, develop and care for the wonderfully talented people at HOK.
Megan Holder in Atlanta
Megan Holder is a landscape architect for HOK Atlanta. A Texas Aggie at heart, she loves being involved in her community and one day wants to start her own handwriting business.
Michelle Pinkston in St Louis
Born and raised in a small town in Iowa, Michelle is a landscape architect in St. Louis who loves working with the element of our physical environment that is alive and ever-changing. She joined HOK to work at projects of every scale - and because she enjoyed arguing with Jim during her first interview and thought it would be a fun place to work.
Mike Plotnick in St. Louis
An HOKer since 2001, Mike landed here by way of the dot-com bust. As the conductor of communications, he tirelessly orchestrates the firm's internal and external PR into a wonderful (though sometimes crazed) harmonic melody.
Natalie Banaszak in Chicago
Natalie is an interior designer in HOK's Chicago office. Her passions as an interior designer are product and graphic design. She has been able to merge these activities by working with an HOK team that is collaborating with Lees Carpets and Mannington Commercial.
Niall Cytryn in San Francisco
A member of the San Francisco office, Niall adds his unique professional experience and diverse background to the Sustainable Design team. He is driven by big thoughts and an even bigger idea of change.
Nico Stearley in Tampa
Nico Stearley is an architectural technician in HOK's Tampa office. She enjoys having a direct connection to what shapes our cities and the opportunities that create a better place to live, work, and play.
Paula Huerta in Singapore
Paula is a design architect in HOK's Singapore office - via Spain and the U.S. Her enthusiasm for life will jump right through your monitor and grab you.
Pearl McLin in Los Angeles
Pearl is the BIM coordinator in HOK’s Los Angeles office, as well as an avid skier and accomplished amateur chef. She was born in Hong Kong and spent time in New York City before heading to Southern California to attend USC, where she studied architecture.
Sara Graham in St. Louis
Sara is the Sustainable Knowledge Manager for HOK, promoting the use of sustainable design practices in HOK projects and offices worldwide. She is involved in projects ranging from LEED certification to materials evaluations, post-occupancy evaluations and energy monitoring.
Seth Teel in St. Louis
Seth works in the Sustainable Design Group of the St. Louis office. He is an avid cyclist, a self-proclaimed urbanist and a part-time real estate investor.
Sherin Aminossehe in London
Sherin is an architect and master planner in the London office. Born in Tehran, she wanted to be an architect and understand her mother’s designs as soon as she was able to hold a pencil.
Stephanie Spann in St. Louis
A structural engineer in the St. Louis office, Stephanie Spann is a self-proclaimed engi-nerd. She spends much of her time trying to figure out how architects can ignore gravity and prefers to work with people who don’t sugar coat things because she certainly does not!
Steve Ma in Hong Kong
Steve is a self-proclaimed good “bad cop” senior planner in the HOK Planning Group’s Hong Kong office. He spends a tremendous amount of time in the sky traveling the HOKsphere to collaborate with other planners and designers.
Valerie Greer in St. Louis
Valerie is an architect in HOK's St. Louis office. She returned to St. Louis from a six-month stint working in HOK's Singapore studio.
In St. Louis her project work includes a new terminal for the Indianapolis International Airport and the campus for the new King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). She says a truly great design "lifts the imagination and spirit."
"While in St. Louis I found it really rewarding to work with people across the different North American offices," Valerie says. "When the opportunity came up to work in Singapore, I was interested in giving it a try and meeting the HOK group in Asia-Pacific."
Her favorite things about HOK are "the people" and the fact that "no two days are the same." In her free time, you'll probably find her exploring and enjoying the great outdoors.
Yiselle Santos in Washington, DC
Yiselle Marie Santos is a vibrant young architect hailing from Puerto Rico and currently practicing her craft in the DC studio. She exudes energy and can bring life to any conversation. Yiselle has a BS of General Science with a concentration in Geology from the University of Puerto Rico at the Rio Piedras Campus. She went on to obtain her Masters of Architecture from Syracuse University in New York.
