2026 Preserving Place: The Santa Fe Continuum - Speaker and Moderator bios and affiliations
BIOGRAPHIES AND AFFILIATIONS BY PANELS
Mayor Michel J. Garcia was born and raised in Santa Fe, where he developed a strong commitment to serving others. Prior to being elected mayor, he served as the City Councilor for District 2 on the Santa Fe Governing Body. First elected in 2019 and reelected for a second term, he represented his community with a focus on responsive, community-centered leadership.
Mayor Garcia’s election as Mayor of Santa Fe continues a public service career that began nearly two decades ago as an AmeriCorps VISTA member. Throughout his career, he has remained dedicated to providing critical services to community members most in need. He considers it a great honor to serve the Santa Fe community that helped shape him.
Mayor Garcia earned both his bachelor’s degree in political science and his master’s degree in public administration from the University of New Mexico. A key priority of his administration is ensuring that community voices are always heard and fully represented. In his free time, he enjoys spending time with his wife, three children, and the family dog.
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PANEL 1: Where We’re Growing
A product of the American West, Miles D. Conway was raised in Breckenridge, Colorado, before moving to New Mexico in the early 90s. He currently resides north of Santa Fe in the village of Rio En Medio with his wife of 28 years, Mikahla Beutler.
As the CEO/EVP for the New Mexico Home Builders Association, Conway is a dedicated advocate at the forefront of tackling the State's housing affordability and production challenges. He believes in the power of building coalitions to drive impactful policy, zoning reform, and innovative legislation all aimed at supporting the home building industry and expanding attainable, quality housing for New Mexico people. The New Mexico Home Builders Association is a trade association affiliated with local associations throughout the state and with the National Association of Home Builders. Chartered in 1959, the New Mexico Home Builders Association represents our members in the housing, commercial construction, and associated industries.
Our goal is to continue to improve conditions in the construction industry thereby providing the citizens of New Mexico with safe, quality housing and commercial buildings.
NMHA does this by: Serving as the voice of our members by being a proactive influence in the legislative and regulatory process; Providing industry information, services, and education to our membership and the public; Encouraging the professional standards of our members; Maintaining the positive image of our industry and association; Promoting home ownership; and Supporting the growth and effectiveness of local associations.
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Faviola Chavez, City of Santa Fe Affordable Housing Director, https://santafenm.gov/affordable-housing
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Tomás Rivera, Executive Director, Chainbreaker Collective https://www.chainbreaker.org/
Tomás Rivera is the executive director of Chainbreaker Collective and has been with the organization since it was founded in 2004. Chainbreaker is a membership-led economic, environmental, and racial justice organization with over 800 dues-paying members in Santa Fe, NM, the bulk of whom are residents of neighborhoods experiencing disinvestment and vulnerable to gentrification and eviction. Chainbreaker organizes front-line community members directly impacted by housing, transit and civil rights issues to make Santa Fe a more equitable and just city.
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Juan E. Torres, Economic Development Manager, Santa Fe County
Juan has over 20 years of Economic and Community Development experience in a variety of areas with a focus on commercial and infrastructure finance. Juan is the Economic Development Manager for Santa Fe County and previously served as the Director of Finance Development Programs for the New Mexico Economic Development Department, where he managed the Local Economic Development Act (LEDA) Fund, Catalyst Fund, the Collateral Assistance Program and the Opportunity Zone Program. Juan previously served on the New Mexico Finance Board and currently represents Santa Fe County on the Board of the North Central Economic Development District.
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PANEL 2: Beyond the Historic District
Joe Simmons AIA www.blueskystudio.com
Joe Simmons is a licensed Architect. He founded BlueSky Studio in 1984 and remains active in the profession. With 50 years of experience in all phases of the practice, he has worked on projects internationally and domestically in a variety of building types. He is an expert in Historic Preservation having completed dozens of projects in New Mexico, Colorado, Iowa, Arizona, California, Utah, and Texas and an expert with building, land use, and preservation codes. His preservation projects include restoration and rehabilitation projects utilizing the exacting processes of the Department of the Interior Guidelines, renovations, additions to Historic structures as well as new buildings in Historic Districts. Additionally, he has focused on residential projects of all types from single-family to multi-family, to loft conversions and high-rises.
Simmons is a member of the Santa Fe Chapter of the American Institute of Architects and is a member of the Technical Advisory Working Group (TAWG) for the Phase I Santa Fe Land Use Code rewrite and remains engaged in that on-going process. More recently, he was appointed as the licensed architect on the Santa Fe Historic Districts Design Review Board.
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Miguel Acosta, Co-Director at Earth Care/Poder Familiar https://www.earthcarenm.org/
Miguel Angel Acosta was born in Chicago but made in Mexico. He is Currently Co-Director of Earth Care, a multi-generational community leadership and learning organization in Santa Fe. He has been the Director of El Colegio Sin Fronteras, a social enterprise focused on community education, training and capacity building for healthy communities, as well as a Principal Associate at the Center for Relational Learning, an international consulting firm based in Santa Fe, NM which focuses on building family-community-school partnerships.
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Daniel Hernandez, Project LLC https://www.projecticllc.com/
Daniel Hernandez is a real estate developer, planner, and project manager and founder of PROYECTO. With over 30 years of experience, Daniel’s portfolio includes a broad range of project types in urban places from San Francisco to New York City, and more recently in Santa Fe. He has been in leadership positions throughout his career, and managed all phases of project development, from programming and planning to financing and development.
