Carpentry Career Change: Become a Building Designer (Career Toolbox Podcast)

When you know how hard it is to build a complicated roof, you tend to start designing roofs that look attractive but maybe aren't quite as complicated, so that the affordability aspect of the house is there. You're building in the value engineering in the beginning of the process instead of designing the house and having it valued engineered after it's done.

—Steve Mickley, Executive Director, American Institute of Building Design

Welcome to ProTradeCraft's Career Toolbox. I'm Fernando Pagés, and I'm here to help you turn your day job into a career.

Not all construction careers end in construction. Some veer off into related fields such as insurance adjusting, building inspections, and even drafting. Today, we will explore one avenue that takes what you learn on the job site and applies it to the drawing board. Steve Mickley represents the American Institute of Building Design, or AIBD, an organization that provides training and certification for professional drafts people.

Until AIBD, the organization Steve represents, the designers without membership were a scattered group, some very capable of creating beautiful homes. Steve's organization united them, providing professional recognition through a national certification, recognized by Building and Safety in many municipalities. As a successful designer, I want to know how Steve went from the job site to the drafting table, and how the experience of working in construction informs his architectural practice.

Hello, Steve, and welcome to the ProTradeCraft Career Toolbox. How are you today?

01:40 SM: Wonderful. Thanks, Fernando, for the invitation.

01:44 FP: Steve the reason I invited you today was to learn about something you said to me at this year's American Institute Building Design conference in Houston. More about that later, by the way. Namely that in your practice as a building designer, and you are a professional building designer, you prefer to train lumber humping, nail back cowboys and cowgirls over hiring [02:07] ____ Design School graduates. Why?

02:10 SM: Well, first of all, primarily, I worked in the South, so it was easy, especially in the summertime, to convince people to come out of the heat and work in an air conditioned office. So the sales pitch was very easy, at least to get their attention. But the other reason is, is that a lot of times the schools these days, it seems as though they're teaching a lot of theory, they're teaching some concept, the strokes are getting so broad that when it comes to hiring someone to put together a set of construction drawings, that level of instruction just doesn't seem to happen yet until they get into the field.

02:52 SM: By getting somebody that's already been out in the field, they understand how a building goes together, they've been working with the pieces that we're going to display visually in a set of drawings. It's easier to teach them to use the software, in my opinion, than it is to teach them how to build a house. So that wealth of knowledge of being able to put something together and then me being able to teach them how to communicate that visually seems to work more smoothly for me anyways, maybe it's my teaching techniques. I used to be a carpenter, that's how I started first, is a building. And then in the 1990s, decided that design was the part of the process that I had the most passion for, especially seeing the software I used.

03:42 SM: Back in the '90s I started using SoftPlan, and I think it was version 9 at the time, so it had been around for quite a while. And it was 3D software, what we call now BIM, Building Information Modeling. At any rate, by putting things together, the way the software works, SoftPlan, it was putting the entities. You would actually put the wall in place and then you would put openings in the wall, and it's still that way. And there's a number of other softwares that worked identical as well, so it wasn't that this was that special, but it thought like a builder, and it wasn't at the time taught very widely in high schools or trade schools.

04:24 SM: I think now SoftPlans may be in 100 different schools nationwide, which is still probably just breaking the surface. But because of the way the software worked, you would get your walls placed and then you would put a roof on it, and it was all done in 3D modeling. So for me, it was easy to teach somebody that already knew the concepts of building the load path and what a cripple was, and what a stud was, and a valley, and rafter and so forth. And again, it was a great opportunity for someone to get out of the field, especially in the summertime and work in a more professional... Well, I can't say the building sites aren't professional, but in a professional office as opposed to a construction site.

05:07 FP: Now, did you have any architectural schooling yourself?

05:09 SM: I've never even taken a drafting class. I was blessed with the ability to draw. My father was a builder and my grandfather was a builder, so I started out early on job sites picking up trash and watching the process being done, and then in my early teens got the opportunity to start learning the basics in carpentry. My father used to draw his own plans and he wasn't really good at it, in my opinion, or at least he... Technically it was correct. And this is back when I was in my teens, the requirements for a set of drawings to get a permit really were basically a floor plan, possibly some electrical on the floor plan, and elevation, and a wall section.

