Ozarks Profile: Melissa Higbie

|tab|

What is your job?|ret||ret||tab|

Melissa Higbie is a project architect with Esterly, Schneider and Associates Inc., architects and planners. She oversees various commercial work, such as "numerous expansion and remodeling pro-jects for Phelps Coun-ty Regional Medical Center in Rolla and City Utilities of Springfield," she said. Her past projects include designing a new paint store and warehouse for Valley Paint/ColorVision in Springfield, the Guaranty Federal Savings Bank main facility at Battlefield and Fort, the Seymour Bank in Rogersville and Freedom Bank in Cass-ville. Higbie also is president of the 90-plus-member Southwest Missouri Construction Specifications Institute, which represents architects, engineers, contractors and suppliers.|ret||ret||tab|

|ret||ret||tab|

Please tell us about your company.|ret||ret||tab|

"We provide architectural leadership in financial institutions, commercial, medical, governmental, educational and industrial facilities," Higbie said, as well as "complete architectural services, functional programming, land/master planning, interior design and landscape architecture."|ret||ret||tab|

|ret||ret||tab|

What prepared you for work as an architect?|ret||ret||tab|

Higbie has a bachelor of architecture degree from Kansas State University. "I graduated on a Saturday and began working with Esterly, Schneider & Associates on Monday." She also credits "my hands-on field experience with many projects" for her success, and her husband Craig for "a lot of my knowledge in architecture."|ret||ret||tab|

|ret||ret||tab|

What's the best part of your job?|ret||ret||tab|

"It's never the same," said Higbie. "Each project is unique and has its own set of individual parameters. It's our job as designers to solve problems and produce an end product that says function and form really do work together." The best part of architecture, she said, "is to see a building become reality from paper to structure, and to see the end user excited about working in his or her new space. I love the design aspect of architecture, and how the interior functions of spaces come together to form a building."|ret||ret||tab|

|ret||ret||tab|

Can you tell us something about your personal life and family?|ret||ret||tab|

"I am lucky to be able to work with and be married to my best friend, my husband Craig Schneider," Higbie said. "Craig and I have one addition to our family, a calico cat named Fast Track.'" Higbie said her mother and father, Margaret and Leland Higbie, "have given me a great work ethic by being raised on our family farm in Kansas. I try never to miss wheat harvest on the farm; I like to be out there driving a tractor and grain cart or hauling the wheat to the elevator while my brother (Leland) drives the combine."|ret||ret||tab|

|ret||ret||tab|

How do you like to spend your leisure time?|ret||ret||tab|

"We love to travel. We've been to Marsh Harbor in the Bahamas and Cozumel, outside the United States," Higbie said. "We try to spend our available weekends at our house on Table Rock Lake, fishing, boating, and having friends and family down. I really enjoy spending time with my husband, canoeing, camping, shopping at the unique places we visit on vacations, visiting my family in Kansas ... and I love to bake!"|ret||ret||tab|

[[In-content Ad]]