ALAMO ARCHITECTS - Key Persons

Joining us from Mexico City in 1999, Ariel holds degrees in both architecture and engineering from the University of Texas, Austin. For Ariel there is no separation between progressive design thinking and state-of-the-art systems integration. Working with him is a fascinating mix of imagination and practicality, which he keeps in careful balance. His far-flung life after growing up in central Mexico and attending college has taken him to Italy as well, working on large projects for the Renzo Piano Building Workshop in Genoa. He was our Senior Design Manager for The Shops at La Cantera and Neiman Marcus Austin, and numerous other retail development projects. His institutional work for us includes several projects for The University of Texas San Antonio, UT Pan Am, and other educational work, as well as master planning city-wide.

Beth Hudson

be..@alamoarchitects.com

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Marketing Coordinator

Billy Lawrence

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Member of the Leadership Team
Founding Principal

Though in Texas branding has at least two meanings, in design it tends to mean the creation of a clear and strong identity. Growing up in Corpus Christi Billy was involved with fine arts programs, creative writing and a classical music education that led to symphony membership playing the oboe. Unsure of his brand, to say the least, he was introduced to the world of a design education by a friend at the University of Texas and he never looked back. Leaving Texas like the other founding partners, he headed for New York and Philadelphia, joining Friday Architects there and working on his first retail project, a new shopping center for The Rouse Company. Retail design for him became a fascinating blend of architecture, interiors, graphic design and brand identity creation that has propelled his leadership in that area of the firm's practice. Billy led the design team for General Growth Properties' The Shops at La Cantera and has worked with other developers and retailers, including Neiman Marcus. Other brand identity exercises have filtered into unexpected areas of his practice as well, including the design of a new, approachable, and successful image development for the Humane Society of San Antonio and Bexar County.

Briana Gutierrez

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Senior Associate

Chip Collins

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Associate

Chris Ahumada

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Senior Associate

Chris Johnson

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Member of the Architecture Team

Christian De La Cruz

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Member of the Architecture Team

Crystal Del Bosque

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Director of Business Development and Marketing

Daniela Cantu

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Member of the Architecture Team

Enrique Cortazar

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Member of the Architecture Team

Eric Merlo

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Member of the Architecture Team

Erik Serna

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Member of the Architecture Team

Fabian Mancha

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Associate

Fernanda Garcia

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Member of the Architecture Team

Fernando Ortega

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Member of the Architecture Team

George Barrera

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Member of the Architecture Team

Glenn McGuyre

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Associate

Irby Hightower

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Member of the Leadership Team
Founding Principal

Irby grew up in Port Arthur, Texas - Janis Joplin's hometown - the son of a Gulf Oil refinery employee and a mother who was one of the first female graduates of the University of Texas School of Law. Weekends were frequently spent at the family farm in Coldspring, Texas, where he gained a healthy respect for the sanctity of the land and the power of nature. Following in his mother's footsteps he graduated from the University of Texas in architecture and fled his semi-rural heritage to live and work in New York and Philadelphia. His love-of-nature past caught up with him in the earlier days of our firm when he signed on to be co-chair of the San Antonio River Oversight Committee along with Mayor Emeritus Lila Cockrell. Well over a decade later their tireless work and endless persuasion and cunning have resulted in the expansion of the historic San Antonio River Walk both north and south for miles, changing the face of San Antonio forever. Though he is expert in many areas of architecture and is part of the leadership of our multifamily group, Irby's passion is urban design and he is a recognized community leader in that field, involved where he can be in helping shape the destiny of our city.

Jason Mai

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Senior Associate

Jason Wightman

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Member of the Architecture Team

Jeff Watson

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Senior Associate

Jennifer Casey

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Member of the Interior Design Team

Jenny Pullin

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Member of the Office Management Team

Jerry Lammers

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Member of the Leadership Team
Principal

Jesse Arenivas

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Member of the Architecture Team

Jim Bailey

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Member of the Leadership Team
Principal

Jim leads the housing studio at Alamo Architects in San Antonio and has been responsible for the design and construction of over 13,000 housing units. With his deep roots in the community, broad experience, and intimate familiarity with the geospatial and socioeconomic makeup of the city, Jim is often called upon to help navigate the intersection of design and public policy. He has played a key role in many major local planning efforts and served on various related boards, commissions, and committees and initiated a number of community-driven infrastructure improvement initiatives over the last quarter century. He served on Mayor Ron Nirenberg's five-member Housing Policy Task Force to develop the Housing Policy Framework. In 2019, he founded ActivateSA: a guerrilla planning initiative and think tank whose mission is to build a robust and connected multimodal transportation system for San Antonio through advocacy and facilitation of intergovernmental collaboration. He is currently serving on the steering committee for the development of San Antonio's 20-year, multi-billion-dollar Strategic Housing Implementation Plan. Jim is driven by the belief that active listening and deep collaboration are the foundation of a future San Antonio that is just and sustainable..

Judith Huerta

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Member of the Architecture Team

Julia Serrato

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Member of the Interior Design Team
Business Development

Kaitlin Lovely

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Member of the Architecture Team

Keith Watson

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Associate
Member of the Architecture Team

Lindsay Oppelt

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Associate

Lisa Luckey

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Member of the Office Management Team

Lupita Suarez

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Member of the Architecture Team

Mark Morin

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Member of the Architecture Team

Michael Clancy

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Member of the Architecture Team

Mike Lanford

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Member of the Leadership Team
Founding Principal

Mike Lanford is from everywhere. His peripatetic life as the son of a Fluor executive had him attending thirteen schools in twelve years. So depending on whom you ask, his absolute passion for travel either puzzles totally or completely makes sense. Like the other founding partners his education at the University of Texas School of Architecture led him to New York, working for Philip Johnson/John Burgee and Fox and Fowle Architects before coming to San Antonio. Mike's varied architectural background includes experience with major high-rise construction and other large-scale institutional and planning projects, as well as project design and leadership for Alamo Architects' major civic clients. He has extensive experience working with San Antonio area colleges and universities, state college systems including The University of Texas and Texas A & M, and has both previous and current involvement in projects for the City of San Antonio. Additionally he is the author of the new Texas A&M-San Antonio campus master plan and the Alamo Colleges Northwest Vista campus master plan.

Mike McGlone

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Member of the Leadership Team
Founding Principal

Mike is from Pasadena, Texas and his dad was an executive with Armco Steel, so when we four founding principals were in architecture school together we got taken on a really cool, probably a bit dangerous, behind-the-scenes tour of the steel mill. Mike worked in the mill several summers between classes at UT and as such is no stranger to grit and hard work. Like several of Alamo's founding partners, Mike's experiences working in the east - in his case for Hardy, Holzman, Pfeiffer in New York - were transforming ones that would forever shape his approach and attitude toward clients and project design. No matter what the project, his dogged determination to get the concept clearly executed is a hallmark of everything he works on. He innovates in adaptive reuse, and our own offices are a shining and award-winning example of that, involving the re-use of salvaged material and an existing structure to build an energy-efficient, technologically advanced workspace. He is currently finishing an award-winning housing complex that is composed entirely of re-purposed shipping containers in the burgeoning Eagle Ford Shale region of south Texas. Mike's community-spirited project work is extensive, and he has spent many successive summer vacations leading youth groups to the border of Mexico building concrete-block "casitas" with Hands Together Ministries. He is past President of AIA San Antonio, currently on the Texas Society of Architects Board of Directors and continues to serve in a variety of leadership roles at his church and other community organizations.