Preserving a Family Tradition

A father and son establish an endowed scholarship to ensure their support for Taubman College and its students continues in perpetuity.

Supporting Taubman College’s educational mission and mentoring architecture students have been long-standing traditions for Thomas Mathison, B.S. Arch ’73, M.Arch ’75, and his son, Evan Mathison, B.S. Arch ’01. 

The two Michigan natives are the co-founding principals of award-winning Mathison | Mathison Architects (MMA) in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

In 1997, Tom started the Michigan Mentoring Network at U-M while working full-time at TowerPinkster in Grand Rapids. The innovative networking program linked architecture students with licensed architects in a mentoring relationship. 

It was an instant success and later expanded to all of the state’s accredited architecture schools.

“Mentoring was very important to me,” says Tom, who ran the program for 15 years before handing it off to AIA Michigan. “Good relationships between students and professionals developed, and some have continued for over 20 years.”

Evan, who was a freshman at U-M the same year his dad launched the network, saw value in the program and signed up to be paired with an architect-mentor. 

“Networking gave me permission to ask more experienced people in the field important questions about design decisions, team building, and business management,” Evan says. “This mentality has persisted throughout my entire career.”

Over the past three decades, the two Mathisons have maintained close ties with Taubman College. In 2020, Evan joined the Alumni Council and connected with current students through speed-networking events, portfolio reviews, and career fairs.

“This high level of involvement with Taubman College, its students, and its alumni community has given me great insight into what the school is doing and how it is innovating in the field,” he says.

Recently, Tom and Evan established and endowed the Mathison Family Architecture Scholarship, which will provide scholarships for West Michigan students seeking to study architecture at Taubman College.

“We thought this would be a way to ensure that our legacy of mentoring students and supporting architecture education lives on through both of our careers and beyond,” Evan explains. “We anticipate the first scholarships will be awarded in 2027.”

A Few Twists and Turns 

Tom’s multiple interests in the arts, math, and science, coupled with his father’s construction-industry work, steered him toward architecture. Deciding where to go to college was simple. 

“In 1969, U-M was the only public university in the state with an accredited architecture school, so that’s where I applied,” Tom recalls. “Fortunately, I was accepted.”

His goal was to establish his own architecture firm someday and to specialize in health-care design, which he studied in graduate school. His plans took a few twists and turns, however, once he entered the job market.

“Fairly early in my career, I began designing educational facilities,” Tom says. “So, my career took a permanent swing in that direction, and I’ve been involved with higher-education and K-12 design ever since.”

One professional-practice course at U-M helped to shape Tom’s career.

“It focused on something new called ‘marketing,’ which was then an up-and-coming part of architecture practice,” explains Tom, who interned at a Philadelphia firm specializing in marketing for architects and engineers. “That course set a pattern for my career, and I moved into a role that revolved around marketing, business development, and management, as well as architectural design.”

Igniting a Passion for Architecture

Evan’s experiences at U-M were slightly different from those of his father. 

He was attracted to Michigan by its prestige and overall excellence and spent his first two years exploring various disciplines, including kinesiology, business, and pre-med. 

“When I took a drawing course with Melissa Harris, who became one of my favorite architecture professors, it really changed my whole outlook on architecture,” Evan recalls. “It showed me I care about this field, and I’m pretty good at it. I took another drawing course, and it ignited my passion for architecture and design.”

In an instant, everything Evan had experienced while growing up in a design-oriented, well-traveled family came together, and he decided to pursue an undergraduate degree in architecture at Taubman College. 

One of his studio instructors, Maryann Thompson, a visiting faculty member, later offered him a job at her architecture firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He accepted her offer after finishing his master’s degree at Harvard University and spent the next eight years in Boston.

“The firm did the architectural design of public amenities in major parks on the East Coast and also handled private work,” Evans says. “This gave me a strong balance of public projects that impacted many people and private projects with a high level of design that impacted smaller numbers of people.”

Building Synergy Across Generations

In 2013, Tom and Evan began talking about starting their own architecture firm. Evan and his family moved back to Grand Rapids, so he could set up an architecture practice with his dad. 

Mathison | Mathison Architects opened in October 2013, fulfilling Tom’s long-held dream to start his own firm.

“Evan brought his heightened sense of design from his project work in Boston and New York, and I brought my contacts, name recognition, and awareness of West Michigan,” Tom explains. “We put those strengths together in a complementary way and built on each other’s capability.”

Tom focused on business management, client acquisition, community engagement, and team building. Evan oversaw concept design, project development, and project management of client work in West Michigan and New England.

“We didn’t always see eye-to-eye on things, and we were from different generations,” Evan observes. “What made us so successful is that we came to appreciate each other’s perspectives and contributed to the firm’s growth in different ways.”

After Tom retired in 2023, Evan assumed much of his father’s business-development role and brought on two new partners to help lead the firm.

“Things have come full circle in a way,” Evan says. “We still have many good years ahead of us.”

— Claudia Capos