Alyson Yarus joined Noll & Tam when it was a five-year-old firm with a dream. 20 years later, the firm and Alyson have grown together. She gets the job done with intelligence and good humor.

How can a talented professional spend 20 years in the same place? Alyson says part of the reason is the diversity. Her projects have ranged from historic preservation to workplaces of the future, fire stations to community centers, libraries to animal care. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a job where they can ask, “So when you give the pig a bath, do you put it on the counter or wash it on the floor?”

Alyson was a fencer at Stanford. While she enjoyed the individual challenge of skewering people with a sword, she always considered it a team sport. “You spend hours with your teammates every day, then have a peak of personal effort; you’re cheering for each other.” Today, her team has changed. Her desire to be a part of something special hasn’t.