|
||||
Interior Design
Betsy Sanchez (BFA, Interior Design 2010)
Hospital Corporation of America, Nashville, Tenn.
Betsy Sanchez spent 16 years of her professional life as a radiation therapist, helping oncologist teams treat patients with cancer and other diseases. But in 2008, Betsy decided she wanted to pursue a different career path. So she returned to school, this time to earn an interior design degree.
Even during her time at O'More, Betsy never left the healthcare world. She simply made the transition from radiation therapist to medical equipment manager for Hospital Corporation of America's (HCA) design and construction division after graduation - a job that incorporates both her clinical experience and her interior design degree. Though she didn't expect it, Betsy says she's found a career that merged two very different interests.
"This was a marriage made in heaven, the perfect job for me," she says. "I've been able to combine my design education with my clinical background."
What won her the job in the company's design and construction area, she says, was her O'More degree coupled with the years she spent in healthcare.
"Because we're over the construction and renovation of each building, the department is full of architects. But for this position, they needed a healthcare background," she says. "I told him I also had an interior design degree, and I had the exact combination of skill sets that they were looking for."
Betsy is responsible for purchasing all medical equipment, furniture, artwork and textiles for new or renovated HCA hospitals across the country. It entails more than ordering from catalogs and managing product arrival dates: she also works with architects and designers to ensure devices fit within the space it's designed for, and that rooms are sensibly laid out. Further along in construction phases, Betsy is even on site at facilities to check on details like the location of electricity outlets and drains.
"If I'm here in the office, I'm in a management role. I put together equipment lists, make sure each room has its proper materials, and make sure everything is on schedule," she says. "But I also know how to read plans, so I'm in design development meetings to go over construction documents with everyone and talk through the rooms: ‘Are they big enough? Should this piece be in another room?'"
Because Betsy plays different parts in various projects, she says the job is a constant juggle between roles.
"I'm working on ten different hospitals right now, all in different design phases," she says. "But I love it because there is always something new."
While at O'More, Betsy planned to pursue commercial design. She held an internship with Nashville's Hastings Architecture Associates, and tailored her schedule towards that field. She says that in retrospect, her professors recognized where her talent stood.
"[Department chair] David Koellein always said I needed to go into health care design but I resisted," she says. "My senior project was a comprehensive cancer center, and the instructors also urged me in the direction at the end of the presentation. Looking back, I realize they knew."
She says her appreciation for O'More professors stems from past experiences.
"The faculty there really knows what they are doing, and I can't give them enough credit," she says. "At the college I earned my first degree from, it was so huge that the instructor couldn't care less whether you were there or not. Not at O'More."
Betsy says the relationships she cultivated between the College's professors went beyond surface level.
"They were friends, not just teachers," she says. "I felt very fortunate to have that special student-teacher relationship."
"I'm glad 100 times over that I chose O'More."
Lauren Stebbins (BFA, Interior Design 2009)
Jamie Beckwith Collection®, Nashville, Tenn.
Lauren Stebbins plays so many roles in her job at The Jamie Beckwith Collection® that she can't fit them all on her business card. Officially, she's the company's director of operations--but that title doesn't do justice to all the hats that she wears.
Some days she's a designer, helping clients tailor their own pattern to the collection's custom wood flooring. Other days Lauren is the leading sales lady, traveling to showrooms in twelve different states. And still she finds time to work hand in hand with design firms across the country, helping individuals layout flooring or specific patterns in his or her space.
"I do everything from design work to setting up and educating our showrooms. I've been in our production facility with sawdust and stain. I program the files for our CNC router to cut out patterns," Lauren says. "It's been a learning curve, and it has been so rewarding."
The Jamie Beckwith Collection® manufactures wood surfacing materials, each luxury product completely custom and produced within the Beckwith company's facility in Nashville. It sells both routed-out wood tiles and multi-dimensional wood surfacing materials for walls and flooring. Its four collections--Enigma, Projection, Mosaic and Embellished--of hardwood tiles concentrate on organic materials and the traditional warmth of wood.
Lauren says her aforementioned roles at the brand have benefited from her degree choice.
"It's definitely helped from several perspectives to have that design background," Lauren says. "From a sales point, it allows me to better translate the product to people. From a design point, I'm utilizing my interior design degree and working in CAD all the time."
Lauren began interning her senior year with Beckwith Interiors, the Nashville interior design firm and showroom that is the parent company of The Jamie Beckwith Collection®. She says she was immediately drawn to owner Jamie Beckwith and her professional direction.
"The environment of the office was fun, and I really connected with Jamie's design aesthetic," Lauren says. "It's much more transitional than traditional: modern and clean lines. I really appreciated her portfolio."
Beckwith Interiors offered Lauren a job immediately after graduation. She began as a residential designer, eventually making the jump to The Jamie Beckwith Collection® when it launched in 2010.
