Biography

As the daughter of avid long-distance cyclists, Cynthia recalls numerous family vacations pedaling for hours into headwinds and usually arriving exhausted to set up a tent in the middle of the wilderness. They were formative moments of her childhood. And Cynthia calls on those memories of a quiet vast prairie or the long views from a mountain peak to calm to her day-to-day routine as an architect.

“I developed endurance and practiced patient perseverance, learning to keep a positive attitude while breaking down challenges into small, manageable steps,” she says. “I learned to value working hard and getting outside. Those experiences made me a very patient, flexible person.”

Cynthia also credits her family full of academics and scientists as well as a consensus-driven Quaker college education as the two primary reasons collaboration is her default approach to design and problem solving. “Since our work is to translate other people’s needs, dreams and desires into something real in the build environment, we really have to listen and try to fully understand others,” she says.

Cynthia’s architectural design work includes numerous municipal projects—such as community, recreational and aquatic centers—and she finds joy in process and in bringing the all stakeholders into the design discussion. For Cynthia, it is always rewarding to hear community feedback. Many of her projects have been recognized for their designs and impacts on their communities.

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