In spite of the August heat we've been maintaining a steady clip. Everyone is working on multiple projects and then there are those extra curricular activities. To be honest, most are educational, such as  the monthly lunch presentations given by product representatives. Last week we oohed and aahed over the Sub Zero and Wolf appliances while stuffing our faces with pasta, sandwiches, salads, and an assortment of moist, chewy cookies. The generous rep provided enough food to feed a small city but 11 of us did manage to make a dent. What we couldn't eat we gave to our hungry intern, James, then forced the remaining containers into every corner of our Thermador refrigerator........... 

But it's not all about us and what we can fork in our mouths. We do think charitable thoughts and even act on them. In fact, we're particpating in an upcoming event called Canstruction in which teams design and build sculptures out of cans of food, which are then donated to the local food bank. It's an amazing event and we're pretty excited about our design. That's all we can tell you until after October 4, when we construct our design at the mall in Sherman Oaks. Until then picture this: lots and lots of cans piled on other cans. 

Now that we've recovered from our loss, we're ready to announce that our longtime co-worker and pal, Kate, left us to pursue a MBA at UCLA. We applaud her ambition and know she'll do great things in grad school but dang it, we miss her! We're also jealous, Kate doesn't start school until September but needed the summer to "relax" and "travel." Whatever.

While no one will be able to fill her flip-flops we are pleaesd to announce a new addition to our office. He goes by the name, Mark Przekop, and let me tell you, this guy has a tremendous amount of experience - over 27 years in the architecture profession, 7 years of college, which includes a M.Arch from Cal Poly University, San Luis Obispo, and a B.A. in Architecture from Stanford. And, he's a licensed architect to boot. Mark joined RPA as a Project Architect, overseeing drawings on a number of our projects but mainly handling the Barn Lofts adaptive reuse project in Downtown L.A. It's a challenging one but also a very cool development - we're happy that Mark is here to guide it through completion. 

Mark is being shy about having his photo taken so I scoured the internet in search of someone he most closely resembles. I think this works......