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Faculty Dean Abbott Roger Clemence Ann Forsyth Clint Hewitt John Koepke Rebecca Krinke Roger Martin Kristine Miller Laura Musacchio Lance Neckar David Pitt Robert Sykes Adjunct Faculty Joseph R. Favour Robert J. Gunderson Jon Kingstad Richard Murphy, Jr. Patrick Nunnally Peter Olin Sharon Pfeifer Dan Shaw Lecturers Research Fellows  faculty+staff main page | |||
Richard Murphy Richard Murphy has a unique but entirely fitting background for teaching the Professional Practice class, which he has done since 1987. For not only is Murphy a landscape architect, but he also has an MBA and is president and CEO of Murphy Warehouse Company, a 195-person logistics services company. Murphy is the fourth generation to manage the family-owned company, which was founded in 1904 and provides warehouse, logistics, and distribution services to companies worldwide. Murphy received his BED and BLA from the University and his MLA from Harvard. Before joining the family business, he worked as a designer and/or project manager on environmental land use planning, site design, and real estate development projects throughout the country. Murphy was also an assistant and then adjunct professor of landscape architecture at SUNY, Syracuse. When Murphy decided to make the switch to the family business, he quickly realized how applicable his landscape architecture training was. Recalling his experience in business school, Murphy says he had a much easier time than many of his colleagues. "It became very clear the training as a designer was crucial," he says. "We're trained as problem solvers." Now with over eighteen years experience in the business world, Murphy says of landscape architecture that "it's a great background for anything you want to do." In teaching professional practice, Murphy makes extensive use of his business training and experience. Covering topics such as organizational behavior, leadership, law, finance, accounting, marketing and strategy utilizing the case study method, Murphy strives to give students the perspective of a leader of a company. "It's kind of like a mini-MBA," says Murphy. "We look at how to run a firm and how to work with people." Although absorbed in his work running Murphy Warehouse, Murphy has still had the chance to practice landscape architecture. When the company built three new distribution centers in the Twin Cities, Murphy did the site planning and design. The three facilities are notable for their incorporation of native plantings for ecological and stormwater benefits, one for also being a brownfield redevelopment, and all three are used by other CALA faculty to demonstrate good industrial design. | |||
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