Our project on Altius Architecture for Cal Poly Entrepreneur’s The Intrepid was a great professional learning experience. My group and I were tasked with the unique challenge of reaching out to an international company (Altius is based in Toronto, Canada) and getting to know the Managing Principal and co-founder, Cathy Garrido, without having any concrete (no pun intended!) background in construction management or architecture.
“This project helped me understand the depth that interviews can have, being more than just a task-oriented venture, but also a time to learn from your sources and their perspective of the world”
Sophie Baye
As a result of these circumstances, I felt obliged to start this blog out with the whole “professional learning experience” tag in the first sentence because I truly think that being a professional in this day and age requires that you drop any excuses and learn quickly to get the job done.
Thus was the pace our project broke ground on, and within two days of finalizing our initial story pitch, we were in a Zoom call with Cathy Garrido herself. We had to quickly familiarize ourselves with the company and think about how to relate Garrido’s experience to our primary audience, Cal Poly Entrepreneurs and the readers of The Intrepid.
“This project has given me the chance to put myself into a successful entrepreneur’s shoes and give me new perspective on what it means to never give up.”
Jonathon Crespin
Our interview with Garrido was quite pleasant, and she was really happy to speak with us and provided us with ample information to continue our work on the story. I liked this particular quote from Garrido because I think it sums up her business philosophy pretty well:
“I think most people who are successful at what they do, you just have to dive in and do it and trust that, you know, you know, enough to get through it…you have to work pretty hard and you have to be pretty committed.”
After we had finished the Zoom interview, we re-listened to the audio and transcribed interesting quotes. We then outlined the story and produced a rough draft, which was then finalized into a final draft for publication.
“I really enjoyed hearing about how Altius started as a business and how they take a lot of care and thought into their projects in terms of sustainability and the client’s need.”
Amanda Rondez
Along with the story, we also included a few interactive elements like a gallery of Altius construction photos and a juxtaposition component where you could see the original 3D rendering of a lake house and then its finished product.