The Yachats Gazette, Issue 76, January 1 2018

Click here for a printable version of Issue 76

Interview with Shannon Beaucaire

Shannon Beaucaire is Yachats’s new City Administrator.

TYG: So how did you find Yachats?
Shannon: I saw the job description, and I was intrigued. I had been looking for about two years to come back to the Pacific Northwest, and when I read the job description it was about volunteerism, about improving community engagement, and about a welcoming community. It really felt very comfortable. I wanted to come back, and I wanted to apply! That’s how I heard about Yachats. I had gotten as far as Newport before, but I hadn’t quite made it to Yachats when I was here previously, doing law school in Portland, Oregon.

TYG: Hmm. It is a bit out of the way, isn’t it. [laughs]
Shannon: Well, it isn’t too far! If I’d just kept on going south out of Newport it would have been okay!

TYG: So what is your background in law, for those who don’t know?
Shannon: My background in law is actually a funny story. I actually have a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology. And when I was graduating from Michigan State (who’s playing in the Holiday Bowl tonight) I saw a disconnect between the Department of Natural Resources and the citizens they were serving. They were trying to put policies in place to help the wildlife, but the citizens didn’t quite understand why those policies were being put in place. So it caused a lot of angst and a lot of discontentment among the citizens, and so I was looking for a communication bridge at the time, and somebody mentioned environmental law. At the time, Lewis & Clark was the number one environmental law school; they often traded between that and Vermont. I wanted to go west rather than east, and so I applied for Lewis & Clark. At the time my communication bridge did not have a name, but at the end of my first year a professor talked about alternative dispute resolution. This incorporates mediation, facilitation, arbitration—a whole, wide scope of entities. My communication bridge had a name—and I was hooked. That was my dual major: alternative dispute resolution and environmental law. Then I went to the City of Albuquerque and managed their alternative dispute resolution programs, which were land use, employee, and community programs. [I also participated in] some special projects that didn’t quite fit into those categories. Then I went to the State of New Mexico and helped the Supreme Court build a foundation to do the same type of programs for all of their courts around the entire state.

TYG: Get all the bureaucracy and all the red tape set up?
Shannon: [laughs] Yes! You could say that. But it also gave them a strong foundation so they could build their own individual programs that met the needs of their citizens in the particular area. Because the people who were in rural southwest New Mexico were very different from the people in Albuquerque. It allowed them to have a foundation that set up a structure that allowed for consistency, but after that consistency and foundation were met, they could customize the program to meet the needs of their clients.

TYG: A very wise program! 
TYG-Editorial Assistant: Can you give any specifics about that? I’m curious.
Shannon: Specifics such as...?

TYG-EA: What are some of the ways that resolutions were reached on contentious issues?
Shannon: Throughout the court system?

TYG-EA: Yes, what are some of the things you worked on.
Shannon: My [position] was administrative, setting up the foundation for the program. But some of the issues, if you were looking for some of the ways programs might help in different areas of the state: in Albuquerque, they had guardianship issues for elderly individuals. They would have abuse and neglect for children, youth, and family services. For children that were in abusive situations, they would have mediation programs to try to re-unify parents and children. And in some of the rural counties, you may have some of the abuse and neglect type situations, but you might also have issues regarding water rights or ranch land. So some of those might be more customizable depending on the area.

TYG-EA: So social, as well as environmental issues.
Shannon: Oh yes. Absolutely. 

TYG: Ranching always seems to be a very hard subject, just because it’s kind of a strange practice, and it’s certainly one of the more invasive practices that we as humans use.
Shannon: And usually the land has a lot of history. And that’s the same with water rights. There’s usually a lot of history, and that tends to make things more complicated.

TYG: So, what is your vision for Yachats?
Shannon: My vision is to create an opening, welcoming sense, so that the community itself can develop its own vision. I certainly have ideas that I want to share with the community, but it is really the community [that will determine] what they want Yachats to be. And that’s what I really want to engage. And I want to encourage people to decide what they want Yachats to be in a year, five years, ten, twenty.

TYG: And to ask all the hard questions that you need to be asked.
Shannon: Yes.

