Career path stories: Starting your own firm

Career path stories:

Starting your own firm

Josh Kunkel, AIA Kunkel is the managing principal at Method Group in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He and his firm focus on infill, adaptive-reuse, and interior design projects and have seven people across three states. He is president of the Kendall Whittier Main Street association and co-chair for programming for ULI Tulsa. Kunkel and his wife, Beth, have four sons, ages 3, 6, 7, and 9.

We know that everyone’s career path is different, and some are even non-traditional. Members of the YAF Strategic Vision Group, are offering our insights into how we got to where we are, paired with contributing authors. The contributing YAF members of this career path series are Malcolm Watkins and Carrie Parker.

Carrie Parker (CP) and Malcolm Watkins (MW): Tell me a little about yourself.

Josh Kunkel (JK): I was the son of a residential contractor, so I grew up on job sites and always was creating things with K’Nex and Legos. It wasn’t until high school that I wanted to be an architect. I took a drafting class my junior year and fell in love with it. Up until then, I wanted to be a meteorologist but realized that probably wasn’t the path for me, and really it was more about the thrill of storm chasing!

CP and MW: Did you always want to do what you are doing now?

JK: I always imagined that I would be a principal or a firm owner one day. My dad is a small-business owner, and I come from a family of entrepreneurs (farming).

CP and MW: How did you get to where you are now? Describe your path/career progression.

JK: After deciding to be an architect in high school, I attended Oklahoma State University for my bachelor’s of architecture. Graduating in 2012, Tulsa had not yet fully recovered from the recession, and jobs were scarce. I luckily landed a job at Dewberry and was fortunate to work on some very large health care projects right out of school. It is important to note that the week after we graduated, we found out that my wife was pregnant with our first son Eli. Having children really helps provide focus on career trajectory, and soon after he was born, I decided to take my licensure path seriously.

In true fashion, I knew I couldn’t go it alone in getting licensed and studying, so with the help of an older colleague, we formed an AIA-sanctioned study group that over the next four years helped over 20 people get licensed, including myself. That is still probably one of my proudest accomplishments! During this time, I was asked to come work for Selser Schaefer, where I was able to work on a very popular grocery chain in Texas, HEB. They were a 50-person local architecture firm, and I was interested in getting varied experience.

It took me three years to get licensed, which I realize is accelerated, but by that time, we had the birth of our second son, Ethan, so I knew I had to get it done! Almost immediately after I passed my last ARE exam, I found out that I had been laid off from my current firm. This was the moment that really planted the seed in my head about starting a firm someday. I realized that what many perceived to be a safety net (of working for someone else) really wasn’t a safety net at all.

My next firm, Crafton Tull, had been recruiting me for quite some time, so thankfully I was able to line up my next position with them on the phone in between trips to my car packing up my desk from being laid off. I truly had my next job lined up before I even told my wife! With the news of having just passed my last exam, I was able to step directly into a project architect role.

Crafton Tull provided a large variety of experiences, and my superiors allowed me time to explore my interests in firm management and operations. I am forever thankful for that experience because it gave me a small taste of what running

“I realized that what many perceived to be a safety net (of working for someone else) really wasn’t a safety net at all.”

— Josh Kunkel, AIA

Above Oklahoma Ironworks Building; an adaptive-reuse project in Tulsa, OK.

my own firm would be like in the future. After being at the firm for a few years, I realized that I had a different vision of how I saw the architecture side of business going. (They only had two small offices of architects and were primarily an engineering firm.) I, along with my boss at the time, approached the senior leadership about spinning off the local office and taking all of our projects with us. Thankfully for us, they agreed!

Thus began my path to firm ownership. So on June 1, 2018, we officially made the switch over to Method Group. Since we were an established office and brought work with us, we started with five people right out the gate. Four came from Crafton Tull, and the fifth was an interior designer who we had been wanting to hire for some time. Since I had the idea in the back of my mind for a while, I had been reading as many books as I could about running a firm, operations, etc. Most proved to be helpful, but I really didn’t start the real learning until we actually became a real firm with real expenses. For me, I had to jump out of the nest and try to fly.

