In
SPRING 2023 EDITION
Conversation
IN CONVERSATION ON GROWING LAKEWOOD RANCH WITH FAWLEY BRYANT ARCHITECTS STU HENDERSON
LET’S START OFF WITH A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOURSELVES AND WHAT YOU DO AT FAWLEY BRYANT. STEVE PADGETT: I’m one of the partners here. I oversee a lot of the scheduling, staffing, contracts, overall project schedules and project management. I’ve been at Fawley Bryant since October 2001. Stu and I bought the company a little over five years ago. STU HENDERSON: I’m a director of design and a partner at Fawley Bryant. I’ve been at the firm about 11 years, specifically in Lakewood Ranch for that amount of time. I moved down here from Erie, Pennsylvania for a different climate and I’ve been enjoying it ever since. HOW DID THE FIRM FIND A HOME IN LAKEWOOD RANCH? PADGETT: Long answer short, a partnership with SchroederManatee Ranch, Inc. (SMR). We
STEVE PADGETT
were actually the architects for the SMR headquarters. So early on we were involved in conversations about long-term planning, what their vision was, and what they were trying to do. We were very much interested in what that was and what that meant for us, being in Manatee County, and then also Sarasota County. We moved our headquarters here in 2008 and SMR was a partner of ours in this building. So again, partners from the very beginning. And we did that for a lot of reasons: recruiting, bringing in people further south that maybe we couldn’t get from downtown Bradenton. Also, people from further north because we had more access to the interstate, being part of a planned development, and having access early on to things like educational projects. government projects and sports and recs. We did a lot of country
INTERVIEW BY WES ROBERTS EDITED BY BARBIE HEIT
clubs, so that fit really nicely in our portfolio. It came down to people. Just having relationships with the people that had a big idea that we wanted to be a part of and could help out in any way possible. CAN YOU SPEAK A BIT ABOUT RICK FAWLEY AND MIKE BRYANT AND HOW THEIR VISION ECHOES IN THE FIRM TODAY? PADGETT: Rick Fawley was our original president. Mike Bryant was vice president. They are the founding fathers of Fawley Bryant. They both had their own individual firms in Manatee County. They came together to work on a project for Manatee High School. Partly, they were banding together to try and keep the outsiders out, and keep the insiders in. And they got the project that worked well and they stayed together.
So their partnership was born out of somewhat necessity but trying to keep local groups local. Rick was the community guy. He had all the relationships, he was out and about. Mike was really more of the business-minded guy, he was looking at the schedules and the budgets and the staffing needs. I think Stu and I are very similar in personality to each of them. Probably a bit more of a blend than they were, but same kind of idea. Still, community is extremely important to us. We still work in this community and we’ve extended it from Lakewood Ranch to Manatee County, the city of Bradenton, Sarasota, the city of Sarasota, North Port, and now Wellen Park. So we’ve continued to build on those relationships over time. But a big part of that really was just knowing the right people, being someone you trust, someone you respect, and really
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