TYG-EA: You strike me certainly as somebody who has plenty of ideas of her own to bring to the table. I wonder what you might want to share about that. 
Shannon: Oh! I would love to have community engagement to beautify our poles, our new light poles up and down the street. We have a very talented group of individuals in this community—I understand there were banners made last year. So I’d love to get more ideas about how we can incorporate that more year-round. Do we celebrate different festivals, and we have hand-made banners for that? Or do we intermix other artistic points, items that we can incorporate on the light poles? I want a walkable community where citizens and tourists alike feel comfortable walking down the street, shopping at our businesses, eating at our restaurants, that they feel safe and it’s an easy place to do that. I want the citizens to really feel that they’re regaining their community, and that this is a village that is entirely welcoming. I have ideas—but I would really want to hear from the community.

TYG: So, I understand that the library is moving over to the [ex-]bank building. How’s that project going?
Shannon: It’s going very well. We have a great group of dedicated volunteers, and they’ve done a lot of community engagement and got a lot of ideas about what everybody wants their dream library to be like. They are putting that vision onto paper right now, and they’re hoping to do another community engagement forum soon, so that people can give more of their ideas and see what work has been done so far. So it’s going very well.

TYG: So what other current projects are in the works? Like how is the medical [clinic] project going, and other such things?
Shannon: The medical project is still in discussions. The south tank project—which is the water tank south of the bridge that is going in—that’s in construction right now. We have the library project, as you’re aware of. Then there are always little projects that are going on, like at Public Works—and they’re not so little. But it’s making sure that the drainage ditches are clear so that they’re doing what they’re supposed to do. It’s making sure that our water lines are functioning properly, and that the water plant is operating as it should, and that the wastewater plant is operating as it should and the sewer lines are proper.

TYG: So maintenance work, in other words.
Shannon: Maintenance; and we have a budget, and we have state and federal requirements we have to meet. They’re little things, but they’re big things as well.

TYG: Can you tell us a little more about the south water tank project? That’s something I’ve never heard of, anyway.
Shannon: The south water tank is a very large tank that’s going up to store water, and that will be used whenever we need it. It’s something to help the people south of the bridge, and it’s in process right now. There’s a retaining wall that is going up and it’s a very interesting process. There’s something they have to use called “soil nails” to hold the retaining wall in place. There are going to be five rows of nails. It sounds very simple, but it’s a very complex engineering feat, where they actually have to put the nail into the side of the dirt wall, and then they have to test it to make sure it will actually hold. There’s an independent engineer that tests it to make sure it will hold at a certain level of pounds per square inch.

TYG: Interesting! Can you give us a rough idea of the cubic area of the tank, or how much it will hold, generally?
Shannon: I’d have to go look that up.

TYG: I’m guessing it would be enough to supply the town for a couple of months, at least.
Shannon: Well, we have several of these around town. It’s specifically to address [south of the bridge].

TYG: So that’s how we keep our water going during the dry months?
Shannon: Sometimes! Sometimes, if needed.

TYG: Makes sense, so we don’t have to just bleed the river dry.
Shannon: Absolutely. We would not want to do that.

TYG: About the worst thing we could do.
Shannon: Yes. The fish would not be happy with us. [laughs]

TYG: So how did you get into environmental studies, in general? What brought you into that field?
Shannon: Ever since I was five years old I wanted to be a veterinarian. And then in my first large animal class, I saw them cutting the tails off of lambs without any anaesthesia or hugs or anything soft. So that really threw a loop into what I thought veterinarians did. So I had to kind of rethink what I really wanted to do, and was I willing to go through classes like that, in order to get that type of education. Ultimately I decided not to; I decided to pursue wildlife biology. But I always had a love for natural resources. I grew up on the Great Lakes of Michigan. My grandparents both had river- and lake-front property, and I’ve always been a hiker, into the outdoors; I’ve always loved animals and always wanted to do preservation of wildlife and natural resources.

TYG: Something I’ve always been curious about: especially up river, how are the boundaries for where farming land stops [established]? How does the zoning work?
Shannon: So, the City boundaries only go so far up Yachats River Road. I actually have a map inside if you want to take a look at it. But that would probably be where the farming is allowed.