Hernandez has worked in the for-profit, non-profit, and public sectors. He is committed to building the civic infrastructure that creates strong neighborhoods and cities, and his work builds on place-based assets to create value and place-making solutions. Daniel has an extensive background in affordable housing development, public private partnerships, large-scale mixed-use development, and urban planning, and applies his skills to manage the development of arts, community, and education facilities. At the foundation of his work approach is a commitment to equitable and sustainable development. His work and dedication in real estate have led him to teaching positions at major universities, including Harvard, Yale, and Pratt, on subjects such as socially and environmentally responsible development and planning, and public/private partnerships.
Hernandez worked several years to create and implement the redevelopment plans for the Midtown District in Santa Fe, NM. On that project, he was a development consultant and the former Metropolitan Redevelopment Agency Director. Hernandez recently moved to Santa Fe as a full-time resident.
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Mayrah Udvardi, (AIA, LEED AP BD+C, NCARB), Design Director, Model of Architecture Serving Society https://modelofarchitecture.org/
Udvardi is an architect, educator, and Design Director with MASS Design Group. Her work is grounded in a deep commitment to living ecosystems, environmental justice, and architecture's role in equitably redefining territory worldwide. Since 2018, Udvardi has led and contributed to over 45 projects across the region in support of creative nonprofits, Tribal, and rural communities. Prior to MASS, she worked with Sustainable Native Communities Collaborative on building design and technical capacity in Indian Country, with Urban- Think Tank on community-led shack upgrading in South Africa, with Global Citizens for Sustainable Development on migrant housing in India, and with Enterprise Community Partners on documenting best practices in affordable housing. Udvardi holds a Master of Architecture with Honors from Columbia University, a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture and Environmental Studies with Honors from Wellesley College, and is the recipient of Kinne, Watson, Schiff, Albright, Noble Foundation, and Aspen Ideas Festival Fellowships and AirWG and ZK/U Artist Residencies. She has taught at Kent CAED, Barnard College, and the Santa Fe Art Institute, and is the author of "On Fragile Architecture: Exploring Causes of Indigenous Housing Insecurity" and "Bangalore: Urban Development and Environmental Justice." Udvardi has called Santa Fe home since 2013 and stewards a 100-year-old adobe with her partner and daughter along Agua Fria Street. Connect with her in English, Deutsch, Español, हिंदी, or اردو.
Model of Architecture Serving Society
Hopewell Mann Neighborhood Stabilization Plan
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PANEL 3: Developing and Design with Community, Culture, and Climate
Shawn Evans, AIA, APT-RP, https://modelofarchitecture.org/
Shawn Evans serves as a Principal at Model of Architecture Serving Society (MASS), a 501-c3 nonprofit design firm, where he co-leads the Santa Fe Studio. Shawn joined MASS in 2022, following a 27-year career at AOS Architects. Shawn has been involved in the planning, design, and preservation of more than 115 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places, including 15 National Historic Landmarks. His work has garnered more than 30 national, regional, and local design awards for projects such as Los Poblanos, Wa-Di Housing, Siler Yard, and the rehabilitation of the traditional village at Ohkay Owingeh, which received the 2014 National Trust/ACHP Award for Federal Partnerships in Historic Preservation. A past fellow of the James Marston Fitch Foundation, he was the President of AIA Santa Fe in 2025. Shawn studied architecture at Texas A&M, holds a Master of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania, and has taught at Temple, Penn, and UNM. Since his own diagnosis in 2018, Shawn has been an advocate for people living with Young Onset Parkinson’s Disease.
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James Horn, Principal at Spears Horn Architects, AIA New Mexico President - https://www.aianewmexico.org/about • spearshorn.com
James Horn is the Principal Architect at Spears Horn Architects – an architecture firm based in Santa Fe, NM that primarily focuses on Minimal, Modern, and Healthy Regional Architecture in New Mexico. The work also includes Historic Preservation and Landscape Design that informs the connection of our built environment with the land and our rich culture in the Desert Southwest. The surrounding issues effecting communities such as reduced water usage, increased populations within our sensitive terrain is critical to the work.
Currently, Horn is over-seeing 3 modern residences in Santa Fe and Abiquiu, SWAN Park Ranger Facility, a Conservation Facility for Living Desert State Park in Carlsbad, and the Restoration of an 1830’s adobe in Ribera, NM.
He received a Master of Architecture from Rice University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from University of New Mexico.
Horn is the 2026 President of AIA New Mexico and has served as visiting critic at UNM SA+P, Rice School of Architecture, University of Utah, Texas Tech – El Paso, El Paso Community College, and UPENN Landscape Architecture. James has taught design studio as an adjunct faculty member at UNM SA+P since 2002, Architecture Clubs at local Elementary Schools, and is on the Dean’s Council for Design and Planning Excellence. His work and writing have been published in Western Interiors and Trend Magazine.
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Danielle Wilson (AICP), Senior Planner / Project Manager, Sites Southwest https://www.sites-sw.com/
Danielle Wilson believes that those who are directly impacted by the planning process should have a voice in its creation. Often, the solutions to the most intractable challenges are found within individual experience, local knowledge, and careful collaboration. Once we understand what we each have to give to the places we inhabit, and our mutual dependence, reciprocating communities can flourish. This process begins by knowing each other and the land. On that foundation, we build and develop our physical, economic, organizational, and human communities.
Wilson has worked in community development through private, non-profit and philanthropic sectors for 10+ years. In her professional work and beyond, she uses a collective organizing lens to build momentum for positive change. Knowing that community planning and change can occur at any scale, Wilson’s experience ranges from creative vacant lot redevelopment, to organizing for districtwide education reform. In all her work, she strives to meet people where they are, create a common vision and shared values and build tangible actions for the work to continue beyond the plan.
REPRESENTATIVE PROJECTS: East Lohman Development Plan, Las Cruces, NM; EMNRD SCORP Plan, NM Acequia Madre Master Plan, Albuquerque, NM; Town of Carrizozo Comprehensive Plan; Animas Action Plan, Farmington, NM