Manchester High School Alumni Update: Jim Hakes, Class of 1989
Jim Hakes, Manchester High school class of 1989. Photo courtesy of the Manchester High School alumni Association.
submitted by Susan Fielder, MHS Alumni Association
The Alumni Association contacted former Manchester graduate, Jim Hakes, from the class of 1989. Many alumni remember seeing some of Jim’s drawings from Mrs. Melinda Trout’s art classes. The drawings, three-dimensional, black and white depictions of architecture, were amazing. His classmates remember this left-handed artist with his hand in an almost 360-degree position holding the pencil. So, whatever happened to this budding artist from Manchester?
After graduation, Jim attended University of Michigan to study architecture. “I had always wanted to be an architect, and Michigan gave me a great start,” he recalls. One of the most important experiences was taking part in a summer design studio in Prague, and Jim was able to travel to Budapest, Paris, and London.
Jim earned a Bachelor’s degree from U-M in 1993. It was during a recession and firms were not hiring. So in 1994, he sold his car, took the savings, and moved to Chicago – without a job. He worked in a coffee shop, and eventually with the help of a professor, found a job at DeStefano + Partners in 1994. Jim’s first project was a house renovation, and he hand-drafted all the designs. Soon he was working on the remodel for McDonald’s corporate headquarters in suburban Chicago. He had to learn how to draw on the computer – it was the firm’s first project that was fully computer-drafted. Within two years of starting at DeStefano, Jim became a project architect, leading a team of about four people working on a new suburban office building.
Jim knew he needed a Master’s degree to continue his career path to becoming a licensed architect. In early 1997, he started graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania. It was not easy, and he also had to work during school. He covered most of the cost with loans, but he successfully earned a Master of Architecture degree in 1999. Penn gave him the chance to learn from professors from around the world. It was also an exciting time in architectural education – when he started, drawing and model making in all design studios was done by hand. But, by his last year, he was one of the first eight architecture students at Penn to prepare a master’s thesis using a computer. He was a finalist for the thesis prize, the most prestigious award given by the School of Design. By the time he left Penn, nearly all studios were digital (as they are now at all architecture schools). Jim says, “I am proud to have been part of this transition, and very lucky to have been educated in both the traditional hand-drawn and the new digital methods of design.”
Jim remembers, as at University of Michigan, travelling was an important part of his experience at Penn. He won a fellowship and used the award to attend summer programs in London and Paris. While in Europe, he went to other cities, including Florence, and documented his travels in sketchbooks that he still has.
It was also at Penn that Jim met his future wife, Anna. She was continuing her studies as a Ph.D. candidate in architecture. They were married on the beach in her hometown of La Jolla, California, in 2003.
Jim continued his career at Geddes Brecher Qualls Cunningham in Philadelphia, and finally passed the exam to become a licensed architect in 2004. While at GBQC, he worked on the National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall in Washington D.C., and later became a project architect and project manager, leading projects for public clients in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
With Anna was expecting their first child, the Hakes moved to the San Francisco Bay area to be closer her family. Jim began working at Handel Architects in San Francisco. Their son, was born a few months later and then a daughter. According to Jim, “They are both beautiful, and growing up fast. They are both competitive swimmers, play tennis, and take part in many other activities as most kids do nowadays, all with the help of their very dedicated mother.”
It was at Handel that Jim had the chance to work on many high-profile projects. At the start of the recession in 2008, they were very lucky to win an International competition to design the Rosewood, a high-rise, five-star hotel in Abu Dhabi. Jim was the project manager, and for 5-1/2 years led a team of up to 25 architects in the San Francisco, New York, and Abu Dhabi offices, as well as a worldwide team of engineers and other consulting firms from North America, the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. His work involved travel to Abu Dhabi, Dubai, London, and New York. Jim recalls, “It was an intense experience; our firm’s first International project, and it brought our office successfully through the recession. We completed the Rosewood in 2013, and I consider it the most complex project our firm has executed and the most important of my career to date.”
Since the Rosewood, Jim has completed a few more prestigious buildings as a project manager, including Ten Thousand, a 40-story luxury high-rise apartment building in Los Angeles. This was the firm’s first project to use “Building Information Modeling,” a new method of designing and documenting buildings using 3D software that is replacing the 2D computer drafting the industry has used for the last two decades. Jim also completed The Pacific, a renovation project whose new condos have set sales records in San Francisco.
Jim is now a principal at Handel, and is running five projects that total about 2.3 million square feet, and about $1.1 billion in construction costs. The most exciting of these is Angel’s Landing, a competition they won late last year to design a large, mixed-use project for a site in downtown Los Angeles, with an 88-story tower that could be one of the tallest in the Western U.S. Jim says, “If all goes as planned, it will take us about 7 years to finish. I am also involved with managing the office, and I enjoy mentoring our younger architects when I have the chance. My typical day is filled with a very wide variety of tasks, and I enjoy the challenge.”
“My work has kept me very busy! When I have some spare time, my favorite things to do are watching Karsten and Annika’s swim meets, spending time in San Francisco, and hiking – a popular pastime in the Bay Area where there is so much to see, all within a few hours’ walk of our house.”
So now, we ALL know what happened to the budding, left-handed artist from Mrs. Trout’s art class.
Jim’s advice to this year’s graduates is, “Keep your idealism. One of my commencement speakers said that. I’m not too big on remembering inspirational sayings, but that one stuck with me. Find a purpose for yourself, don’t give up and don’t let it go, just because you’ve gotten older or life has thrown you a curve ball.”
The Manchester Alumni Banquet is scheduled for June 16th. Please consider a financial donation to the scholarship fund. As Jim’s life experiences inspire future graduates, your financial support will help them achieve their goals. Checks can be sent to MHS Alumni Association, PO Box 254, Manchester, MI 48158.
3-26-18 Editor’s note: the content of this article has been edited based on the request of the submitter.
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