Two Knowlton School alumni, Timothy Schmalenberger and Michael White were presented with College of Engineering Distinguished Alumni Awards for Career Achievement at the 2019 Alumni Awards Reception this past October. The Distinguished Alumni Awards were established by the faculty of the College of Engineering at The Ohio State University in 1954. Their purpose is to recognize distinguished achievement in one's profession through significant inventions, important research or design, administrative leadership, or genius in production.

Timothy Schmalenberger, FASLA (BSLA ’80)

Tim is the Senior Managing Principal of MKSK, which he co-founded in 1990. It is now one of the Midwest's largest landscape architecture and planning firms with seven offices in five states. His leadership and passion for significant public-realm projects have resulted in more than 1,000 completed works and over 100 awards.

From the firm's inception, Tim has directed and managed the hiring and development of more than 100 landscape architects in a region of the country where the profession had been underrepresented. MKSK is responsible for iconic projects that have transformed Columbus, such as the Scioto Greenways Project and the Arena District. The firm is deeply involved in major landscape architecture projects at Ohio State, including the North Residential District, the University Framework Plan 2.0 and the Wexner Medical Center.

Tim is a committed supporter of the Knowlton School and our students. He served nine years as a board member on the school’s Alumni Society. MKSK provides financial support for current landscape architecture graduate students through our Office Associateship Program. Tim has served as a mentor to students in the school’s Mentorship Program. And, of course, his firm is largely staffed with Knowlton School landscape architecture and planning graduates, providing them the opportunity to experience one of the top landscape architecture and planning firms in the country.

Michael White, AIA, IIDA (BSArch ‘88)

Michael is Managing Director and Principal at Gensler in Los Angeles, ranked the city’s top architecture firm in 2018. Gensler is a global architecture, design and planning firm with 48 locations, and more than 6,000 professionals networked across Asia, Europe, Australia, the Middle East and the Americas. As a member of Gensler’s Management Committee, Michael contributes to the ongoing development of the firm’s practice expertise. He is a leader of Gensler’s global Media and Technology Practice Areas and has been responsible for some of today’s most innovative workplaces.

The first 20 years of Michael’s career were spent at HLW International, a global architecture, interior design, planning, engineering and consulting firm, and CresaPartners, an international corporate real estate advisory firm. He was a Managing Partner at both firms before joining Gensler in 2011.

At Gensler, Michael has overseen diverse projects in California, across the United States and internationally. These include major sports facilities in the US, an award-winning convention center in South Korea, Shanghai Tower (China’s tallest building), and AltaSea, an ocean research center.

Through his extensive expertise in architectural design and real estate consulting and development, Michael has built a reputation as a leading strategic planner and design innovator, specializing in creative workplace campus environments. Over a nearly 30-year career, Michael has emerged as a nationally-recognized leader in architectural design, an accomplishment made possible only by his capacity to anticipate the need for change and to structure the organizations he has run to become agents of that change.