story when i read about you in the online publication the line i'm sure i was familiar with your family because i used to work for the minnesota children's museum and i know you've been a long time supporter of the children's museum but i was intrigued because you told your own story about how you decided to focus fifty percent of your income and your own personal wealth for active causes so that always catches my eye so tell me a little bit about kind of your experience and to in making this turning in that direction well it's you know it's interesting i i was raised by wonderful parents i think is where it starts right that my and that was here and in minnesota actually know in chicago and st louis oh ok and then we moved here and i finished high school here but ok elsewhere and then where did you finish high school actually at st paul academy i'd public school all my life and then we moved here in inner city st paul and we came from st louis and that seemed sort of scary like what is the big inner city school it was going to be central high school which i now know is a great school but i went to st paul academy and it was a wonderful experience because the education there are spectacular and so much attention it was really great but yes i finished at saint paul academy but so my folks i think really helped me in a very young age understand how important it is to give to be part of a community to volunteer to be be active in making your world a little bit of a better place so that's where i think it started you but you also talked in the piece about your grandmother and it's your grandmother on which side of your family so my dad's mom who you know it's very interesting my dad's mom was it was she was born in one thousand and three she lived one hundred five is pretty spectacular wow a small lot of change and he was i believe their first salesperson basically or their first sales manager and he died when my dad was very young and that corporation was still closed it was a close company and when he died they gave my that being paid in stock so yeah she had a terrible loss she lost her husband but she took this this resource so she did and she say she was i mean she was the only person working in her family and in the great depression so i mean she she saved everything and she was very penurious and very careful with how everything went in her money in her life financially and really ended up amassing a lot of wealth and and really wasn't much of a giver which i think is very interesting approach to causes and things like that but she was incredibly generous inside the family and toward the end of her life she funded the john larson foundation which was her husband's name i understand the story you started getting interested in architecture when you were a little my grandma took us on trips which was just spectacular for a little kid to be able to go and see i saw the pyramids in egypt and i saw the  parthenon and in greece and people always were talking about architecture and architects and design and buildings that man is that cool and so from the time i was about ten years old i thought boy maybe this is what i should do and so  that that that i always i always held out as something that that i'd like to do when i grew up and so that's what i did became i got a master of architecture in the university of minnesota in the ninety's and i have had my own design firm for for fifteen  design forty five and i worked its way to two person firm it's a lovely thing it's just to see and you design what kinds of structures almost all residential work so additions and remodels and new houses and cabins but almost all residential little bit of commercial love to help people part of it is again it's grounded for me and service that i don't think of myself as a as kind of the guy that has all the answers but really as a as i think of us as really not knowledgeable people about how to do things and i think we're good designers but ultimately what we want to do is help people achieve their vision for their home and we can we can get pretty big egos if people want us to but often i find  more successful residence when people really engage and start to sort of become part of that process of design with us so well that sounds really exciting it is what i'd like to go back a little bit to this passing of the value so you've described your grandmother is as not generous outwardly but generous inside the community so how do you think it was that your parents who you're giving the credit to started to turn out were to the community what where did that come from for boy it's a it's a tough one i think i don't know if i can point to anything in specific i just know that i mean there was an instance one of my earliest memories of giving was we went to church and they asked you to pledge something every sunday and i i i had a dollar a week allowance when i was growing up and i pledged a quarter  a week which i i soon learned was maybe more that i want to make it over or it was overachieving i was and then it said because and part of it was we weren't particularly good churchgoers and so at some point maybe i hadn't been to church for several weeks or or even a few months maybe was over the summer or something but i remember and maybe i just wasn't putting the order in an envelope i'm not sure what happened but we got an invoice for thirteen dollars twenty five cents and that was more money than i knew i do make a commitment to support something i need to do that and another great lesson is that mom and dad are really helpful and they love me and they're going to bail me bad after this but they also talked me through it and how important it was to be doing that so i'm not i'm not sure where all that where all of the inspiration comes from just i think being raised in a wonderful ways comes to comes down to i think a lot of that and you know as i you know moved into my twenty's i think so in my inspiration for wanting to be more part of my community and more giving back and more involved and more of an advocate and then ultimately now i think more of a philanthropist too is that i just kept seeing running into so many causes that are so worthwhile there's so much that we can do in our communities to to create better environments for people there are problems that need to be addressed problems that need to be fixed and i'm just drawn to that stuff and maybe some of that again is that designer and me right is if i see like remodels are awesome because there's always a mess right you're always dealing with somebody who's serious problem and it pleased me not designed for how they how they how they want to be want to be and i love getting in there and trying to trying to fix applicability you know and i know again we're basing some of this on my reading of your story elsewhere i know that you talked about the fact that you maybe made some mistakes in your twenty's that you decided to also address and c talk about that little bit med i you know i think it's a it's a combination of a number of things when i i when i 'm trying to think which comes first here but when i basically when i went away to college as i think a lot of people do we kind of get wild and crazy and i drank too much