"I made the transition when Jamie wanted to take it all in-house," she says. "I wanted to part of that because I saw this is where her heart and passion was."
Lauren says though she's deviated from the interior design world, she was able to take a lot of her knowledge to the new opportunity.
"The interior residential world is such a different ballgame. You almost have to be people's psychologist, which wasn't for me," Lauren laughs. "But it was a great learning experience, and I still get to do both product and interior design in my job now."
Though it's a relatively new business, The Jamie Beckwith Collection® has already been recognized by industry media: it won both the National Wood Flooring Association's "Wood Floor of the Year" and Interior Design magazine's "Best of Green Flooring" in 2011.
Lauren says The Jamie Beckwith Collection® is considered a sustainable company, concentrating its efforts on environmentally-friendly finishes and sourcing materials locally. Buildings can earn LEED credits by using Beckwith products: their facility is free of harsh chemicals and its products are rid of volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
"I really enjoyed Kelly Gore's sustainability class at O'More, and it's become something that's really important to me," Lauren says. "That's part of why I love what I do. It's about finding a better meaning in it all."
Lauren says the collaborative and competitive nature of O'More prepared her in her professional life.
"O'More promotes this real world experience that I didn't get at the other colleges I came from. The professors aren't there to dictate what you do, but to push you as a person and designer," she says. "They teach you to work as a team, and emphasize presentations--both big parts of my job."
Lauren says the eclectic mix of personalities at O'More has played to her advantage in the professional world.
"Our company gets a lot of business from fashion, travel and art-based brands and in retrospect I realize I was in a great College environment that prepared me for this," she says. "You're surrounded by a pool of creative people."
"Students at O'More should really foster those relationships outside their major and understand they can use it as a networking tool after College."
To learn more about The Jamie Beckwith Collection® visit its website at www.jamiebeckwithcollection.com.
Finis Ray (BFA Interior Design, 2011)
College of the Built Environment, University of Washington, Seattle, Wa.
Finis Ray wants to design cemeteries. He's currently earning his masters in both Urban Planning and Landscape Architecture at the University of Washington. When he's done, he wants to use the dual degree to build on his O'More senior studio project: a sustainable funerary complex for re-imagined death rituals.
Finis says his motivation for this unique aim lies in preserving time and place in a way that connects individuals to the specific area. He hopes to create spaces more emotionally moving than the cemeteries tacked to the sides of highways.
"You can see in older parts of Europe beautiful places that help citizens feel rooted in cities because their loved ones are there," he says. "The people that die were part of a community, and that needs to be preserved in a way that's good for all."
Finis references several old urban cemeteries in Paris, places that have met public success through serving dual roles as park and burial ground.
"People come to them for connection to a person and a beautiful place," he says. "We look for something like that to latch onto after the death of a loved one, and I want to design places of reflection."
Though the Dyersburg, Tenn. native's career aspirations fill a particular niche you won't find in the Yellow Pages, he says he believes burial beautification is something that the culture has overlooked far too long.
"The profession I want to go into really doesn't exist, which is something I'll have to figure out," Finis says. "But I think there's a need we are not filling here that's been done throughout history."
And if the cemetery design doesn't work out, Finis has long been interested in sustainable interior design. The idea for Finis's senior project - a sustainable funeral home and cemetery - was the product of two classes at O'More: an urban design course taught by interior design department chair David Koellein, and instructor Kelly Gore's sustainability class. He married his curiosity around cemeteries with his previous passion for sustainable infrastructures.
"In those two classes, I discovered it all worked together. That's what started my interest in creating communities that are self-sufficient," he says. "People have removed themselves from the natural cycle of life, and sustainability is about bringing people back to understanding our place in the world."
Before he discovered his love of design, Finis was drowning in a major he wasn't interested in at another university. After encouragement from a mentor, he enrolled at O'More. He says he chose interior design because he thought it to be the most personable degree.
"I wanted to design things for people to better suit their everyday lives. I've always been very interested in people," he says. "I think there's a common thread of people in the interdisciplinary studies I'm pursuing now."
While at the College, Finis says two particular influences were instrumental in his design development. The first, an internship with the Nashville Civic Design Center. The second was a certain set of interior design instructors who shaped his four years at O'More: David Koellein, Kelly Gore and Rebecca Andrews.
"I think I could speak on behalf of the people I graduated with and say that the professors had a huge impact on our lives," he says. "There's something about O'More where you learn about friendship and community."
Finis says the collaborative aspect of the College's curriculum was an important precursor to his future profession.
"The best part about O'More is you really become a family," he says. "You learn to work with people and become a family that's really concerned about the progress of the world."
Sara McFall (BFA Interior Design, 2007)
Never Grow Up, Inc., Nashville, Tenn.
