Jefrë

And so for me coming to or being born and raised in the U.S., you know, that was part of the pediment or the pedigree that I was kind of, you know, under the pressure of that, you know, Asian culture.

kids wanted, needed to be doctors, successful engineers, whatever.

And I actually started off in looking at medicine and all of these things.

But, you know, I started looking into this idea of urban design and planning because, you know, my parents are, you know, my mother is a nurse and my father is

I was actually an accountant, but then their hobbies were this idea of having a green thumb.

So my father actually started a landscape contracting business, had a garden nursery, and then almost helped my mother create a flower center, which then she was doing weddings and arranging.

And I remember as a kid doing all these sort of things related to design.

And so I thought I got a lot of my design acrament through my mother, you know.

She's going to love that.

Um, and then, you know, I started going to school.

I went to Ohio state, uh, studied urban design, landscape architecture, went to the AA in London architecture association, and then work for the biggest firm called SOM Chicago, which, um, essentially designs sort of the mega structures of the world.

Um, I had an opportunity to come to Florida to work in the Bahamas and then, you know, I'm going through design, you know, um,

I was always sort of working in a firm and still doing placemaking, which is like creating moments.

And then 15 years ago at 35, I had a heart attack and triple bypass surgery.

I was down in Miami at an event, had some kind of pain, didn't know what it was.

We didn't have Ubers.

They told me to get in a taxi and make sure he gets to his room.

And on the way, I saw Mount Sinai Hospital.

I was like,

I got to go there and there's something wrong.