and stuff like  that but there was a combination of things going on and and i'm a recovering alcoholic and have been for twenty some years now but but so i went to college and i decided it was important for me well try figure out which comes first so part of it is coming out as gay and so the alcoholism and the coming out as gay was completely interlinked and i mean i was raised you know fairly conservative and careful and gay was not at all so i thought i can't do this and so i drank a lot and and at some point it was it became obvious that i used up doing this i'm trying to remember what was the question that you just well i was asking kind of how that pathway and what i'm really getting is that you were really coming to an intersection of identities you had already claimed identity as a as community connected but maybe what was disconnected was how to y p me and be in this community or in this family i would at that sort of the question i have is you you confronted these two parts of your life one was drinking too much you know you decided to try to do something about that but at the same time i guess you're saying i decided to express my my true identity come come forward or those coincidence yeah well and so i think that that experience of of being gay and not having any idea what to do with that right is something that really helps drive my passion today and helps and helps gives me empathy right for other folks that are struggling with whatever it is that they're struggling with that need some help something like that so what i did with with that was you know as i moved into my later twenty's and into my thirty's there were lots of opportunities to help out in the old g b t community so you know i did some volunteering with the twenty's gaiman's chorus a i was on their board i became don't saying i was their first non singing board chair that was an obvious place for me to go help out in part because i was invited to participate and then you know in the last ten years or so i got a lot more involved in that too so you decided to choose a path of both advocacy and philanthropy those two things but you know this design maybe being the integrating component which i think is interesting to understand how problem solving which about you see design as as being a way to express these parts of yourself when you talk for a minute about the as you just started to talk about sort of how you've turned yourself toward advocacy and what does that look like for you well in two thousand and five two thousand and six there was a strong push at the state legislature to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot to amend our constitution to to ban gay marriage basically it was led by michele b nn who was in i think our house at the time and i saw i mean i thought that was crazy and why would we want to do that so i met with a number of folks i didn't instigate the meeting but i met with a number of folks and we  started an organization called together minnesota which was a coalition of lots of different organizations everything from advertising agencies to nonprofits to you know sign on to this thing and say hey this is crazy let's not do this ok so we needed to raise some money to pay for a lobbyist at the capitol and we needed to raise some money to do some research we did those things we raised i don't know if it's not quite one hundred thousand dollars or something did those things luckily we were able to stop it at that research that we did was so exciting and that's part of why he was able to decide this isn't the right thing to do at this time we found out that seventy nine percent of minnesotans think that same sex couples should have the same rights and responsibilities over the as everybody else and so this was kind crazy seventy nine percent think that her body should be treated equally and yet there were like thirty percent thought that marriage equality made sense so we decided so so we were able to keep it off the ballot and then through building that extra capacity that extra hundred thousand dollars of donations those meetings those people that were involved we thought well maybe we can keep this going so a couple of friends and i just we started an organization called project five fifteen and that was that came out of we did a bunch more research to find out how how many laws on the books and minute minnesota are designated around rights and responsibilities around marriage well there are five hundred  having so there are five hundred fifteen laws on the books in minnesota designating rights responsibilities and obligations to married comes same sex couples have access to none of those and so we started the launch that in two thousand and seven eight  nine governor plenty actually signed one of our bills i think unknowingly because he kind of vowed not to do anything to support the gay rights movement but but but he did because it was a it was a better off for everybody in  minnesota and then and then of course in two thousand and ten when the legislature decided to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot in two thousand and twelve defining marriage as one man and one woman exclusively project five fifteen was one of the partners that launched minnesotans united for all families and we did that the night of of the bill passing so that's that's kind of my history in that movement is and then continuing forward to what i see is a brilliant success for minnesota minnesotans you know election day they said well what was so interesting i think around this personal story telling in this this and this integration that you're talking about for yourself is that it seems as though at the movement around this people have decided to use ways in which we can find commonality among each other as a as a tool and i found that very interesting but also i was interested that you've also looked at homeless youth and i think there's been some observation on your part that that sometimes connected to their sexual identity and so forth i was really intrigued you decided to be rather intimate in your involvement with people and i understand you've you've actually taken people  interested me can you talk a little bit about why you decided to do that what that's been like well there's an organization in minneapolis called avenues for homeless youth and at avenues they house a program called the host home program and it's specifically focused on l g b t homeless youth and what they do is they match youth with homes that are stable and supportive and this an organization started by rocky some ways years ago maybe twelve years ago or something and that i had supported financially it was great this wonderful organization i thought there's no way i could ever do this how could you ever have a stranger come and live in your home and i think the reason i thought that is because i was living by myself at the time oh ok you know and i thought that's at least part of the reason and i thought man it's just scary well at some point maybe five five years ago or so  i'd been living with my partner for years and we have a lovely home and a really stable environment i work in the carriage house outside the home mike works at the home so we're around a lot  it