Sara McFall understands why some may think her job is removed from the interior design degree she earned at O'More. But as the program coordinator for Never Grow Up, Inc. - Nashville's fastest growing childcare company - Sara says she uses the training she received from the school in every aspect of her work.
"I've been able to blend my studies at O'More with my experience in childcare to help our centers in both form and function," she says. "O'More always pushed you to develop a strong concept and then let your creative process center around that idea. That kind of exercise has been huge for me."
Never Grow Up is the parent company for both Holly Tree Christian Preschools, and The Academy Preschools and Child Development Centers in the middle Tennessee area. The Academy has been voted "Best of Parenting in Williamson County" by Nashville Parent magazine four consecutive years. As the company's program coordinator, Sara creates features and class curriculum that are unique to the schools. She also plans several events each year.
The Academy has grown by leaps and bounds under Never Grow Up, which took over six years ago. Since Sara started at The Academy in 2003, she has been directly involved with four new pre-school openings, and the company plans to expand The Academy from six to eight facilities by the end of 2012.
With each new school, the Never Grow Up management team works with architects and builders, and Sara plays a prominent role in the process.
"Just reading the plans is huge, because I'm the only one on the team that has training in that," she says. "The basic backbones I received at O'More have come into play with the job."
Sara rattles off a list of examples, from timelines and knowledge of different materials to color theory and public speaking. Currently, she's using her interior design degree to help the team design a new Never Grow Up office space. The idea is to include chlldhood memories that work to produce a fun environment for all. The space will include a ping pong table that doubles as a conference table, and "playground" rules for the office setting.
She also mentions the nature of O'More's classroom instruction and the impact it has made in her work.
"At O'More, you don't stay in between those walls. We went to parks and construction sites," Sara says. "And these are the teacher's projects, so they give a realistic view of challenges in the real world."
The sense of community on the O'More campus was a large part of what drew Sara away from the University of Alabama - where the Florence, Ala., native had expected to go - and encouraged her to pursue an education at O'More. She talks about an advisor who took her to lunch instead of having a meeting, and the relationships she made while at the school.
"Everyone knew about one another's lives and really cared," she says."And not just student to student, but student to teacher to faculty to student."
She says that the team mentality that prevails daily between the six management team members at Never Grow Up is an aspect she finds familiar.
"The attitude at O'More was so inspiring. Even if it was a solo project, you were automatically acting as a team because the class was so close," Sara says. "It's almost electric to be around that many creative people all the time. It blows your mind to see what people come up with.
"It's the same at Never Grow Up - all hands on deck!"
Sara remains interested in O'More's continued advancement, because she remembers being encouraged as a student to participate in the vision of the school.
"There is something special about the way O'More allows students to be vocal about the growth of the College," she says.
For Sara, the steady success she sees at O'More mirrors the expansion in her own life.
"My job didn't exist three years ago. I'm very aware of how blessed I am to work for a company that is as dynamic as O'More."
Jonathan Savage (BFA Interior Design, 2008)
Jonathan Savage, Nashville, Tenn.
Good taste is practically in Jonathan Savage's DNA. Growing up on a farm in rural Middle Tennessee, he was first drawn to design through his family’s appreciation of sentimental heirlooms that made up the decor throughout his
Born into a family of real estate developers and homebuilders, Savage developed an appreciation of aesthetics at a young age. So when he decided to attend design school and pursue his passion for interiors, it didn’t come as a surprise to those who knew him.
Savage’s initial desire to attend O’More was triggered during his time at American University in London, where he was enrolled to study international business. After taking an interior design class, Savage realized this was the path he was meant to pursue — something that everyone at O’more said he had a knack for.
“As a child I was creative and knew design was a field I was fascinated by. Lovely homes always got my attention,” he says. “O’More provided the educational foundation I needed to successfully pursue a career in residential interior design, and I am very thankful for the education I received.”
While at O’More, Savage interned at Owen and Mandolfo, Inc. in New York, where he gained some hands-on experience that lead him back to the Big Apple after graduation. Upon returning to the city, he was offered a job with one of New York’s top designers, David Kleinberg, where he spent time working on projects in the city, as well as in the Hamptons and across the United States.
“The success of a project is rooted in the ‘one-on-one’ time, where you have the opportunity to get to know your client and learn their style and taste,” he says. “Based on the design projects I did at O’More and through my experience as a New York designer, I knew I wanted to design homes and make spaces where my clients’ tastes surround them. A successful interior is one where my clients feel at ease and have their precious keepsakes displayed throughout their home.”
Today, Savage has his own firm in Nashville, specializing in high-end residential design. He spends a majority of his time traveling the country, working on projects from New York to Nashville, Pittsburgh and Palm Beach, helping families create their own unique environment. His work differs in style, depending on the client’s preference, ranging from modern and minimal to transitional, his personal favorite being the latter.