TYG-EA: How has your arrival been, in terms of being what you expected—or not?
Shannon: Any new job always has its ups and its downs, and its learning curve. I certainly have had some days that have been rougher than others, but for the most part—I’d say 90 per cent of it—I love what I do. I have the best job in the whole wide world. I really do. This is something that I wanted to take my career into for a long time; this was a deliberate decision. I’m really excited about this.

TYG-EA: It seems like it’s a little out of the focusing on law, and more into the—how did you put it [in a separate interview]? Indulging your love of budgets? 
Shannon: [laughs] As far as law goes, because I was looking for a communication bridge, I was never fully geared towards pursuing the legal field in the traditional sense. I actually had no desire to be in a courtroom at all. I’m interested in alternative dispute resolution, I’m into alternative types of work, and so this was something that was deliberate for me about where I wanted to take this stage of my career, after working under some great city managers and county managers.

TYG: I imagine it’s been quite a challenge working with our very, very small income. 
Shannon: No. Every government perceives that they have not enough resources. I think when I was interviewing, the recruiter said, “It’s just a matter of zeros, and how many zeros you have.” But you still have a fixed pie to work from every year. Whether you’re Albuquerque or Yachats or New York City. There’s a fixed pie. And it’s just how you best utilize those resources in alignment with the priorities of the community, and where it wants to be, and where it wants to go.

TYG: Do you have any ideas about what steps can be taken to help the homeless people around town?
Shannon: You know, that is something people are working on quite diligently. I’ve been meeting with other coastal city managers, like Newport, Waldport, Lincoln City, getting ideas of what they have been doing, challenges that they are facing, successes that they have. I also went to a specific session at the International City Managers’ Association conference, about three cities that have taken different approaches to the homelessness issue. Two were out of Colorado; one happened to be Eugene, Oregon.

TYG: They’re focusing more on the shelter aspect, is that correct?
Shannon: They’re focusing on multi-dimensional aspects. They have some of the shelters, but they’re also working toward things like temporary housing. So, if they have a parking lot that they can use to have trailers just for an overnight, if needed, if it’s very cold—something like that. So they’re working on multiple approaches. They also have tiny homes that they’re working on, I believe, and they’re also working on ways to help individuals get out of homelessness.

TYG: That’s of course what needs to happen in the end—not just putting them in shelters, but actually helping them get income. 
Shannon: Getting income, and they were very frank at the conference that some people can get on their own fully, but there is a segment of the homeless population that will always need some sort of a subsidy.

TYG: Probably true: those who are lame, just people who have gotten unlucky—they rolled the one instead of the six.
Shannon: Some. Some have mental health challenges will always need some extra support and resources. Some have other addiction challenges, whether they’re alcohol or drug abuse. They might always need some extra support and assistance. But the ones that have fallen on hard times: they can sometimes get back on their own fully and completely. But they actually said there are even issues where sometimes people have been homeless for so long that they need help re-learning how to fill out an application for an apartment. Lots of challenges.

TYG: This is an idea I’ve always had: One of the issues with a tourist-based economy like this is that for those who are educated, there are great resources. You have quite a few jobs [available] in the sense that you can start your own business, or you can do artwork, and stuff like that. However, if you were unlucky enough to not have that education, often there are very few jobs that are for that less-educated segment. That’s what I’ve observed, anyway. I was wondering if there were any plans, if there was any possibility of having something like that, maybe out of the way, something more industrial or heavy commercial? 
Shannon: As far as attracting businesses here?

TYG: Yes. And in terms of just providing work for these less-educated segments. 
Shannon: Interestingly, that’s a great point. That’s not been the emphasis of some of the talks that I’ve experienced so far. I will definitely raise that at our next meeting.

TYG: Was there anything else you wanted to talk about particularly?
Shannon: No, this is your interview—anything you want. [laughter] 

TYG-EA: What’s been the most fun thing for you so far?
Shannon: Every single day, it’s always new, it’s always exciting. I never quite believed any city or county manager when they said that no day is ever the same. I believe them now. [laughs] And that makes it exciting.

TYG: Well thank you so much for your time!
Shannon: Thank you! It was a pleasure!

The Yachats Gazette, Issue 58, July 1, 2016

Click here for a printable version of Issue 58

Interview with Joan Davies,
Yachats City Administrator

 TYG: So, what exactly does the city administrator do?
Joan: The city administrator is responsible for all the operations of the city.

