Legacy Award
The Legacy Award recognizes and honors a person, company or organization whose contributions have advanced the Interior Design profession and enriched Interior Design in Oregon. They show exemplified traits with values held by the IIDA Oregon Chapter, including advocacy, mentorship, design innovation and sustainable leadership.
Congratulations to the 2021 winner of the Legacy Award: Roberta Pennington! Learn more about Roberta in her video feature:
Film credit: Videos filmed and edited by Casey Braunger | Quanta Collectiv
Roberta Pennington, IIDA, NCIDQ
Ankrom Moisan | Senior Associate/Interior Designer
Design Leader: With a theatrical background, Roberta brings big ideas to the table and loves to dream of the impossible and work to make it a reality. She wants everyone to be heard and never shuts anyone down. No idea is a bad idea to her and she welcomes all with enthusiasm and helps to understand why it would or wouldn’t work for a project. She is great at delegating successfully, while managing a million projects at once.
Advocate: Since arriving in Portland over 20 years ago, Roberta has been a master advocate for the interior design profession, having served many terms on both IDC Oregon and IIDA Oregon Chapter Boards as a voice for interior design advocacy all over the United States.
Roberta is a geek about the details of interior design. She loves BOMA and egress calculations, technical details and code compliance. She is exceptionally educated in these areas and speaks with confidence – further promoting the concept that interior designers are more than selectors of finishes. She drives this concept home at any chance she can, always with her signature charm.
Roberta also hosts a podcast that looks at interior designers in popular culture and pokes fun / critiques the depictions. It’s fun and entertaining – and advocates for what the profession of interior design actually entails.
Mentor: As a project manager, Roberta puts faith in junior designers; she will feed big ideas and then lets junior designers run with the concepts full force, while always being available for support, questions, mentorship. Her management style fosters immense and rapid growth in junior designers by balancing challenges with a lot of encouragement – she’s the best cheerleader! In the same way that Roberta is a design leader, she brings that same sense of listening, sharing and valuing those that she mentors.
Community Involvement: Roberta hails from Youngstown, OH and is proud of her upbringing and her roots. When a childhood friend announced he was hoping to open a community theatre in her hometown, she dove into action. She assisted him with selecting a site and campaigned to the Executive Leadership Committee at Ankrom for use of our VIZ Team department so that this project could have top tier renderings for their community outreach and funding programs. This project is currently underway. Through seeing commercial interior design as having an impact on the humans that interact with the spaces that we create. She forever is a cheerleader for design, it’s importance and the impact we have on our communities.
View the 2020 winner here!
View the 2019 winner here!
View the 2018 winner here!
View the 2017 winner here!
View the 2016 winner here!
View the 2015 winner here!
Emerging Professional Award
Emerging Professional Award
The Emerging Professional Award recognizes and honors a junior design leader who has advanced the Interior Design profession and enriched Interior Design in Oregon through their hard work and passion for design.
Congratulations to the 2022 winner of the Emerging Professional Award: Jenna Mogstad! Learn more about Jenna in her video feature.
Film credit: Videos filmed and edited by Casey Braunger | Quanta Collectiv
Jenna Mogstad, Associate IIDA
Ankrom Moisan Architects
Design Leader: Jenna is a design leader in Trauma-Informed Design. It’s a passion that she shares, teaches and is an advocate for in a variety of market types. She brings excitement and flare to each project while striving to design spaces for the underprivileged so they can feel dignity and hope while getting themselves back on their feet. Jenna embodies curiosity, empathy, creates relationships, and the ability to innovate toward the humanness of a project. Only 5 years into her career, Jenna has very quickly grown to learn to identify when balls are about to be dropped and she takes ownership over those aspects of the project – not because she isn’t swamped by a huge workload of multiple other projects, but because she cares about the project, the client, and her teammates.
Excelled Growth: Jenna is constantly learning, mentoring, and advocating for herself and coworkers in the workplace. Her drive to improve herself and the field of interior design is a steady passion she shares with those around her. In her years at Ankrom Moisan, Jenna has grown from being in a supporting documentation role to being the lead designer and main client interface on many projects. Her excelled growth is partly a product of the environment in which she’s been allowed to grow, but just as much a testament to her hard work and the fact that she has grown confident in her abilities, which is something of a rarity for young designers.
