Transcript

My name is Lea Ann Lorzel. I am a senior construction Administrator. I’ve been at ARCHSOL for seven years. I’ve been in the profession for 20 years. Um, what got me into the profession, it’s actually in healthcare design and architecture specifically, I was. Is luckily assigned to a firm that specialized in healthcare architecture as a student intern at ASU, and lucky for me, it turned out I found it interesting, engaging, and in a career that I wanted to pursue in that path.

As in an niche part of architecture itself and getting into healthcare design from an early part of my career, I ended up wanting to explore new things at one point and made a venture out into other types of architecture, into construction, into other things, and found. I, where I started is where I wanted to be.

And that healthcare design and construction in itself was, it was detail-oriented. It was engaging, it was solving problems that you don’t see in any other type of design that I really missed. And so these past 7, 8, 9 years being back in healthcare have been where? Truly find myself at home as far as who’s inspired me.

Um, architecture’s a family affair for me, and anyone who knows me knows I talk about my mentor, who is mine. My mommy is my mentor. She, um, is an architect. She’s been in the industry for many years. She’s well-known in the valley as well. She’s not necessarily in healthcare architecture, but she and I, we talk shop all the time, and it’s just having someone who understands our industry as my mentor since before I even left high school, has.

Monumental for me, and I still love talking shop with mom at dinner. And we, we, we bore everyone else to death, but we, we love what we do and we love where we’re at. Experience what you can early to find the niche that works for you. I, I obviously took a less-than-traditional path, being that I’m in construction administration.

Um, it’s different. Part of architecture is a lot of times overlooked, especially early in a career. I found when I started getting into the construction aspect of design, that that’s where my passion was. I love solving problems in the field. I love getting dirty, getting under countertops, getting up ladders, and making sure that the designs that other people in our office.

Have worked so hard to put together, are built properly, and are what the users want or what our clients want. And so I’ve discovered that younger in my career as experiencing all parts of architecture is you may not necessarily be in design every day and that may not be where you wanna be. And that’s okay.

I don’t put my hands in design very much. That’s where I wanna be and it’s, I find it interesting and engaging to put our buildings together and to interact with our contractors and our clients in that way. So I, I say jump in. You may find some aspect of design and, and architecture and construction that you never knew was a part of our profession that you never heard about in school, but, Sparks an interest and a passion.

it’s okay to get dirty in this profession. I’m covered in dust all the time. I may have traded in my fun heels and fun clothes for sensible shoes and things that I don’t mind getting dirty, but that’s, that’s okay. It’s. It’s so much fun to, to see our, to see our designs come to life and to make sure that that happens the way that it’s supposed to.