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comments from Frank PItts FAIA December 3 2014

By Mike A. Mense FAIA Member Emeritus posted 12-10-2014 05:19 PM

  
I really appreciated this slide show. Thank you for sharing it. For what it’s worth, here’s what I said in a very short speech at the 2014 Convention afrer lamenting our focus on the famous few at grass roots:
Speech at AIA National Convention: Francis Pitts
June 26, 2014
Debbie and I have two daughters.
Our oldest, Annelise, is a graduate architect working for a really good firm in San Francisco.
Her decision to become an architect was a surprise. It was based upon a promise that this profession has; that the life of an architect is a life of real value.
Annelise’s decision had an impact on me. After 30 years as a volunteer in the AIA, I realized that I owed something not just to the profession but also to my daughter; that she deserved to benefit from the promise that she saw in architecture; that, finally, we needed to deliver on that promise to ourselves.
I graduated from school in 1976 into the teeth of the worst recession the US had seen since the Second World War. Jobs didn’t exit. Friends of mine travelled thousands of miles and settled in new places on the hope of getting a job, And if we did we were paid pennies.
We faced other challenges. We wanted to be of service to our communities and there weren’t great practice models for that. There was an energy crisis and sustainability was a huge driver and we knew next to nothing about that. Technology was changing how we were practicing and how that technology worked was all alien to us. Building technologies began to rapidly change and, finally, our role in the construction industry was eroding.
Thirty years later many of those same problems exist. But I’m taking heart in the great successes that we have had in the knowledge arena, and in the technology arena, and in the sustainability arena; because we have had a quiet, purposeful focus in those areas and we have had great success in changing practice in those arenas and we are inevitably changing the architect’s roles in the industry because of those successes.
We need a similar focus on the value that we bring to clients and community.
I think that the solution to our prosperity problem lies in clients and communities understanding the value that we bring. I’m not sure that we always understand the value that we bring. We don’t often hear each others stories about that. It’s hard to tell our stories if we don’t know them ourselves.
It’s time that we focus our attention on understanding how architects bring value; the many ways that we do it; the different ways that we do it, And it is time that we tell our stories. It is in hearing those stories that people come to understand the value that we bring. And in that understanding lies the promise of our prosperity.
So join me. Join me in in honoring my daughter’s commitment. Join me in honoring your own commitment. Let’s focus on delivering a message about our value so that architects have greater prosperity. My name is Frank Pitts. I have been proud to serve you. I welcome your vote. I ask for your vote as Vice President.
P.S. I love design and the high art of architecture and believe in the avant garde…..just not at the expense of everything else. I have collaborated successfully with AIA and Canadian Gold Medalists. I’m not a heathen….just focued on what is possible for the rest of us.
Frank

Francis Murdock Pitts FAIA FACHA OAA
President
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