became obvious that we should do this we have the capacity we have an extra bedroom so we signed up and more than just signing a check we signed up as part of the program and and now rosie has been with us for four years with some some spectacularly she came from a place where she she wasn't supported it was a difficult difficult life she was at best couchsurfing and what we did is give her home and give her some food and she is on the dean's list three days an a minus in our first semester of college that's great applying to graduate schools doctorate programs i mean this is this is an amazing thing and what you're really saying is that the common ground we have is that we all need love tending and support and you've chosen a path that is a more active form of involvement and giving would you say that for everyone that particular path i can't say that's for everybody and you know you've got to make sure your home is safe right and if you're raising kids and you bring in a stranger i think that i don't know that i could do that but i think that if i'm in a safe place and i'm confident and secure i think it was it's been a huge gift to me right it's not this isn't just about helping rosie out  building community and her gift back to us is trust you know and that's a meanwhile it's a priceless so yeah i'm sure this meant a lot to her so when you think about the path that you've chosen now what do you what are you looking forward to what do you see as some new challenges in targets for this particular path and combination of ideas that you have who she's that's a big question  i think we need to i think we need to keep dreaming big you know i i have this focus currently on on rights for same sex couples because it's an obvious disparity in in our in our system and i think we can fix it and it's so gratifying to be part of a movement that's being fixed at the moment right literally in minnesota right now our legislature this session i believe will be picking up this issue and making the right decisions in our governor's going to sign marriage equality boom done what a spectacular thing to be part of the turning of a tide you know literally working my butt off in  of the turning of the tide so cool but i think we need to keep dreaming and it's not just about inequity around l g b t issues but it's about inequity in many ways we have and it's about so much more than that my my real passion that's kind of underlies all the social justice work is is environmental consciousness and that's a great pairing with my field i know a lot about green design we just did a wonderful home that's a minnesota green star gold home which is kind of like a lot of people are more familiar with the lead it's like a lead gold slash platinum kind of project it is a wonderful thing to be able to design homes in such a way that we're not using energy so at any rate i really really like to finish the the work that i've done around rights for same sex couples and kind of segue into you know environmental work and environmental justice work so i think ways to kind of tie things together is is that you know we have we have politics we have philanthropy we have big dreams and big visions we have activism as a human as a as a citizen i want to do all of these things you know our foundation is a five one two three in it and it funds only five one c three work which is you know nonprofits educational work it's not sort of political advocacy but it can be research to support political atmosphere we do that kind of thing we support and we and we try to build partnerships with organizations kind of across multiple silos it's not just non profits but we're trying to build relationships with everybody nonprofits can't do this on their on their own i don't think our politicians and our government can do it on on its own i think we need to kind of build these webs and and then i think you know when i think about our decision to bring rosie into our home i think it's important to live it to not just sort of write the check and be done and not just make that make the introduction be done but for me it's important to kind of live in it and be a part of it to be a part of that solution to make the connection so if our foundation can't support any political action i need to do that on my own i need to write those checks individually i need to find ways to kind of make sure that the whole the whole moves forward not just a piece of it that makes sense yeah i see it as a interconnected more of that as you decide that it's not just out there that there's inner work is what you're saying that helps to do more on the outer level as i guess that's why i was intrigued by your your choice to have that intimate relationship with the homeless woman is that it it does force you to face it internally and not just say i can write make the solution outside of myself so i mean i'm intrigued by that that you decided to live in it as integrated a way as you can and i guess i hear you saying i i have more that i want to explore and do figure out how to take it to another level so that integration seems to be  intriguing so if you were to invite people to follow any one of these threads what would you encourage them to do well i think the work that's being done by minnesotans united right now and project  fifteen is a part of that outfront minnesota's a part of that i think i think it's so like i said so gratifying to be part of part of a solution that's happening right now and that stuff that stuff takes money it's six volunteers you know it takes time the success of minnesotans united six last year was spectacular in part because there were twenty seven thousand volunteers in the last couple weeks there were sixty five thousand volunteers there were two hundred some thousand contacts made by that organization that's movement building and movement building really moves stuff it's pretty spectacular you get stop the will of many many people but but again it only takes a few folks to get it going  the the tips i think you are offering to us and being consistent with your your own themes if you well i really appreciate the way you talked about that energy out the generosity of your grandmother followed by the outer generosity and support so that that idea that you are now offering that support as a family that you're essentially communicating to rosie we're there for you we know you make mistakes too and we'll provide that's some of that grounding is what it sounds like all of us do better on work around it somewhere so if people want to know more about your work do you want them to look at your site for your your design work or your foundation or just so they know what to wear to learn more about what you do everything's online sound design forty five dot com column all spelled out project five one five dot org jael found org ok foundation those are three web actually know about the house ok a lot of people actually said they threw it last ok well that's fantastic so i'm i am really curious i know i read about the house but i haven't taken the time but it's an aspirational home for sure thank you so much for your time today john and thank you so much that's all we have time for come and join us again next week on the sa