Q: How long have you worked at Rice?
A: 22 fantastic years. I started on Dec. 7, 2004.
Q: What is your favorite part about working for the university?
A: Rice is family. Sure, we work together, but we also learn, grow, celebrate, socialize, laugh, care and grieve together.
Q: What do you want people to know about living in Houston?
A: Houston is a city where cultures from around the world intersect in the most extraordinary ways. That’s why our dining scene is so vibrant. Houston, in my view, is a ray of hope that we can indeed all live together.
Q: What do you do in your downtime?
A: I love exploring the variety of Houston’s cuisines. I am also a music junkie, and I particularly enjoy streaming the community radio station KXCI in Tucson, Arizona. I was a community radio DJ for a third of a century, including on Rice’s KTRU, so back then I would spend a lot of my downtime preparing shows.
Q: What’s your favorite spot on campus to show someone?
A: My favorite spot on campus is definitely the live oak tree next to the old wing of Hanszen College and the South Servery under which I met Lisa Spiro as a Rice student in 1990. We are married now, and she works at Fondren Library. That tree was subsequently dedicated to my father-in-law Bob Spiro, who is a Rice retiree.
Q: What’s the most exciting time of year for you as it relates to Rice?
A: I look forward to the end of each semester when students are presenting their final projects, especially when I am invited to classes to witness their presentations. Honorable mention goes to when the azaleas bloom in the spring.
Q: What’s the one thing that makes Rice special to you?
A: The people of course, but beyond that, the trees. Our entire campus is designated as the Lynn R. Lowrey Arboretum. How fortunate we are to work in an arboretum!
Q: What do you enjoy most about your job?
A: My job aligns with my values, and there’s tremendous variety from one day to the next. This is my dream job. My passion is connecting students with opportunities to use the physical campus and its operations as a sustainability test bed, and through that linking them with staff in creating and implementing solutions. Rice has been doing this for nearly 30 years; we now call it the Rice Living Lab program.
Q: What are your most memorable accomplishments?
A: I co-created the environmental studies minor with Dominic Boyer in 2016, and 152 students have graduated with the minor since. I was part of the team that secured a $30 million gift from Charles and Anne Duncan to found Duncan College, with a deep commitment to sustainability being a key feature of the pitch to the Duncans. I worked with then-associate VP of housing and dining Mark Ditman and others to enable the pioneering mass timber wing of Hanszen College, a climate solutions showcase, which opened in January 2023. I wrote over 450 letters of recommendation in support of students who were an absolute joy to teach and mentor.
Beyond Rice, I help foster a lively network called the Texas Regional Alliance for Campus Sustainability, which has accelerated the greening of Texas higher education institutions. My professional accomplishments led to my being appointed to the CAPLA’s Futures Council, a prestigious body that advises the dean of the College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture at the University of Arizona.
Personally, I am proud to have partnered with Lisa in raising two amazing kids — both now in college — and grateful to have survived two serious bouts with cancer. I am so thankful to the many people in the Rice community who have supported me through the cancer journey. I am healing!
Q: What are your hobbies and interests outside of work?
A: My hobbies and interests include travel, music, art, improv, photography and exploring Houston’s dining scene. Lisa and I enjoy dabbling in hobbies. Earlier this year, we took a 15-week Korean language class in advance of a trip we took this summer to South Korea.
Q: What advice would you give to new employees?
A: Don’t spend all day at your desk. You can get a lot done through informal encounters on campus.
Q: Would you share a bit about your background and career journey?
A: I am originally from New York but grew up in Houston. After graduating from Rice, I worked as a civil engineer in Virginia then earned a masters in urban and environmental planning from the University of Virginia. In graduate school I spent time with many of the sustainability world’s leading thinkers and practitioners. It was an extraordinary moment in time, and it changed my life forever.
Following graduation, I worked at UVA’s Darden Business School for over five years, and then as an urban planner in Houston for two years. In 2004, I applied for a newly created position at Rice to embed sustainability across the university, and I knew within the first minute or two of my job interview that I had found my dream job. At the time I was hired, there were only about 50 similar positions in higher education. Now, they’re quite common. I am amongst the longest tenured sustainability officers in higher education.
Q: What’s your favorite lunch spot or snack?
A: On campus, I can often be found grabbing a breakfast taco at Dandelion Cafe. If I go off campus for lunch, I adore the vegan miso gachi ramen at Japanese Ramen Gachi.
Q: What’s your secret talent?
A: I am blessed with a positive energy that makes me quite optimistic. I’m also very adaptable. These two traits have served me well in life.
Q: What’s one piece of advice you would give to your younger self?
A: Book the flight, get the colonoscopy and don’t be so hard on yourself.
Q: If you could be Sammy The Owl for a day, what would you do?
A: It would be a hoot to lead a class while wearing the Sammy The Owl costume.
Q: How would you describe your experience as a Rice employee?
A: I love my job. I look forward to each day, and I have a fantastic team in the Office of Sustainability, and more broadly across Campus Services and Sustainability. I’m a bit of a serial innovator, and I’ve found my tribe.
Q: Where do you see Rice in 25 years?
A: Our strategic plan Momentous sets the goal that “Rice University will be the most innovative institution accelerating long-lasting advances and discoveries aimed at developing sustainable solutions that address challenges to energy, climate and environment.” Imagine if we actually achieve that, and how transformative it will be not only for the university but also for Houston. The level of ambition is truly motivating for me.
Q: What’s your favorite memory from your time with Rice?
A: Falling in love with Lisa as a student in 1990.
Q: Describe Rice in four words or less.
A: Different on purpose.
Q: What else have we not talked about yet that merits discussion?
A: As an indication of how interdisciplinary sustainability is, I have been an instructor for courses in four of Rice’s eight schools and a guest lecturer in seven of those schools. The only one I’m missing is the Shepherd School of Music. Given that I was a community radio DJ for a third of a century, perhaps that counts?