Patti Thurmond

About

Patti Thurmond began work with the Council in June 2009 as the organizational locomotive behind the CTBUH 2009 Chicago Conference, and latterly coordinated the transition of operations management from the Council's original location near Lehigh University, PA to the consolidated Chicago headquarters office.

Patti holds a Masters Degree from the College of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Science in Architectural Studies from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Patti moved to Chicago from her native Southern Illinois, where her two grown sons still reside, in order to study high-rise buildings and experience a true urban environment. She studied at IIT on a high-rise studio project with restricted site for an architectural institution in the Chicago skyline, focusing on a mixed-use program and building facades. Her master’s degree thesis focused on city planning through the study of redeveloping a small city connected through mass transit to an urban environment. While in grad school, she also enjoyed work at Austin-AECOM, a past division of the global engineering giant AECOM.

Patti has owned and managed various businesses during her career, as well as having worked in various University settings, bringing a wealth of operational, financial systems, and management experience to the Council. Her responsibilities as VP Finance and Administration include leading the finance and accounting functions of the company, integrating the areas of office systems and personnel, membership, leadership, and conference accounting, utilizing the company’s latest technology platforms.