05:51 SM: Now, those two or three pages have turned into like 15 or 20 pages as far as the amount of detail required to be able to show code compliance. So it wasn't a lot that I had to learn back then, but by watching him do it... And then I started by tracing over his drawings and just making alterations. He had a basic sales model that he had, and people would come and buy the sales model and add a third car garage or a porch to the rear, and so I would just trace over the existing plans. And then working out in the field on the weekends allowed me the opportunity to learn how the pieces went together. Then I got jobs working for other people, and I would see how they would do it. One of the greatest mentors I had as far as for hand sketching, his name is Spencer Gallagher, architect that had an office in Palm Beach. He hired me and I would sit and watch him hand sketch. And I thought, "You know what, I could do that."

06:48 SM: And so early in my career, I just developed this ability to draw free hand the elevations and the floor plans. And with the technology we had with CAD, it made it easy 'cause then I could scan it and one of the CAD techs would be able to put that sketch in the background and use the software to draw over top of it and lay out the walls, the doors, and so forth.

07:12 FP: You would trace it with the software, essentially. You'd do what you were doing.

07:15 SM: Exactly. And to this day, I still use that same process, I still do all my original... Or my first ideas are all done hand sketching.

07:25 FP: So you're a real example of what you teach in terms of taking somebody who's experienced at the job site and turning them into a designer. But what I'd like to understand is more to it than just knowing the building parts, and that is the part that they teach in college are the aesthetic aspects. So how does knowledge of how buildings go together inform your trainees in a way that helps make them be able to draw fanciful facades or hard-working kitchens, the kind of stuff that consumers want?

07:55 SM: Well, from the aspect of the Building Sciences, being able to show the section of the building, it's much easier because they understand that studs have top plates and bottom plates, and how rafters sit on top of the wall. So communicating that is much easier for them because they understand what the inside of the walls and the roof and the ceilings look like. But as far as the design aspects of it...

08:21 FP: The wow factor.

08:23 SM: The wow factor, yeah. Putting the set of construction drawings together was the first step for me. And I guess basically the first step for someone that would come to work for me is that one person would be put on floor plans let's say, or another person on foundations. And that's what they would focus on until they mastered that, and then they would work on roofs. Or it would be somebody didn't show up that day and they were forced to start learning roofs. But we would focus and you would master the technology and you would master the technical aspect, what the tie-downs are and how to determine which tie down to use. And in my world, which was mostly working in production homes, having been a builder and coming up through the industry as a builder, it was easy for me to sell my service to other builders. And I think that somebody coming from the field, when you know how hard it is to build a complicated roof, you tend to start designing roofs that look attractive, but maybe aren't quite as complicated, so that the affordability aspect of the house is there. You're building in the value engineering in the beginning of the process instead of designing the house and having it valued engineered after it's done.

09:47 FP: So there are some benefits in terms of that practical experience, limiting what... A lot of times in the field, they say, "You can draw lines on a piece of paper, it's another thing to make them sell."

09:58 SM: Absolutely, especially when you're talking about roofs or wall panels. If you know how big the materials are and you realize, "Hey, if we just made this wall for inches bigger or three inches smaller, the plywood is gonna fit perfectly and there's not gonna be any waste. Or if we redesign the roof to where we just shift it over 12 inches, now we've eliminated a girder." Those kind of things is something that would take someone years, I think, to learn having just learned drafting, let's say, and come into the field designing houses, but didn't have any construction experience.

10:33 FP: But the wow factor... That is what? Does that evolve in people, or is it like you've got the talent or you don't for that sort of thing?

10:41 SM: Yeah, I'm sorry, I forgot that part of the question. I'm more technically-minded, I had to really develop... And I'm not sure I've really gotten there yet. I've won a couple of awards, there's a lot of projects I've submitted for competitions that haven't gotten any recognition at all. What I think might be a wow factor just doesn't seem to get there with the judges. And it's funny too, 'cause there's always... When I asked this question, there's a quote from one of my friends who's a designer in Orlando, that's stuck with me now for probably two decades. He says, "Steve, there's two types of houses you're gonna design, the kind that you win awards for, and the kind you make money on."

11:19 SM: And so I've always been focused on making money and less on awards, I guess, but it still has to be proportionate. A lot of times you might have two houses, and you've probably seen this, Fernando, in a community of new homes where there might be three or four houses with very similar floor plans, but one just feels more comfortable than the other, even though the living room's in the same place, the dining room's in the same place and the kitchen's in the same place. And it has a lot to do with the proportion of the room, maybe the colors, and the ability to see out.

