about me...

I'm  a recently minted Architect (yay! April 2018!) and a Project Manager by-profession… but frankly, I’m a tenacious arty nerd who tries hard at *everything.*

I was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii from Filipino immigrant parents. I attended Radford High School (go rams!) and went on to the University of Hawaii at Manoa to complete my Doctor of Architecture. My doctorate project was on ecotourism in the Philippines. My graduate work satisfied my desire to delve deep into my cultural heritage and connect my heritage with my craft. In my time in the architectural profession, I’ve worked in San Francisco, Hong Kong, Honolulu, Guam and Seattle. I was primarily focused on hospitality projects and sustainable design earlier on in my career and eventually evolved into being production focused on highly technical and specialized projects. Since then, I’ve landed in the more political and orchestrative realm of the architectural profession and have found being a project manager to fit and develop my personality the best. I’ve recently moved back home (November 2015) to Honolulu on rather somber circumstances: to be with my aging parents, dropping the life I had made in Seattle.

Despite reservations, I moved back home in an environment that I almost felt suffocating growing up in (to those of us from any small island, we call it "rock fever"). I took my return home as an opportunity to make back a childhood I didn't really have and to "fill my cup" considering what I gave up when I left Seattle: a well-networked career path and a marriage engagement. Now, my priority is to "live the dream" on my own terms, even if it's just solely on my own. To do so, I'm aggressively expanding my comfort zone because I've been told and wholly believe that THAT is where the *magic* happens. In the process, I'm rediscovering life dreams I completely forgot about and pursuing them with maximum vigor, two specifically: (1) learning how to surf and (2) becoming an "artist." This... this is definitely Living The Dream.