To celebrate RRM Design Group’s Core Values, we have started voting on Value Awards during our company-wide staff meetings (known as Owner’s Meetings.) Value Awards are awarded to individuals that best embody our core values and are voted on by employees themselves.
The first core value that we decided to recognize is our Diversity & Inclusion core value, which is: We seek, advocate, and embrace professionals with diverse origins, opinions, ideas, and backgrounds and strive to develop design solutions that are inclusive to all. During our recent staff meeting, we had all employees vote on who they think best represents this value, and the individual that landed the most votes by a landslide was … drumroll please… Yoshi Jimenez!!
We asked Yoshi how the Diversity & Inclusion core value influences the projects she works on at RRM. Here is her response:
Yoshi Jimenez is a designer on our San Luis Obispo Architecture team.
Believing that the built environment plays an important role in the well being of communities and individuals, I get a sense of fulfillment from working on projects that can have large scale impacts on societal issues such as diversity and inclusion. Because of this, my focus has been on the residential market sector where I get to work on multifamily affordable housing projects, as well as collaborating on Planning projects that look to incorporate feedback from the Hispanic community through community outreach.
Having experienced first hand the impact that affordable housing projects can have on individuals and how the opportunities that can be derived from such can help shape the trajectory of a person’s life, my goal is to continue contributing to such projects. Also, having gained a better understanding of how Planning efforts shape the development of communities at a larger scale, I look forward to the opportunities to bridge the gap between those leading the efforts and those being affected by them, especially in predominately Hispanic communities. By pulling from my experience and sharing my thoughts and opinions to help our teams develop more inclusive and diverse solutions and approaches, I hope to highlight the value that diversity and inclusion can have not just at RRM but in the fields of Architecture and Planning.