Resume

I am an Architect by training and a Land Use Planner by choice. Rather than a two dimensional view of my abilities such as experience and length of experience in one narrow field, I thought it would be much more interesting to provide a broader glimpse of who I am and what I can do. I moved to the Central Coast when I transferred to Cal Poly to study Architecture in my early twenties, and I have to admit that I have not been able to stay away from the area for very long. I have a formal education in Architecture which I practiced early on in my career, and it helped me develop skills that allow me to see a project as systems or layers that work together to deliver an intended final product.

A more scientific explanation would be that Architecture helped further develop areas of the left and right side of the brain in a fine balancing act where the analytic works very well with the creative side so as to undertake a variety of projects and provide a wide range of consulting services that can appear to be incongruent with one another, yet the only common thread is the ability to learn, adapt, master and change. I thank my parents, greatly, who encouraged me to enjoy learning and a brother who, being four years older than I, challenged me constantly to the point where I learned to read before the age of four. Hi George, I love you big bro.

I have a passion for Urban Design and Urban Planning. I have a wide range of interests from Architecture, Design, Spanish Literature and Technology with a capital T. I must say that whatever career path I have pursued in the past, project management in one form or another has always been part of the course and my core strength.

Whether it is a building, an entire neighborhood, a master plan, a website and project sheets for a fellow architect, a website for a wedding minister, or a social media marketing initiative. It all has to come together to deliver the final product. Parallel critical paths, simultaneous schedules, sequential reviews and approvals working in, both, synchronous and asynchronous mode to deliver the intended result. Yes, it sounds like project management, but I call it successful management of organized chaos.

I have designed a couple of house additions and remodels in the Central Coast. I have drawn a great deal of construction drawings when a finely sharpened pencil, a t-square and a horse hair brush where the tools of choice for my craft. I have taught spanish, computers and algebra at the Junior High and High School levels. Shortly after, I took a long journey into technology for about seven years starting as a part-time web designer at The Grid.net, a local ISP start-up and worked my way up to Director of Operations for another local start-up. So, as you can see, I am not afraid of facing challenges and change, on the contrary, I thrive on them. In the process, I mastered photoshop, html and much of the technology brought about by the nascient world wide web. Soon enough, I learned to make php and java work for me and fell in love with the paradoxical simplicity of style sheets.

Then, I foraged full time into the land of urban planning for almost four years, and to my amazement I learned how much of a political process it is. I was fortunate to be mentored by the best in the region, and I was able to navigate successfully large land development projects through the complex process of approvals and building permits in Santa Barbara County. The entitlement of the Rice Ranch development in Orcutt, California is one of the biggest feathers on my cap and I relish that accomplishment greatly. Rice Ranch boasts 725 homes in five separate neighborhoods over 580 acres of oak woodlands and meadows which include a 24 acre community park with championship soccer fields, youth and adult baseball fields, a tot playground, vast picnic areas and two doggie parks. More than half of the entire project is open space - more than any other new home community in the central coast region. The project is a gem in Northern Santa Barbara County.

Rice Ranch was purchased by Shea Homes in 2013 and the first two neighborhoods are completely built. Although I had not been involved in the project for over four years at the time, the regional manager at Shea complimented me for the high degree of organization and thoroughness he found in the project documentation when I met him at one of the local Home Builder Association events. I was very flattered that he would go out of his way to let me know how my work had made his life so much easier, but I was so much more inmensely satisfied to know that my work was appreciated by a stranger four years after the fact.

This particular planning experience led me to master several pieces of software that were key to successful presentations at public hearings and communicating with consultants: Acrobat Pro for mark-up of exhibits and archiving digital files, Adobe Illustrator for creating and re-touching exhibits and PowerPoint for critical storyboarding and spiffy slide shows. Microsoft Project was one of the tools I used extensively for one of my projects, but it has its limitations and lacks visual punch. We made it work for what we needed it to do, which was to communicate to the client progress on simultaneous development projects. Successful negotiation of competing priorities to produce critical deliverables clearly is my core strength, and I revised my definition of project management in the planning field to that of successfully herding cats.

