Wiesenthal appointed University Architect

Steve Wiesenthal, a newly elected fellow of The American Institute of Architects, has been appointed Associate Vice President for Facilities Services and University Architect. His appointment became effective Monday, March 3.

Wiesenthal joins the University after serving eight years as Associate Vice Chancellor for Capital Projects & Facilities Management and Campus Architect at the University of California, San Francisco.

“In Steve’s eight years at UCSF, he obtained a broad set of experiences in strategic and operational planning and developed a reputation for quality and service,” said Nimalan Chinniah, Vice President for Administration and Chief Financial Officer.

In his previous position, Wiesenthal was directly responsible for facilities management, including operations, maintenance trades, plant services and utility generation and distribution; capital projects, including architectural design and construction project delivery; and resource planning and management, including contracting, human resources, information technology and the budget for facilities.

Wiesenthal has served as Project Director from the outset for UCSF’s new billion-dollar-plus Mission Bay research and academic campus, a long-term project that continues on schedule and is being expanded to include a new 600-bed hospital.

The Mission Bay plan already has completed the first phase of a new master plan for utilities that includes a cogeneration plant—an approach Wiesenthal developed to address the institution’s energy needs as part of his establishment and leadership of UCSF’s Sustainability program.

Prior to his tenure at UCSF, Wiesenthal served for nine years as the Associate Vice President, Architecture and Facilities Management at the University of Pennsylvania Health System. Before that, he was an architect and planner with Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, where he worked on projects that included such clients as Harvard University, the University of California, Los Angeles, Dartmouth and the University of Pennsylvania.

After a decade of private practice experience and 17 years of large-scale academic construction management and overall facilities-services leadership, Wiesenthal has a proven record for delivering large capital programs in urban settings at research-intensive institutions.

“Steve’s skills and experiences will be valuable to us as we embark on a robust capital
program that will add or renovate research, residential, academic and administrative space over the next decade,” said Chinniah. “We will look to Steve to provide leadership to Facilities Services and offer strategic direction, including master planning, design, construction and implementation for all facility projects,” he said.

Wiesenthal earned an M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, and both a bachelor of architecture (cum laude) and a B.A. in Urban Studies from the University of Maryland.