Growing up, I was influenced by a clip from Sesame Street which has forever stayed in my mind: A man named Simon Rodilla was building a beautiful tower, one that to my surprise was based on the Watts Towers in LA. As I got older, my fascination with buildings only grew when my father brought home construction sketches for an addition to our house in the Lower Valley. While in high school, I learned more about this career called "Architecture" after being shown a video on Frank Lloyd Wright in my drafting class. I was enthralled enough to pack my bags and head to the University of Texas at Arlington, where I began my journey into a career in Architecture.  I returned to El Paso, where I worked for local architectural and project management firms, while also continuing my education through "La Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico" via the affiliated autonomous university in Juarez. After receiving my Masters in Architecture, I dedicated myself to teaching at the El Paso Community College in the Foundations of Architecture Discipline. Here my passion and knowledge has been seeded and flourished. One day upon hiking our beautiful Franklin Mountains and upon seeing all the ocotillo, I had an epiphany to create my own firm, and OCO Studio was born.