-: We first look at the design portfolio
to be honest with you.
We're looking for someone that has a talent.
Has an eye.
Knows what designs look like.
And then we kind of look at what else they've done.
What other kind of jobs they've done.
Have they interned with someone?
Have they interned with us?
Quite frankly we prefer to hire people
that have interned with us at least for summer.
We typically bring in two or three people in the summer
and when they graduate a year or two later
we'll look to hire them.
When you graduate with an accredited degree,
which is what you would get here,
you're not a licensed architect yet.
You're an architectural intern
and you have to have three to five years worth of experience
before you can sit for serious examinations.
And when you pass all those then
you become a licensed architect.
So there are experience requirements
in order to take those examinations.
So we try to work with each individual graduate
to make sure that they get a diverse experience.
For the most part we use them as part
of the document production team
but we do get them design experience
and we get them construction experience
and then contractual experience.
All the different things that they
have to have to take their exam.
I think that the undergraduate would be
well advised to get outside the silo of the design part.
Most of our young interns struggle to learn
the actual technology of construction.
How things go together.
I was fortunate during my college career
that I had some summers and I worked construction.
I framed, I built houses, I framed.
I was a carpenter.
I worked for a heavy contractor
that did the directed steel and
drove piles and things like that.
And I was just an absolute drudge.
I didn't do anything of any significance.
But being out there exposed me to
the problems and the logistics of how things go together.
And maybe that what gives me a little more sympathy
for the craftsmen when they're trying
to build the project because I know
they're standing out there in mud up to their ankles
and I want this beautiful vision
that I drew on my drawing board
and they're the ones that have to make it happen.