Meet our Interns/ Team:
This week we took on three interns, each bringing something new to our company. It was so exciting to bring everyone together into one virtual space for introductions. A passion for sustainability, wellness, and design manifests in different ways for everyone on our team. While everyone comes into design for a different reason and has a different path, but these different backgrounds compose a powerful team. Being able to hear everyone talk about their stories and passions always reinvigorates me, as a designer. The potential we have as a collective becomes clear. Read about our stories here. I hope that afterwards you might feel like you know us each a little better, too!
Jessica Talley: Jessica Talley is the founder of SPRING. As a wife, mom of 3 kids and a pup, an artist, entrepreneur, lifelong athlete, natural entertainer, and a surfer, she truly does it all! Jessica is an effortless leader She leads with enthusiasm, humor, playfulness, and a drive that she brings into her work as a designer and into her day-to-day life. She currently resides in Westport, CT. Since the beach is her happy place, she uses the feeling it gives her to inspire her designs.
Megan Mazzocco: is the sustainability and well-being director at SPRING. Linking individual well-being with sustainability is the thread underlying everything she does. Megan has a particular affinity for the intersection of place and well-being, believing that architects are healers, and buildings are medicine. Megan currently resides in Waconda, IL, but loves to share her passion for sustainability all over the country. She has spoken at conventions in Chicago, Miami, and Cincinnati. She’s also the mother of 2 boys, a dog, and a cat, a certified yoga instructor, and the leader of a women’s vitality circle— a community of women sharing their collective wisdom about the fundamentals of health.
Welbert Bonilla: Hailing from Los Angeles, Welbert brings various unique experiences into his work as a designer at SPRING.
Welbert graduated in 2014 with a degree in Architecture, but has worked in a sensory deprivation tank and in medical marijuana distribution manufacturing since then. Welbert loves the problem-solving aspect of design, a skill that he’s had the chance to develop in a variety of scenarios. Welbert loves to travel and has been as far as Patagonia, the southernmost part of the world aside from Antarctica!
Cedric Kato: is our design and marketing manager here at SPRING. While his educational background is in architecture, he loves to learn about anything Since architecture is such an interdisciplinary profession, he finds that his curiosity for economics and politics informs his learning in design, and vice versa. Cedric applies his design process to decision making and project planning, in addition to any time he might need to think in a structured, methodical manner. Cedric’s dream occupation is to be an urban planner in the Philippines, where he is from.
Raphael Li: is our Competition and Philanthropy Intern, and 3rd year pre-architecture student at Cornell University. Raphael is from China and is intrigued by the ability of architecture to incorporate and encapsulate culture into a space. He’s particularly interested in educational and commercial design. Raphael believes that design is the solution to a problem, while art asks the questions. He’s using this framework to design his own fashion brand.
Esther Ishimwe is the Sustainability and Materials Intern at SPRING. As a graduate of Smith College’s Architecture and Urbanism and entering Princeton University Graduate School, Esther has been fascinated by the way that Architecture is a reactive discipline that goes where the world goes. Originally from Rwanda, Esther finds that architecture is most powerful as a tool of justice. Architecture has the ability to ensure that a person’s basic needs are fully met, no matter their class or social status. Esther can speak five different languages, allowing her to communicate with and be inspired by all kinds of people.
Carolyn Mavretish is our Marketing and Outreach intern at SPRING, and learning architecture at Amherst College. She finds solace in the outdoors, particularly hiking, biking, and gardening. Carolyn’s experience working on various farms in the US informs her vision of sustainable design, and believes that a landscape designed to grow food and use natural energy sources is an effective way for people to live harmoniously with their land. She has been exploring this idea through studying the design of suburban homesteads. In her free time, she practices and teaches yoga to her peers at Amherst College.