TYG: Does the mayor still have influence?
Joan: Absolutely.

TYG: Oh, I was wondering whether it might have gone down to just a title position.
Joan: Oh no.

TYG: So, new [health] clinic: exciting!
Joan: Yes! As far as I know, everybody is really interested in having that happen.

TYG: I don’t see why anyone would be against it, honestly.
Joan: You never know, but like Barbara mentioned yesterday [at the community meeting], some people are really frightened about losing the provider they’re familiar with. They need to understand that although they need to choose within that organization, they’re not going to be dictated to.

TYG: So, how’s the sidewalk project going?
Joan: As Mayor Brean said yesterday, we’re waiting to hear back from ODOT. Only one company bid on it, and so the city, ODOT, and that company are working together to try and come to a figure that’s manageable. [...]

TYG-Editorial Assistant: Can I rewind a little bit? Where do responsibilities lie between city administrator and mayor and other people in the city? What division of responsibilities is there between the city administrator, which I believe is an appointed position, versus the mayor, which is a volunteer position? What does each position do?
Joan: We’re working on a transition right now to map out what that difference is going to be. In the city where I worked before, the mayor was in a similar position, but the duties were mine; there are approvals only a mayor can make, approvals only a council can make. It’s a pretty extensive division between those three bodies.

TYG-Graphic Design: Where were you before?
Joan: Hines, in eastern Oregon. Bend is 130 miles before you get to Hines. [laughter] [Population is] 1565—different environment, different revenue streams. We have some tourism over there, but we have tons here. Two different things. But anyway, the mayor has been responsible for everything up to this point. So the position they created which I was hired into is to relieve the mayor of those duties which are normally either an administrator’s or a manager’s.

TYG-GD: And those would include what, for example?
Joan: Everything. Supervising personnel, creating and managing a budget, writing resolutions and organizational policies... There’s just hundreds of things. [...] It’s hard for me to describe, because there are so many things!

TYG-GD: What does the mayor continue to do?
Joan: The mayor is the head of the council, and in this city, the mayor votes. In my old city, they did not. But here it’s in the charter, that the mayor votes just like a council member. And this mayor holds offices in at least a couple of different groups, like the League of Oregon Cities—that kind of thing. It’s not like Portland, where you see Charlie Hale in the news all the time, because he’s the head of the police department, and they’re in trouble kind of thing—it’s a different structure. But the mayor is a very vital person in the goals of the city. [...]

TYG-GD: So, you take the burden of paperwork away from the mayor?
Joan: Sure, yes. [...]

TYG-GD: Are you originally from Hines?
Joan: I grew up in that area. I grew up on a cattle ranch in that county. I went to school at Crane, which is a small town 30 miles from Burns and Hines, which are twin cities. I’ve spent a lot of my life there.

TYG-GD: How was it, moving to the coast?
Joan: How was it? Great! [laughs] This is where I’ve always come for vacation. I love the beach, even in the winter time. I don’t care. Moving to the coast is something I’ve looked at for a long time, and this was a perfect opportunity.

TYG-GD: Did you bring a family with you?
Joan: It’s just me!

TYG: It’s so cool to look at all this and see how stuff works! [Note: the interview took place in the City Council Chamber at the Commons.]
Joan: Have you been to city council meetings? Do you have any interest in coming?

TYG: I didn’t know it was open to the public.
Joan: Oh, absolutely!

TYG: Then I do show some interest in coming!
Joan: That would help you see how it functions; of course, you can see how they all sit here. And you can see the interchange with the audience. It’s well-attended here! There’s good public participation. [...]

TYG-EA: What’s your background?
Joan: I was city administrator at Hines for five and a half years; prior to that, I worked for the Department of Human Services as an abuse investigator. A lot of my career has been in “judge” positions—I was also the municipal judge in Hines. Before HS, I was the administrative hearings officer for the Department of Corrections. [...] Before that, I was justice of the peace in Harney County, where I grew up.

