TAB Associates Blog

Valerie and I moved from Crystal Lake, Illinois to Eagle, Colorado in 2015.  We came to be closer to our kids. We came to ditch the untenable economy of Illinois. We came without jobs and took time off to explore our new world. We came to get away from urban stress. We came to the mountains.

And we love it here.

I didn’t work for the first year I was here.  I had never taken that much time off, but I fought through the guilt and golfed, fished, babysat my granddaughter and just putzed around the house.  It was great.  In the fall of 2016, I was invited to play golf with a group of guys who I mostly didn’t know.  On our way over Cottonwood Pass the driver, Patrick, pipes up … “so James” he askes “ what do you do?”

“Well I don’t do anything,” (Yea, a smart-ass reply because that was what I was doing then)

“OK, what did you used to do?” Patrick persists.

“I’m an architect” I replied, “I designed and built schools in Illinois for 25 years”

“You have to meet Tab Bonidy! He’s got the Eagle schools”

And so I did.  I met Tab and Greg and started at TAB Associates in December of 2016.  Who would of thunk it?  We quit our jobs, sold our house, picked up all our toys and moved to this incredible place, and I land a job doing what I built my career from and love.  Designing and building schools. Go figure.

In Illinois, I helped Boards of Education and School Administrators through needs analysis, visioning, programing, budgeting and successful community referendums.  From there, I led architectural teams through design and construction of school projects.  At TAB, I provide construction administration for the projects while they are being built;  In the trenches, working with the district and contractors answering questions, reviewing products and helping make the myriad of decisions, big and little, that go into the complex, multi-use and very public building called a school.  It’s the greatest.

Thinking back, there are a lot of favorites:

Niles Township High School: A STEM Lab before STEM Labs were popular

Woodstock SD 200: Bringing a second HS to a small town.

Wauconda SD 118: The first theater in the community.

Mundelein HSD 120: I must have spent at least 15 years to finally get an addition to their High School.

Now I’m here.  Building the new schools on 3^rd street where my grandchildren may attend.  Very exciting.

Valerie and I love living and working in this valley.  We golf, bowl, hike, fish, camp and try to take advantage of all the high country has to offer.  We’ve made new friends and are building new relationships.

Hello, I am Rachel Hill a Project Manager at TAB Associates.  I have been with the company for a year and a half and adventuring in Colorado for the past five years.  I graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture from Mississippi State University. After I graduated I started working for a local non-profit on the Mississippi Gulf Coast teaching under privileged women general construction and trades skills. This experience helped me gain hands on experience with the construction process as well as onsite architectural detailing. It was this unique experience that helped shape me into a well-rounded designer. I am currently LEED Green Associate certified while I am also working towards completing my architecture licensure exams.

I enjoy working on a variety of different architypes throughout my career, which has created a wide range in my design background with a concentration in hospitality and multifamily design in resort communities. I have been a key design team member on numerous resort villages, hotels, condominiums, retail stores, and restaurants. While at TAB Associates I have been focusing on K-12 educational architecture in the High Rockies of Colorado. Most recently, I lead the project team as we wrapped up the design phases for an extensive renovation and addition at Red Sandstone Elementary School (Vail, CO) and will continue to watch the project take shape as it heads into construction. What I find so unique about educational architecture is how rewarding and personal the experience feels. The students, faculty, and staff are so enthralled and excited about the entire experience that their energy really has a way of inserting itself into the design. My attention to detail and organization skills make me an asset to any team especially in the later phases of design and throughout construction. However, it’s really in the conceptual stages of design that I enjoy watching an idea take shape and form into the building it will become.

While not at the office, I enjoy traveling and getting out to explore the wonderful opportunities that living in Colorado provides. While I moved to the Colorado mountains for the winter activities, summer is my favorite Colorado season. My hobbies include hiking, kayaking, skiing, yoga, painting, and eating quesadillas. And you can always find me cheering on my Mississippi State Bulldogs, Hail State!

My name is Warner Hopkins, Project Manager at TAB Associates with the third installation. I was born and raised in the Roaring Fork Valley, attended CU Boulder, and graduated in 2005. All my life I knew I wanted to continue living in the mountains of Colorado and the Vail Valley was a perfect fit, nestled between where I grew up and cities of the Front Range. Last winter my wife and I welcomed our beautiful baby girl into our small family and most of the past year has been spent enjoying all the joy she brings to our lives. We have put down roots in this community and are looking forward to the coming years.

