school that was interesting when i was growing up was i always loved to draw music art and i loved sketching and in drawing and hail as wanted to be an architect when i grow up i didn't know what it meant but i knew so i used to watch see a lot of the how many josephs and so outside our window at that time the tallest building was like twelve stories so i drew that in three dimensional i spent hours and hours for my final art class so i submitted  in my teacher didn't believe me that i drew that because it looked way to mature for what i was doing at thirteen or fourteen and i got punished she had me stand in the corner throughout the whole class because she thought my older brother did it or somebody who is more advanced did the drawing and i remember that thinking i was so pissed that she didn't believe me so i remember i said i have that memory but then i kept getting interested in the idea of architecture even though like i was asking what city planning an urban design is i didn't know what i mean i had like this romantic view of what it is you draw drawing and then a building gets you know that's all i understood but i was just all this attracted to that and i always wanted to do that when i went to school but then there was a revolution in ethiopia my school was closed and it was you know when  brutal i was lucky enough to escape that my father was and lucky enough he was killed and then i went to kenya as a refugee i was sixteen with three other friends and it was a big adventure to be able to avoid road blocks on this to drive from i disobey to my ali it took us about three weeks because we had to stop and different places and find someone that you pay to get you out of the country long adventure i could talk about it for three hours but fast forward i guess kenny and my plan at that time was us and as i got to kenny out to go to israel and curious about me because and both of us because we didn't have our parents and she kept asking why are you going to israel and i said oh i'm going to go live in the kibbutz communal living and they don't need money and she said have you finished school i said no school  closed because of the revolution in ethiopia for a year and a half my school was closed a refugee in kenya and i didn't start school so i missed already two years by th and i said no i don't know anything in kenya i want to go to israel and she said well i've been to kenya i mean to israel many times if you don't have money if you haven't finished school you're going to end up being a waiter or just working on you know for somebody she said why don't you finish high school here in kenya and i said i'd yeah you know i don't know anybody and she said well my husband works for the government would you be open to you know why don't i invite you for dinner at home  husband if you get a good school would you consider it and i thought i was completely open they said sure but must instead on oh you know i'm going but he went to dinner with me anyway senior two days later we go to dinner and her husband well why don't you postpone your flight and then i'll see what i can do i was completely open to it because it was just a chance encounter i didn't have any fear i just said ok you know explore that and i stayed two or three weeks later i got a call from the school this international school i mean that will be i went there it's beautiful rolling coffee farm tucked into the coffee farmer this beautifully designed h looking architecture was the highest the school that was run by the u s and canadian embassies and it had a river flowing you know botany nearby it was just beautiful and they interviewed me and i said sure so i ended up going there for two years it was one of the most important decisions that i made it would not have happened if that woman didn't took interest in me and if i wasn't just open to that chance encounter to say hey i would take that risk and explore instead of the sure thing that i had which was my ticket to israel and all these things i dreamt about so just that was kind of the first for a change so that was one of the best decisions i made for two reasons one it exposed me to all this other worlds my graduating class was about seventeen students from about twelve thirteen different countries six of us from five different two to three times a year at least a few of us you know three of us i mean about four you four years ago all six of us got together but that exposure for me then helped me kind of set me up wherever i went because of that you know the time that i spent with it completely diverse group of people with completely diverse backgrounds that we kind of bonded friends and then i went to italy to come to the u s i lived there for a couple of years there again completely chance encounter are supposed to be there for about three months and being there about eighteen months the reason i stayed was i run into another friend of mine who was a refugee in kenya who w through sweden in some other place and ended up in italy and he said hey i have an ethiopian friend who grew up in italy and he has a bar and he needs somebody to draw signage for him and he would you know he took me about an hour and a half outside of rome so i went there and it took us a week you know it was doing signage for him and then i did construction because he wanted to change his garage sure and as i was doing that i said realizing wow i am in italy initially did it hit me that much what a great opportunity and then i started liking being in there and i kept postponing my flight to come to the u s i spent about a year and a half there and amazing experience and then i saw bob marley's concert in milan just before he died because i was in  architecture in america so the difference between architecture and city planning is architects design buildings in that it gets built city planners design the entire city where architects can put buildings in but my initial education was for five years studying architecture to be an architect and after that i started working in architecture designing buildings and the first firm i worked for was ideal place work he was a teacher at my school but he had a farm so i interned for the last two years of my school i was taking internship in his office then that led for me to continue to work as a full time employee in his office designing buildings and there's nothing more satisfying that you draw design i don't do the details and then finally you see