TYG: Hmm! So, how did you get a job opportunity here in Yachats?
Joan: The city contacted a professional recruiter in Washington—I call them head-hunters, but I don’t know if they like that term. They send out notices to city administrators, city managers. I’d gotten them before—it was always a joke with me and my secretary. She’d throw one on my desk and say, “Oh, look at this!” All these big money, big city [positions], Seattle, whatever. And we’d laugh, and I’d throw it in the garbage. This time, I didn’t throw it in the garbage.

TYG: Because it was a small town that might actually need something?
Joan: It was a small town, on the coast; it was the first time they’d ever had a city administrator. I’ve done that a lot, built from the bottom up.

TYG-EA: You get to help define your own role.
Joan: Yes! And, you don’t inherit somebody’s mess. You know, you have the computers in place, and the meetings in place, and you can kind of mold it yourself. [...]

TYG-EA: So how has your transition been?
Joan: Well, I worked right up to the last minute at Hines, because it’s budget season and I did not want to leave before my budget was passed. I left that Friday—the last Friday in May—and moved that day. It was Memorial Day weekend, so I didn’t have to work Monday, and I didn’t have to work Tuesday either, because it was the end of the month. So I had a couple of days, and started that Wednesday.

TYG: Well thank you very much for your time! Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?
Joan: No—I appreciate you coming. I admire you very much for what you are doing—it’s excellent.

Interview with Loren Dickinson

 TYG: So what exactly is your profession? I know it’s a form of architecture.
Loren: Right now, I’m a retired architect. However, I was a registered architect in Arizona and many western states, including Oregon, California, and that sort of thing. We did all types of architecture, commercial and industrial architecture.

TYG: So not so much residential?
Loren: Early years, yes, I did a number of residential units, some sub-divisions, and individual houses for people.

TYG: How did you get involved in architecture?
Loren: That’s an interesting question, because in my junior year in high school, I was still debating exactly what I wanted to do. A friend of mine said: “Well Loren, I’m going to go into architecture. Do you want to go see what it’s all about?” So I said, “Sure!” And then we went over to the university, and after looking around and seeing what the potentials were, and what the field offered, I decided to do it. So it wasn’t something I had desired to do my whole life, and I understand that you are interested in architecture too!

TYG: Yes, I want to go into architecture and engineering.
TYG-Graphic Design: What was it that specifically piqued your interest, or somehow satisfied these unknown questions you had?
Loren: Actually talking to the professors during what they would classify as an open interview day, bringing the high school students in for discussion so that the high school students could make good decisions.

TYG-GD: Did you talk to any other departments or professors, or just those guys?
Loren: I had one other friend who was an architect. I knew basically what architects did, so I had a general idea of what architecture was and involved.

TYG-GD: What is a good general description of what an architect does?
Loren: That can be a number of things, because architects can basically fill a number of roles, including what is the traditional architect—one who runs a practice, goes out and designs buildings, has them constructed, and watches that. But also architecture can include things like you might be interested in, such as engineering. It can also include government: a lot of architects go into government as building department heads, planners, and that sort of thing. So architects can fill a wide, wide range of different sub-categories of the profession.

TYG: The kind of stuff I’m more interested in is commercial and residential. Industrial is cool; I’d love to be able to make a difference in it. But really, we’ve sort of got the practical way of doing industrial down. I don’t know, of course, since I’ve never done anything like that, but it’s my understanding that it’s sort of like a template that you just change the dimensions of.
Loren: You mean for industrial? Not necessarily, although I’ve done projects of many different types. Every project has its own special set of determinants. As an industrial project, you might end up doing a bottling plant, or a manufacturing facility, or warehouse; but each client comes in and tells you what he wants, and quite often two projects will be vastly different. So even in industrial architecture, as there are in the other types of buildings, there’s a wide, wide range of things. What you’re saying about a template being used might be applicable to types of projects like warehousing—I mean, that’s pretty straightforward. Although, in some of the projects I’ve been involved with over the years, the way products are handled in warehouses is vastly different from what they were 20 years ago. So each particular facet of architecture—industrial, commercial, and residential—has its own set of determinants, its own input, and its own characteristics.

TYG: So, this is something I’ve been wondering for a while: does the architect, on larger projects, take care of everything, down to little pipes?
Loren: That’s where the engineers come in! [laughter]

TYG: Ok, that’s what I was thinking!
Loren: You can’t know everything there is to know about a building, or what goes into a building. So architects and engineers team up—it’s actually a team relationship. An architect wouldn’t know where a piece of conduit with some electrical is supposed to go; he knows basically that he wants an outlet here, and the panel is over there, but he doesn’t know how to get it there, or how to size it. So architectural and engineering concerns work hand in hand.

