Managing Design

CHAPTER 15Change Agents: Advocacy, Equity, and Sustainability

INTERVIEW

Simon Joaquin Clopton, MS

31st July 2018

Simon Clopton is a recent graduate with a Master of Science degree in Building Construction/Program Management from Georgia Tech, and an earlier Bachelors Degree from UC San Diego in fine arts and digital media. He was project manager for construction of the Georgia Tech School of Architecture's Hinman Pavilion, a Living Building Equity Champion for the Kendeda Building, and selected as a Georgia Tech Climate Change Fellow and Graduate Researcher in the CONECTech Lab. Before his graduate degree he was managing director of Allotrope Mexico, a division of Allotrope Partners, a venture capital firm investing in clean technologies and renewable energies. Previously, he was co-owner and construction manager at Clopton Construction, a family-owned residential contractor in the San Francisco Bay Area and founder and director of the Centro de Educación Ambiental de la Peninsula Yucateca in Mexico. On the cusp of the Gen X/Millennial generations, he represents the sentiment and zeitgeist of emerging graduates and future practitioners.

“It'll take a transition, but if we're doing it right, doing good and doing well should become joined at the hip.”