“Walk with A Fellow” with Rick Archer, FAIA | In a recent event on April 5, 2025 Sarah-Jane Monroe and others from AIA-SA made a day of it: a group of eager young architects gathered for a chartered bus tour to Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin to share a personal walking tour with project architect and AIA Fellow Rick Archer. Archer is a founding partner at Overland Partners Architecture and Urban Design and is currently active as Design Principal for the firm.
“Lady Bird Johnson brought her passion for natural beautification to her direction on the wildflower center project, and personally inspired me,” Rick recalls. “We established a rapport,” he continues, and shared the emotional impact of seeing the project in vibrant form, 30 years on. The groundbreaking botanic garden became an early calling card for Overland Partners – a project imbued with natural beauty, symbolic meaning, and cultural significance to Texans. Additionally, the project showcased sustainability of systems and materials, as a pilot project for the then-emerging USGBC LEED accreditation program.
In her third year of volunteer leadership on the Emerging Professionals Committee, Sarah-Jane Monroe now leads as Chair of the combined Emerging and Young Architects Committee (EYA); working with AIA-SA board member and EP Director Nasario Arrequin, and Logan Notestine, AIA, Young Architects Committee Chair.
As part of her volunteer role, she has developed an innovative initiative: Walk with a Fellow, a special event series designed to create impactful mentorship engagements for emerging professionals. Each event brings a group of young architects together for an intimate gathering with an established fellow. “The idea of this format is to share insight with a greater number of mentees, while creating less burden for mentors,” according to Sarah. “The format draws out the personal stories, the nuggets of wisdom you can’t get in a lecture.” Walk with a Fellow has sponsored three events in 2025 and has received a grant from the AIA College of Fellows to provide operational support. This year, the program has hosted events with fellows Irby Hightower and Mike McGlone (Alamo Architects), Matt Morris (Lake Flato Architects), Dror Baldinger (architectural photographer), and Rick Archer (Overland Partners). An upcoming event is scheduled with Tenna Florian (Lake Flato Architects).
For Walk with a Fellow as well as her programmatic innovations in actively engaging others on the path to NCARB accreditation, Sarah-Jane has been nominated by the San Antonio Chapter of the AIA for 2025 TxA Associate of the Year. Results of this prestigious competition will be announced in July 2025.
We’re rooting for you, Sarah!
