HOK has announced the passing of CEO and chairman Bill Hellmuth on April 6th at the age of 69 following a long illness.

Hellmuth had been in the chairman’s post since 2017 after serving as the firm’s president since 2005. Working out of HOK’s D.C. office, where he remained as a design principal throughout, he helped lead the development of several well-recognized projects both in domestic markets and internationally. Hellmuth, whose work won 29 AIA awards, originally joined the firm in 1991 at founder Gyo Obata’s personal urging after practicing in New York for 14 years.

A firm statement said: “Hellmuth was exceptionally optimistic about the ability of design to improve people’s lives. A strong advocate of sustainable design, he believed architects had a moral obligation to design projects with minimal impact to the environment. Under his tenure, HOK designed hundreds of green-certified projects and over 400 designers achieved ‘green’ certification. His time as chairman and CEO also saw the opening of new offices in Denver, Miami, and Austin, the diversification of HOK’s leadership board, increased pro-bono design and charitable giving, and the creation the HOK Diversity x Design Scholarship for underrepresented design students.”

Notable projects include the National Air and Space Museum; Abu Dhabi National Oil Company Headquarters; the U.S. Embassy Chancery and Office Annex in Moscow; the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, in addition to the myriad governmental designs which are today scattered throughout the D.C. area.

“With the perspective of more than four decades, I can safely state that I have never met an architect who was Bill’s equal in combining design thinking, empathetic leadership, client relations, business development, and business acumen,” Hellmuth's longtime colleague, HOK President Carl Galioto, recalled fondly. “He truly was one of a kind, and it was my great pleasure to work with him.”

Hellmuth was a graduate of Princeton and the University of Virginia, where he received the School of Architecture’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018. He is survived by his wife Nancy and two children. An earlier announcement of his planned retirement this month quoted him as saying the following:

“It has been the greatest honor in my life to lead a firm doing such innovative design work across the world. We continue to grow and design a diverse range of projects that are important to society. Knowing what we do matters is very fulfilling for designers. HOK has a warm culture that doesn’t exist at every firm. I have great confidence in Eli and Susan’s leadership, along with the entire executive committee, to continue our focus on design excellence while sustaining our collaborative culture.”