LandStudio360 Culture: Meet Our Senior Project Manager, David Kerber

“I can’t say that anyone sets out on a specific journey to become project manager, but rather it’s a way to identify and structure a role and set of responsibilities within a firm. More so I think that many professionals, myself included, set out to learn everything possible to learn, and during that process get excited to share, teach, inspire, and lead those around them with the fantastic experience they’ve gained. I started in the industry as a sponge, willing to take in and take on more opportunities, to work from the ground up as I am interested in the entire process. The more I embed myself in new opportunities, the more I can absorb, and the more I want to share and apply what I’ve learned to inspire those around me to do the same. I think the energy and excitement you express for the industry and the other professionals around you is how you open the doors to further your personal growth while also contributing, many times unintentionally, to the opportunities you open for others. Being excited about the industry, working from the ground up, while focusing on how my interactions could affect and inspire those around me has been instrumental in how I’ve come to where I’m currently at in my career.”

“Since starting my career in landscape architecture almost 8 years ago I’ve always had an urge to further expand my knowledge of the industry, take on larger and more diverse projects and project teams, develop relationships, and take ownership in both the built environment and process to get there. When I joined LandStudio360, it was, and is still by nature and culture, a growing company with energy and possibility. With a culture centered around openness, I saw opportunity to push boundaries, step into new and uncharted territories, broaden my knowledge of all aspects of the landscape architectural field, contribute what I had already learned back to an open audience, and even lay a few building block of my own in which to contribute to the overall collaborative benefit of the firm.”

“The energy, the activity, its focus on people – both within the office and outside the office; it’s an emphasis of communication and relationship; the ability to learn about other people, what drives them, what they’re interested in, their personalities and interests, what their motives and desires are, and how that can be best utilized for their benefit, the project and companies successes, and the environment and its inhabitants.”

“The biggest challenge I tend to face is wanting to take on more responsibility than feasible. I, as well as all of us I think, have grand desires to be involved in and produce a great experience for both the internal and external project teams, clients, and be able to implement an amazing, headache-free built environment. The best thing I’ve learned through the years is that the team around you is what makes everything a success, you as one person can only do so much. I’ve taken time to communicate and talk with my teams, consultants, and clients, to learn who they are, what drives them, and how they work. Doing so allows me to find the right people for the right question, task, and/or project that will benefit the project, encourage and inspire that individual or team, and provide myself and other stakeholders the assurance that the best of attention is dedicated to it.” 

“I don’t see the idea of project management being much different between industries. Project managers assess and allocate resources in order to achieve a set of deliverables for a project, task, or goal, regardless of what those are in a specific industry. We all have several different stakeholders at different levels or involvements in the deliverable we’re striving to achieve, each with their own motivations and their own stakeholders. I think what’s interesting about the design industry is that there’s never a definitive solution, there’s never a single way of doing anything, so you have to be adaptable and creative, play to both the intellect, logic, and emotion of your peers, collaborators, and clients.”

“My discovery of landscape architecture began in school. Having never heard of it before perusing the coursebook for my first year in college, I found a class called “Intro to Landscape Architectural Drawing” in which we study art, drawing technique, and landscape in one… from linework to shading to still-life to perspectives, all technique culminated into final hand-renderings accompanied by a hand-drafted landscape plans, elevations, and axonometric drawings.

Since then I’ve been hooked on what landscape architecture is and what it stands for, the ideas it generates and those that it learns and inherits from others, the industries and people it affects and interweaves, and how holistic in nature it is (no pun intended). 

And my understanding of how it affects the world continues to evolve, as I do as a person and as a professional. My mission statement coming out of school, which still holds true to this day is based on the rich complexity of landscape architecture as a profession and, perhaps even more so, as a conduit for forming, building, and inspiring relationship between people, space, nature, environment, structure, time, economy, culture, and simple happiness.

It reads:  

I aspire to create meaningful environments across physical and temporal scales, and across disciplines. As landscape architects it is our privilege to create aesthetically pleasing, culturally significant, ecologically and contextually sensitive, functional places which maintain an emotional and inherent beauty that inspire the lives of all people.”

“As a relatively small outfit, all LandStudio360 project managers provide leadership and support with and amongst each other, as well as the rest of the office, both horizontally and vertically. We all understand past, current and future projects experiences, though each takes more of a prime role in different projects. As such, we all work and communicate to flex each of our respective schedules to assist as required to meet a quick deadline, provide support or a second opinion on a complex issue, or tap into the powerful resources and abilities our team encompasses. By tapping into the full and diverse potential of each of our team members we’re able to both produce great work as well as learn and grow to be great at our work.”

“Every project poses its own challenges and forces you to think in different ways. We constantly work with different clients, corporate structures, consultants, design professionals, internal team members, as well as the constantly changing political, environmental, financial, and social climate of each. I would say the first project I was responsible for as a project manager with LandStudio360, an apartment reinvestment project called Vista Bella, was both a confirmation of everything I’d learned through my experience up to that point, as well as a valuable development opportunity in which to further understand the dynamic nature of our industry and the associated responsibilities of project management. From that project, I’ve since continued to refine and enhance the process with which I approach each new project.”