The transitional style suits the Nashville design market, he says, because of it’s mix between traditional and contemporary. He works with his clients through all stages of the design process, Savage says.
His full-service firm offers a variety of services, ranging from custom furniture designs to the occasional one-of-a-kind fabric. He attributes his early success to the formal education he received at O’More, and to his ability to successfully execute the “tricks of the trade” in Nashville that he learned from the best in New York. In his first year back, he’s already been profiled as an emerging designer in Nashville Lifestyles and Atlanta’s Design Is.
Savage has plenty more on the horizon, which could include a home furnishings line and more. Visit his website at www.ljonathansavage.com to peruse his most recent projects.
Crysta Parish (BFA Interior Design, 2001)
Dana Goodman Interiors, Nashville, Tenn.
When Crysta Allsbrooks Parish began interning at Dana Goodman Interiors (DGI), she was a sophomore at O'More College of Design. Thirteen years later, Crysta is still designing with DGI, but she's taken on a completely different role since her first stint in 1999. Crysta has come full circle from her time at O'More - she's now mentoring intern Amanda Martin, a current O'More interior design student.
"To me, this is a true pay it forward story," says DGI owner Dana Goodman. "She makes me so proud as my star senior designer."
Crysta has managed her own clients at the interior design and decorating firm since 2006. Specializing in high-end residential homes, her projects from the past year include The Terrazzo and ICON in the Gulch in downtown Nashville, The Historic Brownstones in downtown Franklin, and several Belle Meade residences. Crysta also works with contractors, from floor plans and designing remodels to elevation drawings.
She says that her education at O'More and the structure of the curriculum helped launch her into the workplace with solid experience.
"Our instructors would bring real-life situations and projects into the classroom for us to solve as students," Crysta says. "The interior design program at O'More puts heavy emphasis on the technical and architectural end of the degree. That has helped me the most in the design field."
Between juggling a full workload, her own interns and a family, Crysta says she learned something else at O'More that's been critical to her success.
"The rigorous work load and high standards taught there instilled a work ethic that carried over into my professional career," she says.
Crysta says the DGI team makes sure to give their interns the same opportunities and hands-on projects that she experienced when she was a student intern from O'More. This includes consultations with clients, job site visits with contractors, furniture installations and buying trips.
"I learned so much being an intern and employee of Dana," Crysta says. "I love to try to expose our interns now to the same experiences that she offered me many years ago."
Crysta says that "it's amazing" to observe the work ethic and creativity of O'More interns at DGI, and especially poignant as she remembers being the girl in their position only a few years ago.
"There is a certain expected 'standard' that we now have as designers and employers that O'More has delivered throughout the years," Crysta says. "It makes me proud to be an alumni and proves to me that O'More is definitely an ‘Ivy League' among design schools."
Leah Robison (BFA Interior Design, 2011)
Smith Gee Studio, Nashville, Tenn.
Leah Robison is no stranger to hard work - she grabbed three internships while completing her interior design degree, and worked a part-time job for an architect in the midst of her senior year. That diligence helped Leah earn a position at the Nashville architectural firm Smith Gee Studio, where she does everything from graphic design work to interior build-outs and documentation.
"I've always been attracted to the arts and all types of design," Leah says. "My focused interest is in the built environment and how spaces influence people."
As the only employee with an interior design degree in the full-service firm, Leah has become an integral part of the company within a few short months of graduation. She's participated in multiple projects for restaurants, businesses, and multi-family buildings since her start in September. For her, design is about eliminating any disconnection between spaces and people.
"We create spaces that work cohesively with the user in each particular situation," she says.
The Tennessee native began her college career studying studio art at Belmont University in Nashville. Through her initial classes, Leah realized she needed to make the jump to interior design.
"I wanted to do something that interacted with people on a more personal level, and that's what led me to O'More," she says. "Interior design is a good base to have, even if you are going to explore different types of design."
Leah says the familial aspects of O'More's program were a major player in her early success. Two of her internships came from suggestions inside the College, and she made the connection to Smith Gee by way of O'More Interior Design Chair David Koellein.
"There were several teachers who really understood my philosophies on design," Leah says. "They're able to do that because they get to know the students so well."
Leah's love for all things design is evident in her previous internships. She worked in the creative department at Big Machine Records, helping with set design on music videos and photo shoots. She crafted clever displays at Anthropologie, a women's clothing store known for its innovative interiors. And she got a firm grasp on the architectural world at her internship and six-month stint at Polifilo.
She says O'More was an outlet to develop these diverse tastes.
"David (Koellein) really let me explore my interests and try a lot of things through my internships," she says. "The classes at O'More encourage students to figure out their personal philosophy on design, and I think that's the most important thing a designer can discover."
"O'More is focused on the technical aspects of interior design, but they really encourage you to figure out what type of design career will fulfill you and positively impact the world."
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||||||||||