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Alumni Awards List

LORI FRANKE transferred to KSU from the University of Missouri-Columbia because she was drawn by the rarity of having three outstanding design programs under one roof and the appeal of working on interior projects ranging from color palette to entire adaptive reuse. An outstanding scholar, Lori was a member of Tau Sigma Delta academic honorary and graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Interior Architecture in 1989 as the recipient of her department's Outstanding Graduating Senior Award. She was then employed at Mancini-Duffy Associates in Miami, Florida, as an interior architect where her duties involved all phases of varied commercial projects including programming, site surveying and field inventory, space planning, and construction documentation. Additional responsibilities included selection of finishes and furniture, specifications, signage packages, presentation boards and presentation renderings. In late 1991, Lori moved back to her home area of St. Louis to work as an interior architect at Ottolino Winters Huebner, where she was responsible for all phases of diverse architectural activities including corporate, health care, institutional and educational projects. As Project Manager at Brooks/Worldcom in St. Louis beginning in January of 1997, Lori assisted in the site selection and management of the design and construction of leased and owned facilities housing communication equipment as well as sales and operations staff. Her responsibilities included identifying possible building sites and determining suitability for hub/switch build out, coordinating architecture and engineering consultants, interfacing with telecommunication equipment and power equipment engineers, inspecting projects in process and at final completion, and providing new standards and maintaining existing standards of hub/switch build out. Since September of 1998, Lori has been a Systems Engineer at Advanced Communications Group of St. Louis. Her current responsibilities are both somewhat unusual since she works for a telephone company on the client side as opposed to an architectural firm on the service side of the business, but also somewhat traditional as she has gone from the design end to total project management. She evaluates and selects appropriate sites; designs, coordinates and establishes central office facilities and space; evaluates and selects appropriate equipment and contractors; manages implementation of additional network sites; and assists the development of appropriate financial models, budgets and other economic analysis pertaining to the physical facilities that house network elements. She is married to fellow KSU alumnus, landscape architect Andrew Franke. The couple has two daughters.