Presentations, Persistence, and Passion

Contributed by Eric D. Lussier

The AEC community needs more people like Michael Riscica.

Not familiar?

Michael is a Licensed Architect who once resided in Portland, Oregon, with his Labrador Retriever, Molly.  And to say he is passionate about helping Young Architects is an understatement. After becoming licensed, Michael was frustrated by the lack of support, bad advice and misinformation he had during the years between graduating architecture school and becoming a licensed Architect. In early 2014 he began blogging at YoungArchitect.com to address that problem.

A few years back, Michael sold most of his personal belongings, bought himself a van, packed up Molly and only what he needed and literally took Young Architect on the road. Rarely in one place for long, you can typically find Michael speaking to aspiring designers somewhere. In five years, he has assembled a massive following of future leaders in the architecture industry through presentations, persistence, and passion. 

Cherise and I were fortunate enough to meet Michael a handful of years ago and we immediately saw a kindred spirit, an individual who was not happy with the status quo in AEC and set out to make a change. 

Recently, Michael announced the first ever Young Architect Conference, which will be held over three days,  August 23rd to the 25th in Portland, Oregon.  The mission for the Young Architect Conference is to explore leadership, connection, and service within architecture. All keynotes, workshops, parties, and everything related to this conference will connect back to these three themes in some way, shape or form.

Here is the proposed agenda:

• Keynotes in the morning
• Workshops in the afternoon
• Parties at night

Let's Fix Construction is honored to be friends with Michael and involved with the Conference, as Cherise will be leading the session 'Public Speaking in Architecture'. We're also a hand-selected affiliate of the Young Architect Conference. What does that mean, exactly? That means, you, as part of our community, can register to attend and save $$$. You have one month to use the code LFC for $150 off of your registration. 

​Please take two minutes to view this message below from Michael and then visit the Young Architect Conference website for details, registration and more.