“As landscape architects, we have a unique opportunity to shape communities: how people interact with nature and each other, and how people understand their relationship to their environment,” Thayer said. “When I worked at Woolpert previously, I was blessed to be on high-profile projects such as Crooked Creek Park in Indian Trail, N.C., and Mecklenburg County Sportsplex at Matthews, N.C. It’s gratifying to be part of a team that designs spaces for the local community and brings everyone together—whether it’s young children, who have the power to shape park vision, through councils and mayors, who are guiding support and funding.”

Thayer, who graduated from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, is a registered landscape architect in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, and a member of the American Sports Builders Association. She said the firm is doing amazing things in the geospatial realm, as well as higher education and military work. She added that she is excited to be a part of such a forward-focused firm and to bolster the firm’s parks and recreation presence in the Southeast.

“My focus right now is on helping co-lead the Lake Wylie Recreation Park in York County, S.C.,” Thayer said. “This is a 50-acre progressive, design-build park that includes a 32-acre athletic complex with multiple fields and plentiful community amenities. This project is an inspirational indicator of the county’s desire to meet residents’ needs and to align them with growth strategies developed in the York Forward 2035 Comprehensive Plan. Creating spaces to build and enhance a community in new and exciting ways is what makes park and recreation work so rewarding.

“Woolpert offers a collaborative work environment that is also very supportive of individual growth; not to mention that it has great benefits and generous resources,” Thayer said. “Coming back to Woolpert and the Charlotte office has been an awesome experience. It was like coming home.”

About Woolpert
Woolpert is the fastest growing architecture, engineering and geospatial (AEG) firm in the country, delivering value to clients in all 50 states and around the world by strategically blending innovative design and engineering excellence with leading-edge technology and geospatial applications. With a dynamic research and development department, Woolpert works with inventive business partners such as Google and Esri; operates a fleet of planes, sensors and unmanned aircraft systems (UAS); and continually pushes industry boundaries by working with advanced water technologies, asset management, building information modeling (BIM) and sustainable design. The firm, which is among the ENR’s Top 100 Design Firms, supports a mission to help its clients progress and become more progressive. For over 100 years and with 27 offices across the U.S., Woolpert serves federal, state and local governments; private and public companies and universities; energy and transportation departments; and the U.S. Armed Forces. For more information, visit woolpert.com or call 937-531-1258.