When I was little we had a class project where we had a map of a large plot of land along a river and we had to lay out homesites along the river and surrounding hills. Over the course of this project I realized what I wanted to be when I grew up. In the summers of high school and college I worked at a local Construction Company, this helped pay for my tuition while also giving me a strong background in how things actually go together. While I had always been able to read maps and understand directions, seeing how all the lines on the paper came together to create a home was experience I will never forget.

In the past few years the main focus of the office has been on the commercial side of the business and this has been a personal learning experience, as up until a few years ago I had been primarily focused on the residential side. One moment I chuckle at was when I realized we had been awarded the project and were about to start work on my old Elementary, Middle, and High Schools back in the Roaring Fork Valley. While circumstances didn’t allow major participation in those projects, I was able to help periodically. With this and all the school work I have done in the past few years, I have a feeling of my story coming full circle with helping to create a learning space for the next generation in the same environment in which I realized what I wanted to be when I grew up. Perhaps we have helped them realize their dreams.

Second post in a series introducing me, Tab Bonidy, President of TAB Associates, Inc.  We have three grandkids in Charlotte, NC and one in Bluffton, SC.

This prompted my wife to request we move to the mountains of western North Carolina.  She figured the only way to get me out of the mountains of Colorado would be to move me to more mountains in North Carolina.  So we bought an 18 acres parcel on Bearwallow Mountain six tenths of a mile down a dirt road on Justus Case Mountain Place off Bearwallow Mountain Road.  We built a barn on the property with a one bedroom apartment on the second floor.  We are currently living in the apartment and barn with our two dogs, four birds, two chickens and a rooster.  Fresh eggs are a wonderful thing.  The grandkids want us to get some goats, but that is down the road a little bit.

I designed a home for the property and it is currently under construction.  This is my fourth home I have built for myself including the barn.   I said years ago that someone would have to drag me kicking and screaming to leave Colorado since I have been there since 1984.  You know what they say, the wife has the stuff and I got to follow the stuff.  Well so far it has been a good change.  I am currently opening a satellite office in Hendersonville, NC.  It should be completed by the middle to end of April.   I also fly back to Colorado once a month to take care of the financial end of the business.  So I guess I haven’t left Colorado completely.  I still enjoy my friends and skiing and hunting.

The three fundamentals of our business is why I started TAB Associates, Inc.  They are to create good architecture, to make money and to have fun.  The third reason is probably the most important of the three.  We make it our mission for us and our clients to have fun in the process.  It is most instrumental in our process. If you ask any of our clients, they will tell you how they enjoyed the process and the final results.  Their final joy is to live in the results of the process.  They were part of the entire process from Conceptual Design through Construction Documents.  They therefore understand why the built environment is what it is.  This is all part of the success over the years of TAB Associates, Inc.

This is the first post in a series about TAB Associates, Inc team members and current projects. I am Greg Macik managing principal of the Edwards office and have been with TAB Associates since day one and before. I met Tab in May of 1997 at a previous firm. When Tab decided to open TAB Associates in December of 1997 it only made sense to join him. I grew up in Galveston, Texas and went to College at Texas Tech where I received my Bachelors in Architecture and Masters in Architectural Historic Preservation. After a number of years in south Texas and Kentucky I decided to move to Colorado to pursue my love of the mountains and skiing. After 20 years in the Valley I still cannot imagine living anywhere else. But, I still miss the beach!

I have a family of 6. That’s, my wife, daughter of 14 years, a dog and two cats. When I do get out of the office I spend a lot of time in our jeep and when my wife lets me, I play golf. Living in Colorado has afforded me and my family many opportunities to really enjoy the outdoors. I still have a hard time thinking about living in a big city away from our beautiful valley.

With Tab’s guidance over the last 20 years we have become a successful and respected firm in the Eagle Valley. We have always remained small so our leadership can continue to guide the direction of the firm and our team members can learn from the collective. Tab has begun to open a new office which should be open in April in Hendersonville, North Carolina. I am excited about this new opportunity to manage the Edwards Office and continue to provide the Valley with quality service and design.

Currently we are 8 strong in Edwards having doubled our size in the last year. Successful projects of over $140 million in the Eagle County Schools and $30 million in the Summit schools has kept us very busy. With this strong team we are situated now to continue to be able to staff new projects. We are also currently working on projects ranging from a planning project for new housing in Gypsum, a 80+ unit condo project in Avon, 7 Wendy’s restaurants, a reskin of Lake Creek Apartments and other projects.

We are always looking for a new project in the Valley and elsewhere in the State.

Stay tuned to our sites as the rest of our team introduce themselves and present the exciting projects we have in the office.