a building built in you know you have something to do with that it's incredibly satisfying after i did that for a few years started asking question myself a question about whether this is everything that i wanted it to be you know the idea of being an architect everything i wanted was there the reason i started asking a question at that time was that people were designing for this incredibly rich people it was a small firm and we had designed very expensive homes for them and i couldn't believe how much waste there is in when you're designing a building for them so they would not like one idea they will change it oh there's fifty sixty thousand dollars the door they would order a marble from italy it would come we put it up don't like it they would change and that's when i started thinking this what i wanted to do then i started looking into what other related fields i could get into and that's when city planning came up and then i applied for a scholarship and i got that mit is one of the best schools for city planning and most other things so there is where i really learned about sort of the larger context of planning for larger scale cit and all throughout what was really useful for me is getting to know people or making contacts and never leaving any sort of bad impression with anyone because for whatever reason because often times they would come back and they would open one door or another or they made me contact or talk to somebody and then that leads to the next step in my career and one of them was you know when i was finishing my graduate school i was running through the corridor or and this woman said hey i saw a sign  about picture position in san francisco so here i am in cambridge and she said did you apply for that and i said oh i didn't see it because at that time they kind of me was a little bad we didn't know where we go to and my wife and i at that time she was my girlfriend and we didn't know where we're going to end up with that we're going to go to chicago or anywhere else because the job market was in good so she told me about this sign they said oh no i didn't apply today maybe you should look at it i looked at it then i went to the career office and she said oh the deadline is over but you don't have anything to lose you should submit your application i said sure i scrambled i submitted my implication and then  i got a call within a week because they were coming from san francisco to interview at mit and harvard for this job just by that chance i interviewed right after my interview they brought me to san francisco in a week another interview and that led to my first kind of major work and then i ended up being there for eleven years and worked two firms and then the city asked me if i wanted to work to be the chief urban planner for the city of san francisco that's when i first started the public monies of public sector so all this time i worked in the private for architecture design firms the city of san francisco we were clients to the throughout then every time i get in that step i have to call people that i've met before write me a recommendation letters or connect me to the right person who i should talk to so that then that opens the door to the next step and then in san francisco that's when i did a lot of sort of the foundational work in city planning and public in gage moments in working with neighborhood groups industrial area used to be a navy shipyard more so the african americans in san francisco came because the bayview hunter's point they used to build ships in the navy ship yard and it used to be a thriving community create music culture they owned lots of property there all the through the fifty's sixty's seventy's and then when the shipyard closed they lost about nine hundred thousand people who were employed at the shipyard and then it started sort of affecting the babe you honest point neighborhood significantly when i and this other woman from the firm that i used to work for and this is before i joined the city when i was in the private sector we went and did pro bono work for two years working with the community groups to get them to realize what an amazing asset that they have with the shipyard it's five hundred acres not being used for anything other than military just a few ships that they break yet it's surrounded by a high concentration of african americans whose kids the younger people eighteen nineteen percent  unemployment that their mentors and their parents were well off they have homes for the kids who are not working so we said hey what if you think about this area to actually supports the community in the neighborhood so we organize the groups to actually fight and go to the city and asked that this area be considered what's called redevelopment area or a base closure redevelopment so the federal government gave us money and today that and so then i became one of the master planners in designing how that area the street grid the park you mentioned you know where the parks to be where the residential buildings should be percent of what is being built is built as affordable housing because it's a federal land that was given to the city so those are a different kind of satisfaction at a much larger scale stuff things that you been involved in you see kind of and many other people as well changing and new streets and new parks and people that had to live there so that you know that was san way back before you were born in chicago and so i would go there it's that's where i met my wife because they were playing my cousin's band was playing there and then marley invited them to go come to chicago and it would hang out so i was kind of my reggae experience there watching the grow up intricate go i mean they verge but so chicago then became you know  another place where i work work for almost ten eleven years work for the city and the private sector as well but each time i was really open to  of the connections that i made over the years to this day i go back to some of my friends or teachers or people i work with in mit or in san francisco and they would vote for me because they've known me then so it's important to keep that linkage and connection because most none of us you know do anything or get anywhere by ourselves it's always there are always people in each step of the way that  help you either expose you to ideas that you haven't you know thought about or you look at what they do and maybe that interests you for me it's