TYG: In that case I’d definitely prefer to go with the architectural side of things. Pipes just baffle me. [laughter] I like fluids, and I like routing them, but in big buildings and such, when you’re dealing with all these different kinds of systems, it’s just way over my head.
Loren: Those are things that oftentimes you learn in the course of going through an engineering or an architecture school. You learn a little about these things. You come out of school with a basic understanding, but not knowing the details necessarily. Architecture school tends to want to educate architects to be well-rounded people, people who can have a basic understanding of many different facets.

TYG: Like I’m fine if I want to put a piece of furniture somewhere that directly interacts with the wall, like a piping thing: dishwashers, dryers. I can do that. But getting it there, through all this stuff...
Loren: That’s a never-ending challenge: how to put the entire project together so that it works! [laughter]

TYG-GD: Where did you go to school?
Loren: I went to school at Arizona State University. At that time, it was a five-year program for a Bachelor of Architecture. Now they have several programs that can go beyond that—as do many universities. They have programs that go on to a Master’s, and even a Doctorate—that’s when people tend to specialize.

TYG-GD: What would a Doctor in Architecture do besides teach?
Loren: You could apply it to solar architecture, or green architecture where projects are built to respect the environment. These are just two of many different branches that can be afforded by an upper degree.

TYG: Personally, I’m not interested in being like Frank Lloyd Wright, for example. [...] Those houses require so much maintenance.
Loren: Absolutely!

TYG: They wouldn’t even be practical for anybody who isn’t super-rich! I mean, the waterfall house isn’t even very big!
Loren: Yes, it is small, and over the years it has required a lot of maintenance. And, in fact, reconstruction at one or two points where they actually took apart major elements of the house, structural elements, and repaired them.

TYG: If I remember correctly—I’m not sure about this—but I think that his original struts were really weak, like it kept on trying to fall over the edge.
Loren: That’s why they call it Falling Water! [laughter all around]

TYG: I like some of the stuff that he does, but that house—that’s showing off.
Loren: Well, he designed it probably as much for himself as he did for the client. The client probably wanted something special, and he used that as his guidelines to actually design the house. He was a very creative architect, and had many good qualities, but one of the qualities that he did not have was the detail and the follow-up. He was good at conceptual architecture, but he oftentimes ignored the details, and that resulted in more maintenance being required.

TYG: I’m not so into in curves, but recently I was just playing around and I found a really cool roof design by accident. I was building a peaked roof (in Minecraft) and was experimenting, and ended up with a three-tiered roof that I thought looked really good. I just wonder if that would be practical.
Loren: Well, it’s hard for me to exactly picture what you did, but let’s say that virtually anything can be practical or made to work if you examine it long enough and in depth enough to make sure that all of the many facets are understood.

TYG: So how did you move to Yachats, or get involved with Yachats, rather?
Loren: Well we have a couple of friends who live up on Horizon Hill, that are retired professors from Arizona State University—not involved with architecture, they’re psychologists. Back in the 90’s, they said “Hey, why don’t you come to Yachats? We’ve got a house on the hill, come to Yachats for a couple of weeks.” We did, we brought our kids, the kids loved it. So since the mid-90’s, we would come back every other year. My wife and I ended up buying a piece of property in Quiet Water many years ago—I want to say 16 years ago. Then in 2006-2007, we decided “Well, gosh, let’s just build there and use it as a second home, and go there in the summers!” So we had the house built, and until last year, we would come every summer and spend six to seven weeks here. A year and a half ago, we decided we were going to move here full-time, and we did in March.

TYG-GD: Did you like the winter?
Loren: Absolutely! We loved it! [laughter] After coming from a desert environment, very dry, it’s wonderful to be wet and cool.

TYG-GD: I heard they were calling for temperatures [in Arizona] in the 120’s, and I have to say, I just can’t imagine living in that kind of heat!
TYG: You wouldn’t go out.
Loren: You don’t. In that environment, in the summer, you basically go from your house to your car, your air-conditioned car, to your workplace or the market or wherever you’re going, go into that air-conditioned building, get back in your car, go home back into your air-conditioned house.

