About
## My Biography
BULK:
Southeast Oklahoma was a beautiful place to grown up, surrounded by mountains, lakes and trees. Like many kids near nature, I built forts, climbed trees and caught tadpoles. Since my first memories, the outdoors has been my escape. Boy Scouts gave me a firm foundation of the concept of environmental stewardship, and connection to nature. I began to find the outdoors was outlet for self-reflection and a place to be close to God. Today I am lucky to have a beautiful wife and two girls that love time outside just as much.
I guess I have always been into sustainable thinking. But, my recent work with grassroots community groups has given me a deeper insight into true sustainability and how to accomplish it holistically in our lives.
In 2011, I joined the Oklahoma Main Street Program staff. The program has been around since 1986, and there are around 35 active communities today. As the Staff Architect, my work centers on assisting each community protect, restore and modernize their historic buildings. I also assist with district-wide design, planning and policy issues like walkability, upper floor development, public event spaces and municipal policy, to name a few things.
I also have a love for green architecture and high-performance buildings. In 2015, I became the first licensed Architect in Oklahoma to become a Certified Passive House Consultant, CPHC®. Certified passive buildings are 90% more energy efficient than the code-minimum construction. They are healthy, draft free and very inexpensive to operate. Certified Passive House projects offer the best path for achieving a net-zero energy/carbon efficiency, and going “off the grid”.
Passive House certification means that the building is super-insulated and air-tight. They incorporate high-performance windows and utilize heat-recovery ventilation systems.
I was raised in town of 8,000 among the green hills of southeast Oklahoma. [Chris Alexander-town of 7,000??] I was fortunate to spend a lot of childhood outside exploring nature with my sister, family and friends. We lived on 10 acres with a pasture, creek and pond. Nearby, we had a small cow-calf operation and share-cropping land on the Arkansas river bottom. We also cared for some mountain land raising pole-timber, of the rugged K-Trail, to the south. By age 10, my friends and I rode bikes and skateboard everywhere in town. I just had to be home by dinner. This was the late 80’s, and the Internet had not yet brought everyone inside and online.
My father and I hunted and fished often, and swore that those Vienna Sausages just tasted so much better outdoors. Learning about caring for the land was inherent in these outings. Environmental stewardship also came through my experience in Scouting. My Scoutmaster Mr. Gilson “Mr. G”, showed us how important it was to “leave things better than we found them”. At the 1989 National Jamboree, our morning police-lines picking up trash earned positive attention, as we were one of the few honor troops selected to be on stage with President George H. Bush during his speech.
My Eagle Scout Project was starting a recycling program in my hometown. A sorting dumpster was donated to the City that had separate bins for: Glass, Paper, Steel and Aluminum. My Troop canvased the town with tri-fold booklets explaining how, where and why everyone should recycle.
Maybe the spirit for grassroots preservation was already in his blood. As a child his family rehabilitated a historic downtown building for the family business. The building stands proudly maintained today.
((PIC of me with Certificate))
### Growing Up (Full Circle: Freedom of Childhood & Learning Environmental Stewardship)
I was raised in town of 8,000 among the green hills of southeast Oklahoma. [Chris Alexander-town of 7,000??] I was fortunate to spend a lot of childhood outside exploring nature with my sister, family and friends. We lived on 10 acres with a pasture, creek and pond. Nearby, we had a small cow-calf operation and share-cropping land on the Arkansas river bottom. We also cared for some mountain land raising pole-timber, of the rugged K-Trail, to the south. By age 10, my friends and I rode bikes and skateboard everywhere in town. I just had to be home by dinner. This was the late 80’s, and the Internet had not yet brought everyone inside and online.
My father and I hunted and fished often, and swore that those Vienna Sausages just tasted so much better outdoors. Learning about caring for the land was inherent in these outings. Environmental stewardship also came through my experience in Scouting. My Scoutmaster Mr. Gilson “Mr. G”, showed us how important it was to “leave things better than we found them”. At the 1989 National Jamboree, our morning police-lines picking up trash earned positive attention, as we were one of the few honor troops selected to be on stage with President George H. Bush during his speech.
My Eagle Scout Project was starting a recycling program in my hometown. A sorting dumpster was donated to the City that had separate bins for: Glass, Paper, Steel and Aluminum. My Troop canvased the town with tri-fold booklets explaining how, where and why everyone should recycle.
Maybe the spirit for grassroots preservation was already in his blood. As a child his family rehabilitated a historic downtown building for the family business. The building stands proudly maintained today.
### Commune with Nature (Full Circle: Rayado, Rock Climbing & the Rocky Mountains)
### Professional Journey (Full Circle: focus on time before & during Main Street Architect)
In addition to growing up a good deal, I earned a Bachelor of Architecture at the University of Oklahoma. Idid not always know that I wanted to be an Architect. I had already done miserably at Pre-Med classes, and switched to the Business, under the guise that it was easy went to college here, married an Oklahoma girl and we recently had twin girls.
Graduation and the loss of my Father (time is precious).
Since graduating from the University of Oklahoma, Lucas has been interested in high-performance green architecture. Way back in 2008 he joined a study group with some fellow intern architects and became a LEED Accredited Professional, or LEED AP®. This was about the time he also began the odyssey of taking the Architectural Registration Exams. Another success! Recently in in 2015 he became a Certified Passive House Consultant, CPHC®. He is the first Licensed Architect in Oklahoma to achieve this designation.
Not too long ago, I began to have dreams of helping others find uses for property that they owned.
Since 2011 I have been serving as the Oklahoma Main Street Architect. This program has been around since 1986, and we have around 40 active communities. My work centers on efforts to assist these communities in improving their historic buildings and districts as a whole. I have a background in green architecture and serve as the program’s design and sustainability expert.
Lucas is most passionate about promoting environmental stewardship throughout the Main Street network. He is an active member of the United States Green Building Council and United States Passive House Alliance. He is currently working to develop more insight into implementing sustainability planning into historic buildings and communities across Oklahoma.
### One Complete Circle: (Full Circle: Marriage & when my twin daughters were born in 2015)
I still love the mountains and mastering a design, but now I have a deeper love.