As I reflect on stepping into the position of AIACV president for the second time, I’d like to honor my predecessors—Steve Sugioka AIA in 1999 and Chris Holt AIA in 2020.
I watched Steve facilitate the board meetings, always keeping one watchful eye on the agenda and the other on the clock. I learned the value of starting and ending on time and covering the entire agenda. Steve ran a tight ship and sometimes chose to limit discussion in favor of the clock, always with a smile on his face.
I watched Chris employ his boundless enthusiasm to engage the board and create a
5-year Strategic Plan for the Chapter that is clear, concise, and inspiring—all during a pandemic year, while transitioning to virtual meetings. I learned the value of encouraging wholehearted participation and focus.
Remember Y2K? Yes, I was president in 2000. The alarming predictions of digital disaster did not come true and the world carried on. Gini Rountree was our hard-working and dedicated Executive Director at the time, as she had been for many years starting in 1967. Laura Macaulay, AIA and I worked with Gini to consider relocating the Chapter office from its longstanding location in a non-accessible office building on 19th Street near the Old Spaghetti Factory. We were successful and with a lot of help from AIA and Allied members, the Chapter moved to a new home on Alhambra Boulevard, where it lived until moving to our current and beloved home on S Street.
My focus for the year will be on affordable housing. This intractable problem is one that architects are uniquely equipped to help solve. The AIACV board unanimously approved a Housing Position Statement at its December meeting. The Statement emphasizes the Missing Middle housing form and calls on members to get some exemplary pilot projects designed and built in our region.
The Chapter’s Housing Task Force sponsored an Experience Architecture event last year entitled Neighborhoods for All. The video of this event provides a look at affordable housing in our region and some possible solutions. We have been building ourselves into the current affordable housing crisis since our service members returned from WWII. Remedial solutions will not solve the crisis. This will take a multi-generational effort to fully integrate—at the scale of individual buildings— affordable housing into our neighborhoods, including those designated as “high opportunity”.
My career path includes working as a carpenter for five years after architecture school (4-year Bachelor of Science degree from MIT), stints at Stonham & Becker, Leason Pomeroy Associates (Sacramento Office), Foothill Design Group (predecessor firm to the current LPAS), PC/M Group (architect-led design-build project delivery), Paul Menard Associates (architect-led design-build project delivery, 18 years starting in 1991), and now at the Judicial Council of California (State of California judicial branch facilities program, since 2009).
I hope to connect with some of you at the Board Leadership Retreat next week where we will focus on a Strategic Plan for Experience Architecture, as well as how we can begin the long task of creating more integrated affordable housing in our region. My contact information is included below. Please reach out to get acquainted and talk about your ideas for the Chapter in 2021.
Paul R. Menard, AIA
(916) 397-5715 Cell Phone