TYG-GD: Yes, but what about the road workers, and all the people who work on roofs, and such?
Loren: A lot of the work that is accomplished in desert environments, like the Phoenix area, in the summer, is done early in the morning, when it’s slightly cooler. But Arizona, the Phoenix area, is very much a heat sink right now. There is so much concrete, and so much pavement, that it doesn’t even cool off in the evenings like it used to when I was a young person.

TYG-GD: So what can architecture do for that problem?
Loren: Incorporate more shade and shadow. As an example, a market that has a covered walkway from the parking area to the store—which is starting to become a requirement in many areas now, which is a very good thing for the environment, or covered parking spaces.

TYG-GD: What are they covered with?
Loren: Usually the ones that we saw in recent years in the Phoenix area were canvas. So you saw the sculptured canvas things that looked like sideways sails. They’re light and airy—they allow some light to come through, but they provide shade and keep your car cool.

TYG: So how much does shadow actually do? I’ve done some basic thermodynamical work—not quantitative, though. But qualitatively, does shadow actually help it? I feel like if it’s shadow, shouldn’t the warm air just rush right in?
Loren: As you know, the sun heats everything it falls on. As I mentioned earlier about the heat sink, where concrete is getting hot and asphalt is getting hot: if you put shading above it, you keep that surface from becoming hotter. The shading element helps keep it cool—it’s like planting grass or using a non-heat absorbent surface. 

TYG-GD: The water situation there is pretty dire too, correct?
Loren: Very dire. And like many areas of the southwest—California, New Mexico—they’re going to have some immense water problems for many years, in my opinion.

TYG-GD: So the canvas shading, versus natural cooling with the trees and grass, takes care of it—it doesn’t require any extra water usage, so that’s good.
Loren: That’s correct. Trees though are being encouraged. Many of the trees that they’re using now are what we would classify as drought-tolerant. So once they’re established, they provide the shade, but yet don’t require considerable watering. They do tend to keep the ground cooler, or houses cooler; the shade falls on the house.

TYG-GD: Is there a water table underneath [Phoenix]?
Loren: In the Phoenix area there was a water table, but it has been dropping at an alarming rate in the last ten years. It’s now at several hundred feet, and it’s getting worse every year. A lot of the water that’s drawn off is not only for people, but for agriculture. Agriculture in the area, for many years, was reliant on irrigation. In some instances in recent years, they’ve learned to do drip irrigation, which helps retain the water and make better use of the water and not use as much of it.

TYG: Irrigation works pretty well in cooler climates, in temperate climates; but in areas in the South it just evaporates so fast.
TYG-GD: I know that every time we drive to southern California, we see these huge waterways—of course, they’re completely dry now. I tend to think, “Gosh, the amount of water you’re losing, at the same time you’re trying to ferry it from one place to another, is just kind of crazy!”

TYG: Why not put the pipes underground?
Loren: When we came and went from Phoenix to Yachats for many years, we drove up the agricultural area from Southern California, and these large irrigation canals contain an awful lot of water. I would agree that moving a lot of water over great distances in those canals probably resulted in a lot of loss of the water itself.

TYG: [...] Well, I think that recently, buildings have fallen into a sort of a stereotype for residential, commercial, and industrial buildings. Industrial has that stereotype of really cool roof design [sawtooth style]—that’s an awesome roof design. Commercial buildings are usually flat-topped, and residential buildings sort of have a usual peak roof. I’d like to break that stereotype. I think that roof design in particular is an important element; more important than a lot of other things. The rest of it can stay the same, but the roof design is what people see—that’s what my opinion is, anyway. That’s where a lot of the character of the building is derived from. I’d like to have new styles of roofs—not flat styles so much, but the industrial design is very practical, and I think that should be used on residential homes to some degree, and commercial. Flat roofs, I’ve never particularly been fond of. I think they can be interesting; on big skyscrapers they make sense, but on other things they don’t really make much sense.
Loren: Oftentimes it’s a regional preference for a particular style or feeling that you want to put into the architecture, but I agree that the roof is an extremely important part of architecture because it creates a roof line for the city—it’s a character within the city. As an example, Portland has wonderful old houses, and there isn’t a flat roof hardly in sight; beautiful, nice, pitched roofs and it gives the city a particular character. On the other hand, many areas of the southwest such as Phoenix, Los Angeles: the flat roof becomes the character of the city. So it is an important part of the design of a project.