11:54 SM: One of the things that Sarah Susanka, architect and author, taught me when I met her and went through some of her training was, is that people actually do go towards the light. And it's not about death, it's about a hallway in your house and putting a window at the end instead of a closet. It's tempting to use that space, but there's a lot of things you can do to improve the space that makes it more livable, more healthy, more like you wanna come home every night and live in a resort and not necessarily spend a lot of money. And those are things that I had to learn along the way by meeting people like Sarah and Marianne Cusato, Jim Collins, an architect in North Carolina that's done some seminars. So having been involved in the AIBD, they have regular webinars, seminars, conferences, where you and I had just recently been speaking at one in Houston, we do that four times a year. Right now, we're looking at...

12:55 FP: So you get trained in the aesthetic aspects and then the architectural design aspects. Instead of doing it the formal way by going to school, you pick it up by reading and attending what... Just like you do, I don't know, green building, for example. You go to conferences and you listen to green builders talk. There's tricks of the trade in every trade, including in architecture.

13:18 SM: Absolutely. And now with social media, it may be even faster. LinkedIn has groups that are specialized in architecture and home design. Facebook. So it's really up to you to reach out and say, "Hey, I really would like to learn this. Can anybody help me with this? What is your ideas on this?" There's forums out there that you can actually post your drawings or your sketches. You just gotta have a little bit of thick skin because the...

13:50 FP: You'll get criticized.

13:50 SM: Yeah, the industry has an opinion and they're gonna give it to you.

13:56 FP: Especially architects, they can be cruel.

14:00 SM: No, everybody can be.

14:02 FP: So essentially... I didn't realize you were such a good example of exactly what you are promoting, is that you come out of the job site, you learned a little bit of drawing, basically tracing your dad's standard plans and making some modifications on them. And then from there, you got a little deeper into design, knowing all the parts of a building, you are able to put together working drawings, now those construction drawings were the easy part, the buildability was there. And as you went on, you got deeper into it, like one does, and you began to read some books and attend some seminars and talk to people, and get more and more into the aesthetic aspects.

14:46 FP: What I'm wondering though, in terms of probably the most daunting thing for a guy that would like to head in this direction, being in an air-conditioned office during the course of the day or maybe at his house, drawing on the computer, how difficult it is to actually pick up the drafting aspect, the architectural drafting. Do you have to spend years learning perspective drawing? What's the path today?

15:11 SM: Gosh, you know what? I know that there's a number of schools, the technical schools are coming back, thank goodness. It took us having a huge deficit of people in our field to get our educational system, I think, to realize they made a mistake by taking away some of these technical classes that used to be introduced in high school and into two-year trade schools. So you'll definitely find those. And a lot of this stuff can be done online, the type of skills we're talking about. Some of it has to be done in a lab, a lot of it requires that one-on-one feedback right away, the critiquing, but a huge percentage of it can be learned online. And there's tons of stuff, there's YouTube videos. There's a lot of times now that when I forget the exact proportion of a certain column, you can look it up on YouTube, what's the proportions for a Doric column? And there's tons of videos of people that have shared the information with them. But when you purchase the CAD system or the BIM software, and in many cases now the software companies themselves will teach you how to use it. I don't know if it's all free, I'm sure a lot of it is free, but there may be some more advanced classes.

16:29 SM: SketchUp is a modeling software that became very popular, probably because it was free for most of its lifetime. I think now they have a subscription model that's kind of tiered like most softwares. They have a conference every two years, I think it is. Base Camp, I believe. It's huge and fantastic. And not only are you able to sit there and learn about the software, but you're able to rub elbows with people that are using it at lunchtime, at breakfast and all the different networking events that these conferences have. It gives you the ability to learn tricks from other people, very much like learning how to play a video game. So much there's these cheat sheets that are available for video games, the same thing happens in our industry, and people are very open to share with you short cuts on how to use the software more rapidly, how to set up your keyboard for certain commands, and just how to be more productive as a professional.

17:32 FP: Now, does a video game background help you with learning computer-aided design?

17:36 SM: It might. I don't have a video game background. My experience goes back to Atari, back in those days, but for me...

