Every month we’ll be touching base with past 40 Under 40 honorees to see what’s been happening in their professional and personal lives since winning the award. (U40 alums are invited to participate by sending an update to: jhigginbotham@sgcmail.com.) This month: An accomplished author of test-prep books and an architect who headed to China when the American economy turned sour.
HOLLY WILLIAMS LEPPO
AIA, LEED AP BD+C
Vice President,
Principal Architect
SMB&R, Camp HIll, Pa.
Class of 2009
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Leppo continues as Principal Architect at SMB&R, a design and structural engineering firm. Recent work includes a 72,000-sf office building and numerous adaptive reuse and renovation projects.
Since 2009, she has continued to write and publish exam review books for Professional Publications Inc. The latest: a series covering the Green Associate and LEED AP BD+C, ID+C, O+M, and Homes exams.
EXTRACURRICULAR
Received the Penn State Alumni Association Alumni Achievement Award in 2010, as well as the Young Alumni Award for Distinction from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, Washington University in St. Louis.
Named one of 25 Women of Influence in central Pennsylvania by the Central Penn Business Journal in 2011.
Named to the Board of Directors of the Central Pennsylvania AIA in 2010.
Serves on the Board of Directors of Central Pennsylvania for Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership, an international development organization for high school students.
OFF THE CLOCK
Leppo stays busy raising two young sons while grappling with a residential reconstruction job. “I am still—still!—working on fixing up our old farmhouse. This is a never-ending project.”
CLAY VOGEL, AIA
Co-President, Design Principal
KaziaLi Design Collaborative
Tianjin, People’s Republic of China
Class of 2008
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
In the wake of the 2008 economic crash—which devastated his Chicago firm, Kazia Design Collaborative—Vogel joined forces with Chinese partner Li Chunguang to regroup in Tianjin. Renamed KaziaLi, the firm later expanded to London and Shanghai, and re-established Chicago operations through an alliance with PFB Architects. Currently eyeing growth opportunities in Africa and India.
Working on: Changhong Electric Technology Company’s International R&D Center in Chengdu, comprising 38-floor and 20-floor office towers connected by a 10,000-sm podium level for amenities, plus a 2,000-sm museum and exhibition space. The design incorporates both Western and feng shui principles.
EXTRACURRICULAR
In 2010, Vogel opened a real estate firm to deal with development issues outside the scope of the primary architectural practice.
With local partner Wang Jianli, KaziaLi recently built a pro bono facility for the 200-student Chihui School in Tibet, which had formerly operated only in tents.
OFF THE CLOCK
Vogel often combines work with recreational travel, from the grasslands of Inner Mongolia to the mountains of Sichuan to the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong. “Having an open mind and a willingness to accept other people’s culture has landed me in tricky business dinners where I have consumed snake’s blood and the gallbladder, ears, feet, lungs, and hearts of various other animals,” he says.
Related Stories
| May 31, 2012
2011 Reconstruction Award Profile: Seegers Student Union at Muhlenberg College
Seegers Student Union at Muhlenberg College has been reconstructed to serve as the core of social life on campus.
| May 31, 2012
2011 Reconstruction Awards Profile: Ka Makani Community Center
An abandoned historic structure gains a new life as the focal point of a legendary military district in Hawaii.
| May 31, 2012
5 military construction trends
Defense spending may be down somewhat, but there’s still plenty of project dollars out there if you know where to look.
| May 31, 2012
New School’s University Center in NYC topped out
16-story will provide new focal point for campus.
| May 31, 2012
Day & Zimmermann taps Jobe for ECM VP
Ken Jobe, a senior executive with 30+ years of industry-related experience, joins Day & Zimmermann to expand footprint in the process & industrial markets.
| May 31, 2012
Perkins+Will-designed engineering building at University of Buffalo opens
Clad in glass and copper-colored panels, the three-story building thrusts outward from the core of the campus to establish a new identity for the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the campus at large.
| May 30, 2012
Construction milestone reached for $1B expansion of San Diego International Airport
Components of the $9-million structural concrete construction phase included a 700-foot-long, below-grade baggage-handling tunnel; metal decks covered in poured-in-place concrete; slab-on-grade for the new terminal; and 10 exterior architectural columns––each 56-feet tall and erected at a 14-degree angle.
| May 30, 2012
Pringle Brandon in discussions to join forces with Perkins+Will
The London offices would be known as Pringle Brandon Perkins+Will.
| May 30, 2012
Boral Bricks announces winners of “Live.Work.Learn” student architecture contest
Eun Grace Ko, a student at the Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada, named winner of annual contest.