Architect Michael Bennett gets top honors from business magazine
July 27,2016
Reposted from The Cleburne Times Review
By Todd Glasscock
FORT WORTH — Architect Michael Bennett isn’t the sort who looks for his 15 minutes of fame. Overall, in conversation, he seems low-key, the kind of executive who wants his company’s products to stand out, his employees and business partners to get equal credit.
When it comes to downtown Fort Worth, however, it’s hard for the principal and CEO of Bennett Benner Partners to stay in the background.
His fingerprint, his firm’s fingerprint seems like it’s everywhere downtown, said Robert Francis, editor of the Fort Worth Business Press, which selected Bennett as its Private CEO of the Year in the magazine’s Top 100 CEOs list.
“It was all a pleasant surprise,” Bennett said of the selection. “I knew that they gave this award but I didn’t know I’d been selected until they told me.”
For the magazine, Bennett was a clear choice.
“We’re on the eighth floor [of the Mallick Tower],” Francis said. “The answer [who is top private CEO] was kind of staring at us.”
Not far from magazine’s offices is Trinity River East Campus of Tarrant County College, distinct for its multi-level structure sunk into a bluff on the river’s banks and its glass curtain wall system that gives off an aquamarine tint to complement the river as well as the buildings around it.
This is just one of Bennett Benner’s downtown landmarks.
The firm’s most prominent project, however, might be in the minds of those who live and work in downtown Fort Worth Sundance Square Plaza, with its mixed-used multistory buildings framing the city’s historic square.
It’s projects like these — designed to benefit the community — that put Bennett at the top of the magazine’s list, Francis said.
“This is something we do every year,” he said of selecting top executives in the private, public and nonprofit sectors.
The magazine selects its CEOs based on criteria that includes a firm’s “big impact on the area,” Francis said, its community involvement and its overall business success. Bennett and his firm met all those criteria, and then some.
Clearly, high-profile projects like Sundance Square or the current redesign of the horse and mule barns at the Fort Worth Stockyards signal Bennett Benner’s success, Francis said, and those projects have long-term benefit to the community.
“Michael’s very involved in the community,” Francis said. “He’s certainly giving back to the community.”
Bennett serves on several boards, including the Fort Worth Opera advisory board and with the Arts Council of Fort Worth.
Bennett’s love for community is inherited.
“I saw in my family the importance of community,” he said.
From his family, Bennett learned basic business skills and an overall business philosophy while working for his dad, Fred Bennett of Bennett Printing & Office Supply. His mom, Peggy, also became an integral part of his business education. She successfully ran Bennett Quick Print for 20 years.
“I did a whole lot of things for my dad,” he said.
But its how his parents managed and operated their businesses — with integrity and honesty — that stands out the most, he said.
Some imprint of his future life as an architect might have formed at the print shop as well, his dad said. “He did art and layout. He was a good worker. He had a flare for doing that kind of stuff. I’m very proud of him. I think he’s a hometown boy that’s done good.”
Architecture, however, wasn’t Michael Bennett’s first calling. After graduating high school, he set out to study music theory and composition at TCU with the intention of becoming a musician (he still plays bass with TCU guitar professor Chip Christ at a Fort Worth eatery).
But, after graduating with his bachelor’s degree in music in 1978, it became clear making a career in music was a long shot, Bennett said.
He found himself in a quandary. What was he going to do for a career?
The answer came after meeting up with an old high school friend, who had just graduated with an architecture degree. Architecture integrated the arts with a vocation so it fit dual purposes — to pursue a life in the arts and make a living while doing so.
“I’m glad I was smart,” he said. “I absolutely love what I do. It’s just a lot of fun what I get to do.”
He graduated with his architecture degree in 1983 from the University of Texas at Arlington. After graduation, he went to work for Dallas-based HOK, beginning as an intern before the firm sent him to Berlin, Germany, to open an office there.
Oddly enough, his background in music helped with his job in Berlin — he had learned German for his music degree.
Bennett said he sees similarities in music and architecture. Both use repetition of forms and both have rhythms to them.
His experience in Berlin gave him an understanding of how cities worked, but it was his return to Texas and taking over as CEO of what was then Gideon Toal that really developed his leadership skills and forced him to make some of the toughest decisions of his life.
According to his profile in Fort Worth Business Press, he came in as Gideon Toal’s CEO, as the recession of 2008 hit; it was the first time he ever had to layoff anyone.
It wasn’t the only change he would make with Gideon Toal, once he entered into partnership with Bruce Benner and David Pettit, according to the Press. In 2013, Pettit left the firm and the business became Bennett Benner Partners.
So much, though, as a businessperson goes back to the foundational values he learned from his family. He makes certain his employees are taken care of and enjoy what they do.
“It’s important people feel fulfilled,” he said.
Moreover, he instills in his employees that they should be good corporate citizens; they should donate their time and money to the community.
When they set up meetings with clients, they always approach them openly and honestly, he said. “We sit down and listen.”
In his firm’s designs, too, community is always considered. “We try to work on projects for the community.”
Sundance Square is an example, he said. It benefits commercial enterprises, while simultaneously serving as a public space where people can listen to music at outdoor shows or splash around on the splash pad to cool off in the summer.
The square has a little bit of everything for everybody, he said.
He said he loves seeing people interact with his designs, whether they are working in an office space or eating in a restaurant.
With all of his company’s designs, he also tries to make them sustainable, making sure structures don’t encroach too much on natural spaces.
Additionally, he tries to fit the designs to the community they represent. Structures might look sleek and modern, but they’ll also reflect, say, Fort Worth’s cowtown history.
His current project is revamping the horse and mule barn at the Fort Worth Stockyards, which poses a challenge — to maintain its historic integrity while adding space for restaurants or other commercial ventures.
The design phase for that project is completed, he said. Construction is set to begin in September.
This project, like all of the firm’s projects, are all about the community and preserving its history — Bennett loves Texas’ past and tries to etch it into his designs — while moving it forward into the future.
“I want to make sure the Texas I grew up in is still there,” he said.