Octavio Gutiérrez
Co-chair, AIA Oregon Committee on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
Reflecting on Mentorship
A few weeks ago, AIA Oregon’s Committee on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (CoEDI), the Architecture Foundation of Oregon (AFO) and NOMA PDX (Portland’s chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architects) co-hosted a Community Connection Slam with the simple goal of bringing together three key groups in the spirit of supporting one another: organizations that provide design, engineering, and construction related programs to youth; service organizations that help students navigate these available programs; and members of the design community hoping to support both the programs and the program navigators.
The Community Connection Slam was the first of what will be many (and long-overdue) inter-organizational conversations and collaboration around improving access to our profession, particularly for students from marginalized communities. The Slam left many of us inspired by all of the great work our collective design community is engaged in, and it left me with a deep sense of gratitude for the program providers and navigators I have encountered throughout my own personal career journey. It also left me reflecting on all who have selflessly given their time to motivate, inspire, support, and mentor me along the way, and why I believe it’s imperative that we all pause to reflect on how we can pay this forward to the next generation(s) of architects.
I can’t pinpoint exactly when I started thinking about architecture as a career, but I suspect it was around 4th grade, and that a certain sitcom about a large blended family with an architect as “head of household” had something to do with it. As the middle child in a family of seven siblings, I could somewhat relate to the big, happy family portrayed on TV. However, peace in our home was contingent on brokering deals over limited space: our single story tract home always felt as though it was about to burst into chaos and warfare, and I saw design as a peacekeeping mission. I thought about ways to arrange, and endlessly rearrange, spaces to maximize efficiency and create truces. Short on resources, I would creatively reuse the blank side of any large paper bags I could find to draw up the next big peace plan.
In junior high school, the idea of going to college was planted in my mind, and by the time I got to high school I was hopeful that a career in the architecture, engineering, or construction industry was in my future. I didn’t have access to programs like the ACE Mentorship Program or Your Street Your Voice, and I can’t recall any of my peers at the time expressing interest in architecture, so I felt somewhat isolated in my interests. As a first generation college student, I depended on my teachers and guidance counselors to help demystify the process of applying for college, financial aid, and scholarships; and I relied on them for a sense of security that this investment in time and limited resources was going to help me realize a still somewhat fuzzy career goal.
By the spring of my senior year of high school, I started finding clarity in a possible career path. Following the advice of my career counselor, I applied to a paid internship program that paired BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) college students interested in engineering or business administration with major corporations around the country. I accepted an internship with the Los Angeles, California office of Turner Construction, and started working in the purchasing department the summer before my first semester of college. Turner’s internship program connected me to some truly amazing mentors - all first generation college graduates whom I could see myself becoming one day.
More impressively, my mentors and supervisors focused entirely on making sure that my internship would benefit me as an architecture student, going to such extraordinary lengths as driving me to visit various architect’s offices whose projects they were building (in LA traffic nonetheless!). I returned to Turner every summer during my undergraduate architecture studies, rotating through the estimating department and field assignments, and Turner invited me back after graduation for a full-time position. I left Turner for my graduate studies with a sense of self-confidence, a network of professionals, and an image of who I wanted to become.
I share my lived experiences because I believe that architects have the power to inspire future generations of architects and uplift the communities we serve.Supporting the pipeline to the architecture profession has been a keystone of CoEDI’s mission since our committee’s founding.And we’re incredibly excited to be collaborating with the AFO and NOMA PDX to expand our reach and amplify our collective impact.If you are interested in learning more about supporting programs serving our youth, or joining our efforts, I invite you to reach out to me personally, join us at our monthly CoEDI meetings, or connect with us at a future AIA Oregon event.