Value and Support: Jenna is an extremely valuable member of any team she is a part of. Since she works in many different market sectors (senior, student, and affordable housing) she is able to cross pollinate, taking some of the best ideas from each sector and melding them into the others. Working in many sectors that require knowledge of affordable, yet durable and attractive finishes means she has a robust repertoire of those types of finishes, saving the client money that can be better applied elsewhere in a project or building. She continues to add significant value from project to project from lessons learned – instead of just proceeding with what was done last time she continues to integrate feedback to make a better final product. Jenna is always striving to go above and beyond what people ask of her and is very passionate about creating beautiful designs, drawing sets and renderings.
Community Involvement: Jenna is very involved in both career-based organizations as well as non-career based. She has been very active on the Oregon’s IIDA chapter’s board for the past 2 years. She has also volunteered time at some of her Affordable Housing projects, getting involved in building planter boxes for residents to proudly grow their own food and herbs. Her non-career based activities include being heavily involved in Feral Cat Coalition of Oregon (FCCO), the leading feral and stray cat spay/neuter program in Oregon and works tirelessly every year for their annual fundraiser called The Fur Ball. Jenna brings positivity, honesty and diligence to the betterment of design, leadership, collaboration, the field of interior design and to her community.
View the 2021 winner here!
View the 2020 winner here!
View the 2019 winner here!
View the 2018 winner here!
View the 2017 winner here!
Industry Award
The IIDA Oregon Chapter continually advances by the dedication, support and leadership of our community. The Industry Award recognizes and honors an industry professional, company or organization whose contributions have advanced the Interior Design profession and enriched Interior Design in Oregon. The recipient of this award has exemplified traits with values held by the IIDA Oregon Chapter, including sustainable leadership, knowledge, value & support, and community involvement. Congratulations to the 2020 winner of the Industry Award: Beth Gish, Industry IIDA, Chapter Advisor of Mohawk Group! Learn more about Beth in her video feature.
Film credit: Videos filmed and edited by Bryn Silverman.
Beth Gish, Industry IIDA, Chapter Advisor
Sustainable Leader: Beth values sustainability deeply. She always has the answers to questions surrounding the sustainable accolades of Mohawk products, and is very knowledgeable about the efforts made by Mohawk to ensure maximum sustainability. Beth educates the design community about Mohawk Groups larger sustainability and social impact initiatives (ie. products that meet Living Building Challenge). Beth is always available to help track down product certification, label information, HPD’s or other sustainability information designers request to make their projects more healthy.
Enhanced Knowledge: Beth has been a sales representative for Mohawk Group for 8+ years and prior to that Beth was a rep for Luna Textiles for 8+ years. She is an expert on Mohawk carpets, the carpet industry, and sustainable practices. She delivers valuable information that helps designers understand the aesthetic and technical information designers need to know to specify the products she represents.
Support and Value: Beth is outstanding at what she does and is highly respected and trusted in the design community. She goes above and beyond every time she works with you to get you the product sample or information you need to be successful. She is genuine and really cares about the work she does. Beth shares and participates in CEUs that help designers evolve and hone their practice. Beth also participates in the Source product shows and many other events reps put on. She is always there with a smile and takes the time to connect with you which is greatly appreciated. Beth is an excellent presenter and communicator. She is perhaps one of the strongest supporters of the IIDA Oregon Chapter (through both sponsorship and involvement), and encourages other Industry members to be as well.
Community Involvement: Beth is heavily involved in the community and has volunteered her time for many years on the IIDA Oregon Chapter Board. She stepped into the VP of advocacy role even though she did not have any experience in advocacy. She cared deeply for the organization and knew support was needed. She took the time to learn as much as she could and excel in her role in a great time of need for the chapter. Beth later went on to be VP of membership and is now a chapter advisor. She also donates her time to be on various committees over the years and is currently doing just that with the planning of the 2020 DEA virtual awards. Her generous sponsorship contributions to IIDA over the year have helped in more ways than imaginable while bringing great value to IIDA Oregon Chapter design community.
View the 2019 winner here!
View the 2018 winner here!