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The Question and Answer feature helps readers learn more about prominent people in the business community. This issue’s Q&A profiles Stacey McMahan, a principal at Koch Hazard Architects.
 Stacey McMahan is a principal at Koch Hazard Architects. (Inertia/for SFBJ)
Name: Stacey McMahan
Title: Principal at Koch Hazard Architects
Hometown: Hillsboro, Kan.
Age: 43
Background: Graduated from Kansas State University with a bachelor of architecture degree; worked at Architecnica in Stockton, Calif., for two years; “realized we were Midwest folks” and moved to Sioux Falls with her husband to start a family; took five years off to be a stay-at-home mom and then started at Koch Hazard 10 years ago; became a principal three years later
Family: Husband, Greg, also an architect and works in human resources; two sons: Johnne, 18, a freshman at the University of South Dakota, and Conner, 15, a sophomore at O’Gorman High School
Q: Tell me about your hobbies.
A: “I like buildings – new, old, large, small, and especially green buildings. I enjoy traveling back roads and through small towns checking out the downtowns. I like to paint in watercolor or piece together tile mosaics. We live in an old house in the North End and are in a constant state of remodeling something, which include lots of arting possibilities inside and outside. We work a lot with quartzite. We used to handpick it at the quarries before insurance noticed.”
Q: How did you become interested in your field?
A: “Design always interested me. When I was little, my dad suggested I grow up to be an architect, and I always watched ‘The Brady Bunch.’ I also learned the female-to-male ratio was favorable.”
Q: What do you enjoy most about your work?
A: “It’s terribly diverse. It can be very creative, and every once in awhile I have an opportunity to apply the arty side of my brain. But mostly it is a challenge and an opportunity to apply technical creativity, which sounds strange. It’s also a thrill to see the completion of a great project, which may have taken years to develop, and to know you played a part. Buildings will serve their owners and occupants for a long time. They’re complex, and I feel a responsibility to get it right, not only for the owner now but for those who will come after.”
Q: Do you have a project that you're especially proud of?
A: “The Museum of Visual Materials at 500 N. Main Ave. It’s a renovation of a great old building for a unique and one-of-a-kind use. It’s a green building, very energy-efficient, and gave me the opportunity to make creative suggestions about almost everything. Those who inhabit the building seem to like it a lot, and have taken the greenness of it seriously, even to extending sustainability concepts to its use. The whole seems to be greater than the sum of its parts, and that to me is a real mark of a success story.”
Q: If you could take a one-year sabbatical, what would you do?
A: “Rent a small house in Provence and hang out, drink wine, paint and travel.”
Q: What kind of music is in your car?
A: “My two teenagers usually determine that, but I like John Hiatt, Bruce Springsteen, CCR and White Stripes.”
Q: If you could have dinner with two or three people, alive or dead, who would you choose and why?
A: “Jesus Christ would have to be No. 1 because I’d just like to hear what he has to say in person instead of through everybody else. Albert Einstein to see if I could understand anything he was saying. Janis Joplin because she had a great voice.”
Q: What do you think are the best and worst things about living in Sioux Falls?
A: “The traffic is good – these aren’t in any order – downtown is good, my neighborhood is good, and we have great dirt around here. We’ve lived in the same house for 15 years and have had a garden for 14. What I like least is that my extended family isn’t here.”
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