Doug Nielsen

In his early childhood, Doug grew up spending weekends at his dad’s architectural firm, rollerblading through the hallways, coloring photocopies of his father’s hand-drawn renderings and eventually cutting out chipboard layers for a site model. “I spent all of my adolescence finding ways to work for him,” he recalls. He was equally determined to be part of SmithGroup, drawn to its integrated model. “The ‘power of us,’” he calls it, “the impact we can all have when we have a shared vision.” Doug says he is driven by “clients who come to our projects inspired. I feed off their energy, aspirations and dreams of what can be.” An introvert by nature, Doug imagines recharging with his family at “some magical mountain village in the Alps, in an A-frame cabin that overlooks a crystal-clear body of water. I would sit on the porch for a week, drink amazing coffee and smile.”