DLM-HED

Sir Francis Drake High School
Donn Merriam

“The greatest reward of serving a school district is to witness the changes and help meet the challenges that district encounters as it fulfills its mission within its community.”

DONN LEE MERRIAM, ARCHITECT

ASSOCIATE

BS Architectural Studies, 1986, University of Nebraska

Donn Merriam has been involved with public school construction throughout California since 1991. Over that time, he has developed a comprehensive approach that includes programming, design, construction documentation, and project administration phases, as well as incorporating technical knowledge.

Donn relishes the opportunity to become a resource to his clients, with his value-add increasing as he offers more and more institutional memory to a project. His work at Henry M. Gunn High School in Palo Alto is emblematic of the commitment he brings to multiple projects on the same site over multiple years. In that district, the continuity of his knowledge was able to bridge then situation when the district changed program managers during a project. He was likewise a critical part of the work at Drake High School in San Anselmo, where the district changed construction managers and DLM was the only architect asked back for work on the second of two bond issues.

Beyond the office, Donn is a member of the Emery Unified School District Governing Board in Emeryville. The ability for his architecture practice and his school board work to cross-pollinate, each improving the other, is an exciting one.