Jan 9 2006
Terry Smith's story is one in a thousand. Almost literally.
Smith is a 35-year-old African-American licensed architect running his own Houston-based firm. What's unique about that? Only 1,500 of the nation's 100,000 licensed architects are African-American.
What is unique, however, is that in Texas, there are nearly 10,000 registered architects, but less than 1 percent -- under 100 -- are African- American.
A native Houstonian, Smith is among fewer than two-dozen licensed African-American architects who have graduated from Prairie View A&M University. Since launching Smith & Company Architects more than five years ago, Smith has built an impressive clientele, stemming partly from a large resume and reputation built while he worked for Pierce, Goodwin, Alexander and Linville, one of the nation's largest architectural firms.
Today, Smith manages a staff of seven architects, including him. Smith's career aspirations had a strong foundation, but the career itself had a shaky start. His first project after earning his architecture degree in 1992 was simply finding a job in architecture -- a task which dragged on for about six months, Smith says.
"I had expected to be able to get a job somewhere in architecture, but I wasn't at all prepared for how long it would take."
For basic economic reasons, Smith took a job as a law firm clerk while continuing his search for an opening in the architecture field. He eventually landed a job in his chosen profession at the Harris County Precinct 1 Engineering Department. Smith's county job experience was enough to earn him his first job as an architect for a major firm.
Smith acquired the rank of managing principal in Tampa, built a strong resume of work and began cultivating ties which would later prove beneficial. He eventually moved back to Houston and soon became fully dedicated to launching his own firm.
In Houston, there was a mixed reaction to Smith's emergence as an entrepreneurial architect. In an already competitive market, some of the older independent African-American architects dreaded new competition, Smith says. Other colleagues wondered why a young architect would leave the security of a major firm for the uphill struggles of entrepreneurship.
"My family was supportive, but many of the other African-American architects in town saw me as more competition," Smith says.
"They knew I had talent, and Houston was an already competitive city for the few African- American architecture firms here."
Fortunately, Smith had already established a good reputation in the Houston area as well as in Tampa. His portfolio eventually included an array of prominent projects at the University of Houston, Houston Community College, the Port Arthur Independent School District, the North Forest Independent School District and Texas Southern University, as well as two projects in Tampa -- one for the School Board of Hillsborough County and the Hillsborough County Aviation Authority.
Quintin Wiggins, TSU's senior vice president for finance and administration, says Smith first impressed TSU officials when he designed the new Jesse H. Jones School of Business. "Terry Smith is an outstanding architect," Wiggins says.
"He handled (a project) on time and under budget for our School of Business," he says, noting Smith was still with a major firm at the time of the work.
"Individuals tend to feel more comfortable hiring you on your own when they've seen you produce while working for a credible firm," Wiggins says.
Smith says a key long-term goal is to expand his list of clients regionally and nationally.
"It's very difficult, if not impossible, for an architect, particularly an African-American architect, to do most of your work in a single city," Smith says.
"You have to diversify regionally, if not statewide and nationally."