TYG: Some of the things I’ve thought about are terraced roofs, where you have a flat top, then a drop of a meter or two, then another terrace. This would be particularly useful on corner buildings, where the roof goes two ways. Also, I like large eaves and overhangs—I just think they look really good. Also, the roofs meshing into each other—I like them to have more variation and be more distinct. And I’m very fond of using attics. I feel that attics used to be quite a thing, but now they’ve become underrated; so the roof area goes unused or is just a flat, insulation space. I feel that there’s a lot more that can be done with these peak roofs.
Loren: They can be made into some really nice, livable areas! Not just storage areas, but actually livable areas. I recall one bed and breakfast that my wife stayed in, in northern Oregon. Our section of the house was in an attic! It was very narrow, and the head-room was low in certain areas, but it was quite quaint, and we just absolutely loved it.

TYG-GD: When did you start doing watercolor? Because you do architectural-themed watercolors a lot.
Loren: I started watercolor actually as a way to relax in college. A professor who was a very, very well-known watercolor artist in addition to being an architect, he offered a watercolor class. I did take that more for relaxation; and then, for many years during my career, kind of let it slide and didn’t pick it up and do it because I was too busy doing business and doing architecture. And then, I want to say maybe eight years ago, I decided, because I’m retired, I’ll pick it up again and see what happens. I’ve been playing with it a little bit ever since. Part of the thing that we used to do is use watercolor to represent our buildings, i.e., do a rendering of a building.

TYG-GD: What do they do now?
Loren: Nowadays, it’s all on computer, with CAD programs, and rendering programs that are added on to the CAD programs.

TYG: I love CAD programs, honestly. I’ve got a really good one called Google Sketch-Up.
Loren: I love Google Sketch-Up! [laughter] Actually, we used to use it; it’s a fairly nice program for doing something quickly that you can present to a client.

TYG: I use the free one.
Loren: I do too! [laughter] Google Sketch-Up is a great little program to start out with. [...]

TYG: Were you born in Arizona?
Loren: I was born in a little town called Flagstaff, Arizona, which is in the mountains. I left there when I was about two years old, and my greatest recollection of being in Flagstaff is being dressed up in so many layers of clothes that I couldn’t put my arms down, and it being so cold. When we moved away from there we went directly to the Phoenix area, and I’ve lived there most of my life.

TYG: What a change!
Loren: Oh, it was very definitely a change. From the cold to the hot. But my wife and I have spent some time in Hawaii.

TYG-GD: Do you have any architecture projects going on now?
Loren: I’ve tried to stay pretty much retired. I’ve helped the city out on a couple of minor, minor things; I’ve helped some friends do some conceptual work for some houses; but as far as designing and carrying an entire project through, I pretty much have had my fill of that, and quite frankly, I’m enjoying my retirement.

TYG-GD: One last question, maybe—what is your most favorite project that you can remember?
Loren: I can honestly say that I have enjoyed most of the projects that I’ve done. I’ve won a number of awards. The ones that I seem to go back and enjoy the most are the ones connected with aviation. I did a number of projects in various airports in the southwest, in particular Scottsdale Airport, related to large, corporate aircraft; corporate centers that just happened to have a large aircraft as part of their corporate means of transportation. I designed a number of buildings that housed a corporation and then a hangar building, say behind a facility, that might have hangared their jet. Those have, for a number of years, been very satisfying to me.

TYG-GD: Can you give a sense of why they’re satisfying?
Loren: Well years ago I had a pilot’s license, and I flew routinely between projects located in, say, California and northern Arizona. I have not flown in a number of years, but I did enjoy being a pilot. Once you get bitten by the bug of being a pilot, I tended to like the aviation projects, staying involved with aviation.

TYG: Well, thank you so much for your time!
Loren: Oh, it’s been a pleasure! Hopefully you do a lot of research and find out exactly what you want to do and enjoy going to the university!