17:45 FP: Pac-Man. [chuckle]

17:45 SM: Yeah. For me, it was very easy. I think maybe there's a logical mindset that I have that I can pick up just about any kind of software, whether it be word processing type software, accounting... Computers think very literally, and so if you can understand the literal process, then you ca figure out how it works. But I think some people, that comes more easily than others. I don't know.

18:14 FP: I would think it common in construction 'cause you have... People in construction usually have a knack for putting things together. The guy who does building is often also the guy that can assemble the barbecue or the furniture from IKEA pretty easily.

18:31 SM: Exactly, that's what I was gonna say is is it possibly that background in construction helps with that logical and being able to know math... I know... I heard it one time, actually I think I read it in the book Made to Stick where somebody explained that the reason why we lift weights isn't because we're gonna be out on the street somewhere and somebody's gonna knock us down on the sidewalk and put a dumbbell on top of us and we have to press it off, it's because we have to lift groceries or change a tire and lift things. And the same thing with math, it's not that we're going to become mathematicians or accountants or people that deal with math in our industry and design, I think we do probably use math a lot more than other people, but math teaches you how to think logically and how to solve these kind of issues when it comes to, why won't the roof come together? And it's always some form of mathematical problem that needs to be filled. And especially when you get, geometry site planning, you're dealing with trigonometry. Not that you have to be great in math...

19:39 FP: Or even that you have to know that you're actually dealing with trigonometry is I bet most guys that can do a side plan, don't know that that's what they're doing.

19:46 SM: That's true, but you are. And it's really not that hard once you learn that logical process, but...

19:55 FP: Steve, after you've gained some basic CAD or computer-aided design skills, what's next? How do you learn architecture?

20:01 SM: Through the process of learning how to arrange things, not necessarily put it together from a building construction sense, but how to arrange things from like you walk into a house and you're like, "Wow, I love the way they arrange their walls." And that came from a lot of home tours and going to see other people's houses. Now, you could probably do it online, there's a lot of home tours where people are selling houses and you can do it through a video walkthrough. Open houses, there's always one in the neighborhood every weekend, you can go in and walk around, there's actual architectural tours. There's historical areas in your community that sometimes they'll have tours at Christmas time or during certain holidays, getting involved in the local AIBD or a local AIA chapter, they're always offering tours.

20:52 SM: And take pictures, take measurements, carry one of those little 32-inch measuring tapes, just a little small one you can keep in your pocket. I remember I was trying to figure out what was the minimum size that I can make a breakfast nook, and so I carried one of those little three-foot tape measures with me everywhere I went and when I would sit down at the dining room table and get back up, I would measure how far the chair was away from the edge of the table, and when I went out to eat, I would back up out of the chair and I would measure how far the car was and I figured out that you need about this much space to back your chair up and then you add in the diameter of your table and a little bit of extra space so you're not hitting the walls and that's basically the size you wanna be able to make a breakfast nook. And the same thing can be done with the working areas in your kitchen, visit a number of kitchens and say, "Oh, this feels really good." Or you'd be like, "This is crazy, I take something out of the oven and I've gotta take four steps to before I can set it down somewhere."

21:55 FP: You represent an organization that you've mentioned before with its acronym, AIBD which is the American Institute of Building Design. Tell me about the process to qualify as a certified building designer that I have something I could hang in, a plaque I can hang in my office and tell people, "Hey, you can hire me, I know what I'm doing." How do you certify as a building designer with your organization?

22:21 SM: The certification is based on six years of experience and there's a formula that allows for education to be substituted for some of that experience as long as it's education related to architecture or the engineering fields. And that's all based on a job analysis that our organization did that analyzed what it is that a building designer does on a daily basis, a weekly basis, monthly, annual basis to be able to produce the work that they do which is very similar to an architectural firm but on a much more limited basis because of the architectural laws.

23:00 FP: Explain that a little bit, how the architectural laws work such that someone that does not have a degree in architecture or engineering can actually be a professional building designer and advertise as such and submit plans.

23:13 SM: That's correct, you don't have to be a licensed architect to participate in architecture, but you will be limited in the types of buildings that you can design. For example, most states will allow you only to build or design single-family homes, possibly town houses because those are defined in the building code if they're arranged a certain way as single-family homes, duplexes. But some states, you could do some small commercial buildings, restaurants, churches, mostly office buildings and maybe get into some small schools like the kindergartens and stuff like that, daycare centers. That would be like Texas, Oklahoma. Those two states have some more liberal exemptions and the architectural laws basically are written in a way that they say that everything is architecture and everybody has to be a licensed architect, but here's the types of buildings that you can design and not be a licensed architect and they list out.