From 2009 through 2012, the greatest demand for my consulting services was mainly in the area of technology from web design and social media to home network installation, hardware upgrades and repair. I worked a lot with Wordpress and PHP, and all of this while Technology was one of my hobbies!

Because I am a geek at heart, most of my friends typically ask me to fix their computers and home networks when they have troubles. I also speak, read and write Spanish fluently, but I am sad to admit that my Italian is quite rusty these days (Note to self: play italian language tapes in the car while driving!). I love to travel, I can play the guitar, enjoy word games and can tear apart and re-assemble a laptop without a manual in no time flat. I like salsa dancing, love old Hollywood movies, play a variety of percussion instruments and got an offer to play with a local band after someone handed me a tambourine at a local joint. I have also enjoyed making jewelry in my spare time for the last ten years.

I am very fortunate to have discovered in the Summer of 2012 how utterly beautiful and fascinating the underwater landscape and sealife in the Caribbean ocean is, so much so, that I can hardly wait to go back. I will begin my scuba diving certification, shortly.

From October of 2013 to October 2015, I worked for a residential developer based in Pismo Beach, California: Coastal Community Builders. I was hired as a project manager and 11 months later, I was appointed Entitlements Manager and given the responsibility to manage and oversee all map recordation and permits for the company. They had been in operation for a year and a half and only had around 70 permits on the books and 4 comunities were under construction. Six months after my appointment, I secured 181 additional permits. A year after my appointment, over 350 permits have been issued and 16 communities were under construction. The exciting part of my job was that my role was not limited to permits. I was able to lead teams of architects, civil engineers, land surveyors and landscape architects through the plan check process to meet an accelerated schedule and accomplish the company's goals. I was able to do a little bit of schematic design, architectural renderings, presentation design, prepare exhibits, provide public testimony at hearings, and negotiate with municipal staff a variety of deliverables and deadlines. In the process, I learned what it really means to juggle competing piorities. My position at Coastal Community Builders proved invaluable to me and prepared me for the next chapter in my career. My mom had a health crisis in May of 2015, and since she and my dad lived in Orange County, it took me 4 hours to drive to the hospital every time my dad would call concerned for her health. I decided I needed to re-locate to be near them through this difficult time. I was fortunate to find employment in San Diego. It was hard to leave the Central Coast after 30 years, but I left it with my heart full of wonderful memories and many friendships I made while at CCB. Coastal Community Builders is now building two of the neighborhoods at Rice Ranch: The Grove and The Meadows.

On October of 2015, I took a position with a large and prestigious architectural firm in San Diego, Carrier Johnson + CULTURE, and expanded my breadth of knowledge tremendously. Shortly after, I was appointed Planning and Entitlements Manager overseeing all entitlement efforts. After being there for over three and half years, my professional experience now includes multi-family, high rise development, special event permits (temporary), coastal development permits, and complex discretionary process for the entitlement of commercial and residential property. I have learned a great deal about the various Community Plans within the city of San Diego and have developed fantastic professional relationships at all levels of government. During my tenure at Carrier Johnson, I worked on a Specific Plan for a project in Temecula, California; I entitled a resort in the Coachella Valley in a record three months which also included a cannabis store. And I recently took one of my projects through Coastal Commission review and received unanimous approval at a hearing in Oxnard. You can see the qualifications sheet the firm used for me on projects they pursued below.

Finally, whatever the project may be, I have a group of colleagues and collaborators I will be happy to refer you to for a project based on budget, project needs, or what the client may require. If you still would like to see a formal resume, a portfolio of work, and professional references, drop me a line and I will be more than happy to oblige.

Sylvia
sylvia-at-integrityplanning.us
June 2019