Publisher’s Message: July 2020

Anastasia Barnes

These past four weeks have been incredibly profound and challenging for our nation.

The Black Lives Matter movement has sparked a global conversation about race in our country, and individuals and organizations are looking internally at how they’re contributing to the narrative and what they can do to take responsibility, including High-Profile.

Kimberly Dowdell, president of the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA), shared a powerful statement on NOMA’s website recently. In the statement, she writes, “We are calling on our members and our broader professional community to condemn racism and take an active role in eliminating the racial biases that account for a myriad of social, economic, and health disparities.” You can read more excerpts in her message on page 6.

In this issue, we’ve included news from some local organizations that are stepping up their commitment to focus on diversity and inclusion, including the Boston Planning and Development Agency and the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center.

Recently, we have seen a surge of positive cases of COVID-19 in many states across our nation. At the same time, there has been a lot of discussion around folks coming back to the workplace and what that will look like for the employees, employers, property managers, etc. Cynthia P. Martinez’s article on page 12 gives a nice perspective on what the future will look like from the employee perspective. I also encourage you to take a look at our recent webinar with Tim Bailey and Jason Costello of Margulies Perruzzi discussing how their firm tackled this very thing and how they are working with their clients on reconfiguring workspaces. Visit https://www.high-profile.com/hp-connects/ to watch.

Lastly, we’re excited to announce that we have hired five new interns, all extraordinary women from diverse backgrounds. I will do everything within my ability to elevate, educate and support these future young leaders.  Read about these young women on page 13!

I’m happy to share our July 2020 issue with you all. This month our themes are Life Sciences (page 14) and Industry Awards (page 19). The Boston Society of Landscape Architects awards were recently announced and will be highlighted in the August 2020 edition.

As always, enjoy the read!