We are back with another Team Tuesday, highlighting our Director of Design Greg Goebel! Greg provides leadership in establishing signature, innovative design concepts for educational facilities. He is a part of the leadership team and helps in establishing firm-wide direction and implementing creative solutions. Greg possesses strong, proven client relationship skills and the ability to work in a collaborative team environment.
Something interesting about yourself/a hobby/a fun fact?
I’m a backpacker and mountaineer in my free time. At this point, I’ve climbed several hundred bumps, hills, and mountains, including all 58 of the Colorado Rockies above 14,000 feet in elevation.
What is your favorite aspect of a project?
The point in a project where you have gained the client’s confidence and trust and then have the latitude to be more aggressively creative, pushing on the margins of the possible.
Biggest career accomplishment thus far?
Being able to design a multitude of projects, of varying scale and complexity and having the opportunity to continue to do so.
Why did you choose your career path?
I grew up in a family of carpenters and was very close to my Grandpa, who was one of them. He cut a hammer down to size for a three-year-old and from that point forward I was pounding on off-fall from his job sites. When I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would say “a CARPENTER!” and he would slap me firmly upside my head and say, NO, you’re going to be an Architect and tell carpenters what to do. Eventually, it stuck.
What designer do you draw inspiration from?
Alvar Aalto, Alvaro Siza, Isamu Naguchi.
Favorite quote and why?
A quote by Calvin Coolidge. He was an unremarkable president in many ways, but he said this and it stuck with me:
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press On! has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”
Best trip/vacation?
The northern Great Plains. I’m going back there this month, to North and South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and Nebraska on the return trip. We’re going to ride horses for a day on the Little Bighorn site with Crow Indians. 3 National Parks, 4 Wilderness Areas all in a new (used) Airstream trailer.
What are you currently reading?
"Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power" by Pekka Hamalainen. The first comprehensive history of the Lakota Indians and their profound role in shaping America’s history.
