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t m c » p u l s e | j u n e 2 0 1 4 15 case Turkey—always occupies a very special place in your heart and soul, the country you have made home for much longer—in my case the USA—holds a similar, if not deeper place. I am lucky because I have two wonderful homes and am able to still go back and forth between the two. I cherish that. It's something that always stays with you. Q | Many architects knew very early on in life that they were drawn to design and structure. Did you always see yourself working as an architect? A | No. And I hear a lot of architects saying that they knew from childhood they were going to be architects. I had no idea. Because again, where I grew up and the schooling I had, you didn't have choices like you have in the United States. The number of choices you have here is incredible. It is very difficult to understand what I am about to tell you, but in Turkey, you would finish your high school years, go through some rig- orous exams and you would get points. So you have, say 158 points, on the entrance exams to universities. And there were only a handful of really good universities. I knew that I wanted to do some- thing that helped people. That was a broad goal. The higher education commission gives you this little card that indicates the programs that match your number of points and the univer- sities where you are entitled to register. A prestigious school of architecture in Istanbul, ITU, was one of those on my card, even though I had not thought extensively about architecture as a profession. As I was standing in line to select my program, a group of friends came by and excitedly said, 'We signed up for architecture at ITU, and we think it is much more exciting than any- thing else on your list.' That made my decision. I don't tell this story to a lot of people because it makes the choice seem so random. I want to be able to say I was always passionate about architecture. But the thing is that in a city like Istanbul, you take it for granted that architecture is rich. It has history. Maybe that had an impact on me, but it was also that I knew I wanted to do something that made a difference. I totally fell in love with architecture. It was like a highly successful arranged marriage. It's a fabulous profession. The education you get in architecture is exceptional. The practice of architec- ture is life-altering experience. I am sur- prised that more leaders don't come out of an architecture background, because of how you are taught to work, and the practice. And it's a tough profession to excel in. And it gives you some terrific skills. Occasionally I will return to Rice University and I will talk to the students about the profession, which actually wasn't a course at Rice when I was there. The curriculum was focused heavily on design and the creative process. You always thought you were this magic creator coming out of Rice, and you hit the job market and you are in a firm running blueprints on a machine and you wonder, 'where is the magic?' So I think it is nice now that they are providing professional classes where people come and talk to you about not only the profession of architecture, but of the way I have gone, off on my own road. Yes, I am an architect, but there are other ways to practice and to bring your skills to the city you love. Q | How did your career move from the classic architecture to what you are doing now at the Parks Board? A | That is something that I have thought about a lot. Graduating from architecture school, you get a job, and the job is traditionally in an architec- ture office. And that is actually quite fascinating. You get involved in all of these projects which involve a lot of different people, a lot of different cli- ents in a lot of interesting places —very rewarding. At one point after I had my daughter, I opened my own business. That proved to be difficult because cash flow become an issue. Some months you are good, some months are not so good. So when I was approached by the Hermann Park group, and they said they needed someone to oversee the capital projects, I thought that was very attractive. So I joined them to start building all of their capital proj- ects and shortly after, I became their executive director. During my years at the Hermann Park Conservancy I met Laurie Olin, who is a world renowned landscape architect, urban planner, who helped us do a lot of the planning and thinking about Hermann Park. And talk about magical…he was probably the most magical person I have met in terms of his ability to think through things and then suddenly crystalize it on paper, and then make the same thing happen on the ground. So under his influence, I started moving away from traditional architecture, and started going into the parks/urban design world. I have since stayed there as well as in the private non-profit world. A non-profit world is a slightly different arena to work in, as is the municipal government where I spent a couple of years after my work at Hermann Park. I was the director of Parks and Recreation for the City of Houston for a period of two, very educational, years. You see life from a very different angle and you understand the bureaucracy involved, and why it is there, and you understand the checks and balances and all of the political maneuverings that happen there. After those two years, I came back to the non-profit arena with the Parks Board, and I have stayed here since. The beauty of where I am is it just allows me to do things like the bayous greenway projects and the projects that very few people in this country are lucky enough to be involved in. Q | Please tell us more about the his- tory of the bayous greenway program. A | A lot of people don't know what a bayou is. It is a slow-moving waterway. Our bayou corridors are beautiful and collectively represent very special happenings in Houston. There is no other city of our size and our growth that has this kind of beauty in the midst of it, crisscrossing across the whole city. So, for the purpose of equitable distribution, as we started acquiring lands and building trail segments along the bayou corridors at the Parks Board, we also remembered a plan established more than 100 years ago. In 1912, Arthur Comey—a well-respected urban planner and landscape architect, was commis- sioned to come to our city and do a general plan, part of which was a plan for the parks system. That was quite for- ward thinking of our city leaders at that time. A hundred years ago, Houston was much smaller, but Comey laid out the vision of creating continuous green- ways along our bayou corridors since he believed they were the most significant natural resource our city was blessed with. I read his book again recently and the vision that the gentleman put forth, remains amazingly valid today. As we grow our city exponentially, we must take advantage of these beautiful eco- logical corridors. So once we realized the huge opportunity of completing Comey's plan to create an equitable distribution of green spaces, the stars suddenly lined up. Leadership was supportive and there was a lot of sentiment in the community that these are assets that we need to value, which wasn't neces- sarily appreciated thirty-five years ago when I came to Houston. But over the thirty-five or more years I have been here, I have seen a change in the way we the community embraces this city. So, with this fresh perspective, along with leadership commitment, and our board, we crafted a grand program along the greenways. Our foundation idea from Comey set a hundred years ago, makes even more sense today. We had a bond election in late 2012. Prior to the bond election, we embarked on a significant campaign to educate the citizens, and it passed with the highest margin of all other bond referendums in the city. It surpassed all other bond elections with an approval rating of 68.2 percent—a very rewarding outcome. We now have a pretty strong mandate, and have already privately raised more than $75 million to match the $100 million of bond funds dedi- cated to the greenways in the city of Houston. There is no turning back. It is a long-term initiative, and once it is done, we will experience Houston very differently. Q | How is Houston changing as a result of Bayou Greenway program? A | Hopefully people will drive less. Hopefully as soon as visitors land here, for whatever reason, they will be made aware of the opportunities to jump on a bike, jog or walk along the scenic bayou corridors. The difference will be you will have connected green spaces, parks, nature areas, along all of the major bayou corridors in the city. You will have virtually unlimited access. This is really critical. And they will feel inviting and safe. "Safe" is a very tricky word to use, so I use it very carefully. Because what makes places like these greenways safe is the level of use.