I will be honest, it was not easy. We had a lot of assumptions that didn’t pan out, and time (and money) burns quicker than you think. Having good metrics and data in place is paramount, and in the beginning, we didn’t have it. (We do now.) And then being a year-and-a-half-old firm going into COVID wasn’t fun either. Luckily for us, the federal government provided. Also, our clients at the time all said, “Keep going.”

Four years later, we are seven people across three states. We have some amazing projects at all phases of the process, and our future projects are the most exciting we have ever had! Even with the roller coaster of it, I still enjoy being a firm owner and enjoy the challenges and opportunities that it brings. I am looking forward to our growth as a firm and working on larger projects.

CP and MW: What have been some challenges and failures you have faced?

JK: There have been many challenges and failures along the way, but three in particular come to mind. The first is when an experienced client mentioned to my senior project manager that I was maybe a little too confident and that I should say, “I don’t know the answer, and let me get back with you.” It was really difficult for me to hear at the moment, but that truly was an inflection point in my career, and I am thankful my client brought it to my attention.

The second was a poor hire I made. I had thought that since I knew this person well and that they were a low performer in another environment, that they could be a high performer on my team. I was completely wrong in my assessment. Later on, I realized that had we had our core values we have implemented in place then, this person would not have cleared “the bar.” So the lesson learned is that hiring someone is a serious commitment, but even more serious is knowing who you are as a firm, what you stand for, and more importantly what you don’t stand for. Firing this person was still one of the most difficult things I have had to do as a firm owner.

The third is being a parent in this industry. Our industry, which starts in school, teaches you to work yourself to death. One, this doesn’t work, but two, it’s especially hard when you have a family. One of the drivers in starting my firm was to be able to undo that expectation for myself and now for others. I believed that great architecture could be achieved without working insane hours and paying the team fairly. So the firm has no office hours, we are fully remote in operation (most of us are hybrid by choice), and we pay our people fairly and treat them with respect. I am proud of the fact that the majority of my team are working moms, which means I am accomplishing one of the goals I set out to achieve. Our studio leader just came back from her second round of paid maternity leave! (We offer three months’ paid maternity leave at 60% salary for full-time employees.)

CP and MW: What advice do you have for others who may be interested in following the same path?

JK: My advice is to figure out what you are really good at and focus on doing that. I was thankful to have a wide variety of experience at a full spectrum of firms, but once I finally discovered that speaking vision and being really passionate about firm culture/operations, I never looked back. It may take you five to 10 years of searching, but don’t let life happen to you by accident, be intentional about it!

Related to that is that more firms should pick a niche and stick with it. Expertise in a few things is truly a blessing (and quite profitable). It may take you some time to figure it out, but go find it!

Also, READ. Read a lot! All you need to know in life has been written down in a book somewhere, and all you need to do is find it!

CP and MW: What is next for you?

JK: For the firm, next looks like growth. We have been actively working to “level up” our project sizes so that we can grow our team. Ideally, we are 15 people in the next two to three years and operating regionally/nationally within our niche of infill and adaptive-reuse projects. For my family, it looks like stability. Our youngest is FINALLY potty trained, and so we are officially done with diapers! Which really means we are about ready to start planning a trip to Disney.

For myself, I am really excited about finally being able to take a trip internationally next year. We were planning on going to Europe in the winter of 2020, but that clearly didn’t happen. For this year specifically, I am looking forward to finally achieving my goal of reading 50 books in one year. I have had the goal for four years in a row now, but so far have only made it to 44 books. As of this writing, I am at 39 books!

Above Josh and his family

Carrie Parker, AIA, LEED AP BD+C

Parker is an associate vice president at CannonDesign’s D.C. office. She is also the young architect representative for Virginia and won an Emerging Professional Award from AIA Virginia in 2020.

Malcolm Watkins, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP

Watkins is a vice president with SJCF Architecture in Wichita, Kan. He serves on the management team with an emphasis on design technology, quality control, and recruitment. He is also the young architect regional director for the central states.