24:20 SM: And it's different from state to state which types of buildings and some of them are limited to capacity of people or size by square footage or volume, let's say there's a number of different ways that they might limit it. So like in Texas, you can't design every office building, but you can design office buildings up to 20,000 square feet and no more than two stories tall.

24:44 FP: Let's talk a little bit about the career path in the sense of somebody who's not able to knock on your door and say, "Hey Steve, I heard you on the podcast at ProTradeCraft and I'd really like to become a building designer, can you hire me? I've got six years of construction experience." So not everybody has a mentor or that opportunity, so how realistic is a career in building design for someone, just anyone listening that doesn't have a mentor like you to guide them to go from construction site to drafting table and actually make a career out of it? What would you suggest they do today to get started, and how long do you think it'll take? Draw us like kind of a map.

25:24 SM: Go to work for someone like you just described, knock on the door and you may have to knock on a lot of doors. The surveys that we've done through the years has revealed that almost half of our industry works by themselves with no employees, so you're gonna come across a lot of building designers that don't hire per se and some that do hire though are working more from a virtual environment than actually having an office. I know one building designer in Texas that has people that he's working with in Mexico and everybody kinda Skypes in and so everybody's visually able to see each other through webcams and if somebody sneezes, another person can say, "God bless you." But they're just not sitting in the same room together which is kind of the extreme in the other direction.

26:19 SM: But don't necessarily focus on just architectural firms or building design firms, there may be some interior design firms and construction companies. If you approach a construction company and tell 'em that you've got experience in a certain CAD program, then that might be your opportunity and a foot in the door. Remodeling companies might be a great opportunity because those projects tend to be more condensed, smaller room editions, bathroom remodels, kitchen remodels, something that's a smaller project. I had to kinda buildup a rapport because I would go to a builder and say, "Here, I'd like to design this custom home for you." But they might be a little skeptical because I didn't have that much experience yet. So it's kinda like in the beginning, you take on whatever jobs you can to be able to gain the experience but...

27:21 FP: Sure, nobody hires you to build your first house. You typically have to build a lot of decks and additions before you get the bigger jobs.

27:34 SM: It seems that way, yes. And then I finally got the one project that was on the corner of one of the major intersections in my town. And that was the thing that launched my career because there was just so much traffic that went by, it turned out it was kind of an interesting looking building. I didn't get any awards for it but I made money on it and it launched my career. And I think the other reasons why our surveys show that 50% of our industry doesn't have employees, you gotta look at that from another angle and that's like so many people can have their own business working by themselves in this industry. At that point there, what you're doing is not just approaching one builder and saying, "Hey, I'd like to work for you drawing house plans or additions, but I would like to approach you on the idea of maybe doing a design build partnership." A lot of times, you can go in there and what do they call it in literature? I think it's a ghost writer.

28:42 SM: And I've done this for a number of builders where I would go in and approach somebody new in the remodeling business and say, "Hey, I'd like to draw your plans for you and we're gonna put your company logo on it as if it's coming from you and I'm gonna meet with your clients in your office." And really what it was was I didn't have a place to meet them myself, I didn't have an office. So I needed an office, so I would have six or seven contractors that I was working for and I would just meet their clients in their office which kinda help them keep their foot in the door with the client. 'Cause so many times builders will get a client walk in, they go out to get the plans drawn for the project and then the builder doesn't hear from 'em again.

29:24 FP: Sure the architect, or the draftsmen recommends their friend that's in the business and so yeah, you lose a lot of business, a contractor that way. So that's interesting. So your suggestion is to get started in the business after you have some skills. So if you trained yourself or taking some community college courses, etcetera, you got some basic drafting skills, you're beginning to feel comfortable drawing, the next thing maybe to approach a design build firm, their contractor friendly of course and they may hire you as a low level draftsman or approach some contractors that do not have in-house design skills and are still doing napkin sketches of what the kitchen addition could look like and you professionalize those drawings by rendering them in CAD and you're doing maybe small work but you're actually doing work and in time, that work will lead to bigger projects and eventually maybe you become a designer in your own right. Is that kinda the map?

30:30 SM: Thanks Fernando, I couldn't have said it any better.

30:33 FP: Well it's exactly what you said just condensed.

