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Melynda Retallack

principal and owner of Ink Built Architecture

Melynda Retallack鈥檚 career has included working for well-established, multifamily housing firms in Oregon and California, and a decade of working directly for developers as the lead of their sustainable development.

After graduating from Portland鈥檚 Franklin High School, Retallack earned a bachelor鈥檚 degree in architecture with a minor in environmental studies at the University of Oregon. She then moved to San Francisco to develop affordable housing and complete school renovations around the Bay Area.

Though she and her two partners had never owned a business before, they started Ink Built Architecture and have grown it into a 12-person company. The firm specializes in affordable housing, multifamily, commercial and renovation, residential, and energy and performance projects. Specifically, Ink:Built strives to catalyze change through projects that focus on sustainability, inclusion, equity, justice, health and community.

Retallack is currently chair for the Green Building Interest Group, a sub-committee of the Cascadia Portland Collaborative of the U.S. Green Building Council and International Living Futures Institute.

As a tireless mentor, she spends countless hours helping people with complex projects. She is admired by her peers for consistently pushing for women in the industry, and presenting her values as part of a company culture that attracts like-minded people to the firm.

Retallack, an alumnus of the legendary Camp Namanu, serves as vice chair for the Board of Directors of Camp Fire Columbia, and is the chair of its committee focused on master planning the next 100 years at Camp Namanu.

鈥淚 was building a project for a minority English-as-a-second-language woman and her designer disappeared. Melynda spent the time to help fix the plans and work with the city for no charge. I did not have to ask her to do it. She just knew it needed to be done,鈥� said nominator Madeline Lynde-Lyons.