Beyond

I design buildings for people

If there was a theme running through my childhood it was always that the promise of America was going to be made real for you.

You just can't sit back and be satisfied in your own achievement, the promise the promise the promise has to be made real for a whole lot of [people] who had not be inspired maybe by their life circumstances.

They had a responsibility to do well adn then to achieve and to reach out to make the promise real for others who might be less fortunate.

It's going to be tougher fighting a battle that really dwells in people's hearts.

The greatest satisfaction for me is when I visit the project after it's been designed and I can walk into that space and just look around to see if what they told me way back in the beginning is how they're actually using the space.

It was important, even if we didn't win, that a view point be expressed that reflected a lot of North Carolina.

I want to see us move past the politics of fear, which is driving so much of what's happening in Charlotte, in North Carolina, and across this country.

Stay engaged. Don't become so focused on what your specific career is that you forget that there's a community you live in.

And if you end the day not doing anything except caring about yourself, that's one more day lost to making this a great community.

I saw a relationship between what I did for my full-time job and I did as a contribution to the community. This need to take all of the diversity out there, and all of the opinions out there, and as a mayor try to assemble and hear everybody and then see if we can craft a creative solution.