With a little over three weeks since my forced retirement from politics, I am enjoying life. No more evening meetings, no emails or phone calls from irate residents, no suits and ties, and best of all, no City Council meetings.

Although I am retired from politics, I never really “retired.” I continue to work as an architect at Interactive Resources, the architecture-engineering firm I founded nearly 50 years ago. Take a look at our website.

Compared to serving on the City Council or mayor, working as an architect in the private sector has many advantages, including:

I actually get paid well for my opinions and ideas. People respect me. No night meetings. No complaints and no social media trolls and tirades. It’s actually fun and rewarding.

Here are some of the projects I am working on or have recently completed. For all of the projects shown below, I am personally the project manager, assisted by a team of professionals in multiple disciplines.

This is what I do.

Figure 1 – A 445-page report for a $68 million project at Coalinga State Hospital that I have been working on since April of 2022. Figure 2 – A report on options for reroofing the Interdisciplinary Sciences building at UC Santa Cruz, where the roof is covered with greenhouses and has serious leak problems. Figure 3 – providing building envelope consultation and design for a $100 million rehabilitation of the historical Unruh Building across the street from the State Capitol. It is the office of the state treasurer. Just completed construction documents. Figure 4 – A report evaluating $85 million of upgrades to the Dellums Federal Building and Courthouse in Oakland. Completed in November 2022. Figure 5 – I am managing reroofing projects at six California Courthouses with a combined cost of over $6 million. This is an overview of the Wakefiled Taylor Courthouse in Martinez. All are under construction. Figure 6 – This is a $1.2 million window replacement project at the Sisk Courthouse in Fresno

Figure 7 – $4 million repair of concrete channels at the Leviathan Mine in Alpine County, an abandoned sulfur mine and EPA superfund site

Figure 8 – Rehabilitation of planters at the Elihu Harris State Building in Oakland – under construction Figure 9 – This project started as a $2.8 million replacement of mechanical equipment at the Rattigan State Building in Santa Rosa but has expanded to include reroofing, a new BMS and VAV box replacement. It is under construction. Figure 10 – This is a historic preservation project for the 100-year-old Veterans Memorial Building in Crockett.