Barbara Faulwetter’s career as an architect has taken her to Canada, Alaska and California.

“I enjoy being an architect.  Architecture is a big deal but, in my case the projects were so large that my opportunity to interact with the user became less and less.  The interface with the user was missing,” she said.

Barbara has worked on a lot of commercial and institutional designs in the past, however, she said, “affordable housing has always been in the back of my mind.”

“You know, as a student, one of our projects was to design things like a shelter…Housing for the poor just stuck with me,” she said.  “The tragedy is that I spent 30 plus years doing anything but that.  So when I started with Habitat it was like ‘Eureka!’”

Barbara is now a full-time employee with Habitat Tucson.  You can find her on our construction site as an Assistant Site Supervisor.

“What really got me was seeing the little girls riding their scooters outside their Habitat home,” Barbara said about a family who recently received the keys to their first home.  “I got to see during their home visit where they came from.  You know, they were afraid every night that drug dealers were coming to get them…So to see those little girls playing with their hair in the wind…They didn’t have the opportunity for that at their previous home.”

Adapted from a story by Sierra Russell