Throughout 2026, BBT Architects is proud to celebrate 50 years of practice rooted in service to communities across Oregon. This anniversary year offers an opportunity to reflect on the people, partnerships, and projects that have shaped our firm—and to look ahead to the conversations and collaborations still to come.

A Continuing Story of Leadership and Impact

Over the past five decades, BBT Architects has grown alongside Central Oregon. While the partners whose initials form the firm’s name helped establish the firm’s direction, other firm leaders have played important roles in shaping its path along the way.

Former partners Neal Huston, Don Stevens, and Kevin Shaver each represent a chapter in that story. Their careers with the firm intersected with different eras of BBT’s history, from the early partnership years that ultimately led to the BBT name to later leadership transitions and decades of community-focused work across the region.

Each brought a different perspective to the practice, and all shared a commitment to thoughtful design and to the communities BBT serves.

Early Partnerships and the Birth of BBT

Neal Huston’s connection to Central Oregon began in the early 1970s when he joined Brooks Resources, helping lead design work for early developments in Bend and at the emerging Black Butte Ranch resort. At a time when the region was just beginning to grow, the role placed him at the center of shaping its built environment.

Not long after, architect David Waldron reached out about forming a new partnership. Together with Waldron and Ron Barber, Neal helped establish Waldron Huston Barber Architects (WHB) in 1976, contributing to Bend’s evolving architectural identity. The young firm got its start in the historic O’Kane Building on Oregon Avenue. As Neal recalled, “All of us went to work in a small space on the lower level…that’s where we all started.”

As the firm grew, Jim Barrett and Todd Turner joined the partnership in 1985. When Neal later launched his own residential design practice in 1988, the remaining partners shortened the firm’s name to BBT Architects.

Neal has also played an active role in shaping Bend’s civic life, contributing to early downtown revitalization efforts, including a mural and Brandis Square at Newport and Wall Street. That work reflected a consistent belief that architecture should respond to its surroundings and the people it serves. As Neal put it, “I like architecture to have some reference to the neighborhood and environment it’s in…something that carries through the materials and respect for the setting.”

Guiding the Firm Through Change

Several decades later, another transition helped shape the firm’s next chapter.

Don Stevens joined BBT after operating his own architectural practice in Bend. After working alongside the firm in shared office space and collaborating informally for several years, his practice merged with BBT around 2008. Soon afterward, Ron Barber retired, and Don stepped into a partnership role alongside Todd Turner.

Don brought a background that blended professional practice with academic experience. Earlier in his career he had taught architecture at the university level, an experience that shaped how he approached design and problem-solving. “Teaching gives you a theoretical way of thinking about design, and you bring that into practice,” Don explained. “Architecture has always been about doing good work and creating better places.”

During his time with the firm, Don contributed to a range of projects across Central Oregon, including work on the Central Oregon Community College Redmond campus and automotive facilities for Robertson Ford. His design perspective was also shaped by his graduate studies under renowned architect Louis Kahn. “He would critique a project and then start talking about architecture more broadly. Light, structure, materials. It opened your mind to bigger ideas.”

Don retired in the mid-2010s, helping guide the firm through a period of leadership transition between the founding generation and the next chapter of BBT.

A Long View of BBT’s Growth

Few architects have seen BBT evolve as closely as Kevin Shaver.

A Bend native, Kevin joined the firm in 1997 and spent more than two decades helping shape projects across the region. During that time he worked on a wide range of civic and educational buildings and became especially involved in school design, an area that grew significantly for the firm.

Over the course of his career, Kevin contributed to numerous school projects across Oregon, including work with Bend-La Pine Schools and other districts throughout the state. For him, the long-term impact of school design made those projects particularly meaningful. “Schools are great because we’re building buildings that aren’t for developers that get sold in five years,” he said. “They’re long-term buildings that have a real impact on students and communities.”

He especially valued working with smaller communities that might only build new facilities once every generation. “Those communities really appreciate what you’re doing. The impact those buildings have is huge.”

Kevin’s long tenure with the firm connected multiple generations of BBT leadership and practice, helping carry the firm’s community-centered design work forward.

Continuing the Conversation

From the early partnership years of the 1970s to the schools and civic buildings serving communities across the region today, BBT’s history has been shaped by architects who built on the work of those who came before them.

Neal helped shape the partnerships that ultimately led to the formation of BBT. Don guided the firm through a later leadership transition. Kevin’s long tenure connected the firm’s earlier years to its more recent work across Oregon.

Together, their stories reflect a thread that runs throughout BBT’s history: architecture grounded in place, shaped by collaboration, and dedicated to the communities it serves.

As the firm celebrates its 50th anniversary, those contributions remain an important part of the foundation on which BBT continues to build.