looking at other people as well as connecting with others so that i could  seattle came about not by accident but when i was in san francisco when i was working in the planning department this guy came to work for us as an intern and he kind of followed me around and i taught him how to draw and he was very very smart guy and as an intern at the school planning department we got to know each other and he worked and he and i worked for a couple of years for a year and a half their this was in the ninety ninety ninety eight ninety nine two years ago i'm in spain for a vacation and i get a c who it is this guy marshall foster and i said hey marshall what's going on and he goes well sam i just wanted to see if this would interest you the mayor has created a new if i put your name in was happy in boulder heading urban design you know i've been there for six years i wasn't you know that because of the connection from marshall i you know i put respect whose work he designers do as well so that freeway will be gone in two years and then that whole area will open up so marshall costs are is the director of the waterfront plan for the city who's leading down and he is the one who first contacted me and then i started the process i went through several interviews with other people and then i became a finalist and recommended here but if marshall and i didn't get along together when we were in town cisco i probably would not be in seattle so that connection was very important for me so now you know i'm getting a new department we're going through a political turmoil i guess finally now it's settled i'm on my fourth mayor in four months so i that's my boss is the mayor because i work directly for the mayor and now we have a new man elected should be you know  rated on november twenty eighth and i just met with her yesterday and we'll see what happens up there that i make most likely else they i think so that in the city government  directors are appointed by the mayor so usually most mayors bring some mayors bring their own directors will change a few so those are the kinds of things you know we have to be prepared for so that's where we are in some in seattle seattle you know where i think most of you grew up here but seattle's going through an amazing transformation over the last fifteen twenty years so for city planners that's one of the biggest challenge because what we do is we anticipate what's going to happen in the next ten years years fifteen and you plan for that the city grew so fast that now we're cutting up on transportation other needs the city needs to accommodate all this people that are coming but most importantly from my office we're also focusing on how do you retain people so that they are not displaced by their policy objectives that you have to put in place and one thing i learned over time now my job and requires that i have a diverse knowledge i can't just be a city planning and design i have to understand political issues have to understand legal issues have to understand the diversity of people in their needs because the policy decisions that i make affects a large number of people or the device that i give to the decision makers affects a lot of people so and a day to day basis gauge with  office we have about twenty eight twenty nine different projects that are going on so my staff works on that and i deal with other departments in any given time i should be aware of all those different projects it is rewarding it's exciting but it's a lot of work because well a lot of the foundation for me at least it's you know people education being open to opportunit bumps and you know having absolutely no money and don't know what's going to happen to morrow in a completely foreign land it sounds good you know exciting when i talk about it but this time in between times that for two days you didn't have your monthly allowance on time and you go hungry and there's a lot of that as well i mean life is at all levels i mean there's lots of road bumps granted you know people of opportunities it makes it will be easier for me regardless of whatever background my in i want to do what i love to do you know and it's not always the case but often you end up doing what you really like to do you'll be disappointed at times because it didn't happen as soon as you want it to happen and the other is just you know not not being afraid so i talked a lot so that's kind of a general kind of my background in terms of where right in in the midst of it trying to solve problems and i get sometimes pissed when i go home and what gets me excited to come in the morning is i have almost no service that smaller decisions that i make incrementally is going to have some major impact down the road it's the same thing that the satisfaction i get when you design something it's hard work you stay up all night months or years later you see that thing completed that's what always  gets me excited eat the decisions that i make affects people you know at the end of the day whether it's the place they live or the conditions that they're in that to me that is what gets me excited  motivates me that the first and foremost for me is you know i relate to a nine month old intern i ninety five year old and everything in between i think i mentioned that earlier probably my high school experience had something to do with it being exposed in a new country of the young age on my own with a much different types of people you know even then when we were having confrontation with the administration try to be as reasonable as possible rather than just shouting and screaming that that's one of the things that i think you know from when i think of human nature that you know i had this guy this was in chicago i was picking up my wife from an evening theatre class she was learning and one of the guys came out he had a big motorcycle and he looked completely like a jock you know i don't know if you know there was a chicago football player called jim mcmahon he was a quarterback he looked just like you in my mind immediately the way i saw him was well  and his motorcycle we became the best of friends because he was completely the opposite of what i was thinking he was incredibly talented artist he hates any sports he just likes a motorcycle but he doesn't care about sports he loves music art theater physically he looks like he's like this tough told white guy who looks like a football player when you talk to him in what he does just