30:37 SM: But as you're saying it, I'm thinking of myself too that when you're faced with a change in life or a new opportunity, there's kinda two methods that I've always said that you can approach it, one is the baseball method and the other is the Tarzan method. And the baseball method is is that there's no way you're gonna ever get to second base until you get your butt off of first. And so you just leave the field, open up your design firm and do it. You're gonna submit some plans to the building department that's gonna look like the plan reviewer bled all over, he's gonna have so many red marks, but you're gonna learn. You're gonna say, "Oh, I did it wrong, this is the right way to do it." And some building officials don't necessarily tell you the right way, they'll reference the code and let you research it and find the right way to do it.

31:26 SM: But the other way is is a Tarzan method where you don't let go of one vine until you got a firm hold on the other vine. And so working in the field and as you were saying what I was saying back to me, I was thinking of a mason that used to do all of our projects when I was growing up called Howard Miller. He's since passed away but Howard Miller was the one that convinced me to get out of the field and start designing homes professionally, he was like, "Man, you're in the wrong business, you need to put down your hammer and do this." And I was doing 'em both at the same time. I was working in the field during the day, I would go home and draw plans at night. And so kinda using that Tarzan method. And it really took a recession, I became a builder. In the early 90s, I had a project I was doing and I had I think had three houses that were built and none of 'em were selling, I was living in one of 'em and just finally had to close the doors, file bankruptcy. And at that point the next morning, I had a decision, what am I gonna do next? And that's when I decided that home design was what I enjoyed the most out of the process.

32:39 FP: Sure is easier to scale down a wrap-up a home design business to than a construction company, isn't it within the time? Kinda like we're living right now.

32:49 SM: From a business aspect, maybe. I know too that in a construction project, sometimes you're dealing with subcontractors, homeowners, building officials for six, eight, 10, 12 months maybe, depending on the size of the project. Usually, depending on whether it's a remodeling project or a custom home, you may only be working on that one project three weeks to three months. So it's a lot smaller focus or shorter focus and it allows you to be able to do more projects at once possibly. But for me, I kinda get bored easy, that's like, I'm trying to become a runner and I just did my first half marathon and I thought I'll never go that far because I just can't stay focused that long. But it worked out.

33:35 FP: Speaking of which, I noticed that in your qualifications beyond being an amateur athlete, you are actually a championship sky diver. I suppose these are not AIBD requirements but tell me about it anyway.

33:52 SM: Yeah.

33:53 FP: You set a world record, you set a world record at skydiving. What was it?

33:57 SM: I made 52 sky dives in 11 hours and 15 minutes, I think it was and I packed the parachute myself each time. So 52 skydives, 52 parachute packs. I could pack the parachute in three minutes and 45 seconds and it would open the next time, believe it or not. But yeah, that was in my young days, I was a carpenter then and just starting out my business. I met my wife and she pretty much put an end to my sky diving days but after 33 years I thought maybe she would be fed up with me by now and encourage it again.

34:35 FP: Encourage you to jump out of a plane.

34:38 FP: So I suppose that's what allow you to make a change in your career like that, your skydiving background allowed you to take the leap.

34:46 SM: Well there, that's a good analogy. But yes, once you've jumped out of an airplane successfully, it kinda gives you a feeling that there's nothing in life that you can't accomplish. But you don't have to jump out of a plane to get that feeling, it could be soccer, playing on a soccer league or a bowling league. It could just setting any kind of goal whether it be sports or technology-related. Just accomplishing goals makes you feel good about yourself and it makes you feel like setting another goal and reaching higher the next time.

35:25 FP: Well thank you so much for sharing your experience. I'm telling us a little bit about the American Institute of Building Design. I suppose if you just Google AIBD, American Institute of Building Design, you can find your organization and I bet there's a lot of information there for anyone that would like to pursue it.

35:43 SM: Absolutely, I'm Googleable... AIBD.org and all the phone numbers and email addresses are there, so reach out if there's anything I can do to help. Our goal is to build a better residential design profession and we wanna do it one designer at the time.

36:02 FP: Terrific. Well thank you so much Steve, we'll talk to you soon again.

36:07 SM: Thank you Fernando, I've enjoyed it.

36:10 FP: Career Toolbox is a production of SGC Horizon Media Network. I'm your host, Fernando Pages and the show is produced by Dan Morrison.