Transforming Complex Projects into Practical Results of Enduring Value Through Collaboration and Discipline.
H. Schiller Cassell III is an accomplished architect, project manager, business owner, and building-industry leader whose career spans more than four decades of national and international practice, public service, project delivery, and organizational leadership. Across K-12 and higher education, justice, civic, sports, commercial, and residential environments, he has built his career around transforming complex requirements into facilities and projects that serve owners, communities, and public agencies effectively. His professional philosophy combines pragmatic decision-making with collaboration, technical rigor, and a strong commitment to delivering value while controlling costs and minimizing unnecessary disruption.
Schiller’s career has given him an unusually broad perspective on the built environment. He has worked from the vantage points of architect, managing director, company owner, project manager, project director, studio leader, plans examiner, and consultant. That progression has enabled him to understand not only how projects are designed, but also how they are financed, coordinated, reviewed, permitted, constructed, operated, and improved. His expertise encompasses project delivery, architecture, construction and construction management, budgeting and scheduling, contract administration, accessibility, code compliance, plan review, sustainable design, energy efficiency, building performance, feasibility analysis, constructability, and multidisciplinary team leadership.
A defining chapter of Schiller’s professional development was his extensive international career in Southeast Asia. Beginning early in his career and extending over more than two decades, he served in architectural and executive leadership capacities while working across diverse cultural, regulatory, and business environments. He completed projects in Singapore and Brunei Darussalam, founded and managed a successful architectural practice in Brunei, and provided architectural and environmental consulting services involving Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia. This experience strengthened his ability to navigate ambiguity, communicate across cultures, understand different stakeholder perspectives, and adapt proven professional principles to changing circumstances. His international exposure is complemented by language capabilities in Italian, Cantonese and Hokkien.
After returning to the United States, Schiller continued to advance into positions combining architectural expertise with project and organizational leadership. As a Project Architect, Studio Director, and Associate with NTD Architecture, he managed teams delivering K-12, higher education, transportation, and sports facilities. His responsibilities extended beyond traditional architectural practice into master planning, infrastructure coordination, environmental compliance, lifecycle analysis, stakeholder engagement, and organizational development. Among his achievements was helping resolve complex environmental, ownership, and maintenance issues involving multiple stakeholders on a regional park and school project adjacent to federally protected habitat. He also developed classroom daylighting solutions that qualified for a $700,000 energy grant and transformed his studio into a high-performance team, reducing reported staff attrition from 40 percent to zero within nine months.
Schiller subsequently brought his project-delivery expertise to LPA, where he directed the preparation and coordination of design, scope, schedules, budgets, construction documentation, and regulatory approvals for major educational projects. His work included a new 43,000-square-foot, $11.2 million student services center in Fairfield, California, for which design, documentation, regulatory approval, and the bid phase were completed on schedule and within budget. The project was ultimately completed without change orders attributed to errors and omissions. He also helped deliver design and construction documents and regulatory approval within nine months for a $65 million modernization initiative encompassing five K-12 schools in the San Francisco Bay Area.
As Senior Project Manager with Kitchell CEM, Schiller expanded his influence into large-scale capital project management for justice facilities. He contributed to the development of policies, design guidelines, master specifications, LEED Silver certification requirements, and commissioning standards that were adopted across multiple projects. He also led teams of engineers in preparing surveys, budgets, schedules, and infrastructure and facility assessments across multiple locations. This work reinforced an approach that has remained central throughout his career: effective project leadership requires aligning technical excellence with cost, schedule, stakeholder priorities, operational realities, and long-term performance.
Schiller’s later career further broadened his expertise at the intersection of architecture, public service, regulation, accessibility, and building performance. Through Cassell Building Performance LLC, he has provided services supporting builders, owners, developers, consultants, and public agencies, including third-party plan review, residential and commercial code compliance, energy documentation, building-performance evaluation, and accessibility. His work reflects a longstanding interest in helping owners realize greater value from safe, healthy, accessible, energy-efficient, and high-performing facilities. His professional background is supported by architectural licensure in California and New York, Certified Access Specialist credentials, Building Plans Examiner experience, and extensive knowledge of accessibility and energy requirements.
His public-sector leadership with Placer County’s Community Development Resource Agency added another dimension to that experience. As Supervising Building Inspector focused on plan check, Schiller planned, organized, and directed staff operations while performing technical and administrative responsibilities for management and other county divisions. He developed a high-performance team, helped implement improved online permit-submittal requirements, inspected projects for accessibility compliance, advised facilities-management personnel, and worked with developers to clarify accessibility requirements. These responsibilities strengthened his understanding of the relationship among government, development, design, construction, regulation, and the communities ultimately affected by those decisions.
Schiller has continued applying that accumulated experience through professional plan examination, including work with Shums Coda Associates and, beginning in 2024, Willdan Engineering. As a Senior Plans Examiner with Willdan, he brings decades of architectural, construction, regulatory, and project-delivery experience to the review of building projects. Rather than approaching compliance as an isolated technical function, his career enables him to understand how design decisions, permitting requirements, accessibility, constructability, energy performance, budgets, and schedules intersect. His extensive skill portfolio also encompasses LEED, sustainable design, green building, integrated project delivery, project planning, process improvement, contract management, design-build, feasibility studies, building science, lean construction, design management, budgeting, and value engineering.
Education has provided an important foundation for Schiller’s multidisciplinary approach. He earned his Bachelor of Architecture from Pratt Institute and later completed a Master of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, with studies connected to architecture, city planning, and regional planning. He also pursued postgraduate study in Environmental Planning at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. Together with decades of practical experience, this academic foundation has shaped a professional perspective that considers individual buildings and projects within their broader environmental, organizational, economic, and community contexts.
At the leadership level, Schiller’s greatest contribution is his ability to connect strategy with execution. He understands that ambitious plans create value only when organizations can translate them into coordinated action, accountable decisions, realistic budgets, workable schedules, and completed projects. Having operated as both an owner and advisor as well as an architect and project leader, he brings a perspective that considers decisions from multiple sides of the table. His experience developing high-performance teams further reflects a leadership style centered on clear expectations, professional trust, collaboration, accountability, and giving capable people the structure they need to perform effectively.
Schiller is comfortable communicating with technical specialists, executives, public officials, owners, developers, consultants, and community stakeholders. Public speaking has been part of his professional career, and he remains comfortable representing ideas and organizations before varied audiences. He authored and presented a paper on the impact of development on tropical biodiversity at an international planning conference. He also organized and moderated a two-day webinar on accessibility for building inspectors. As a director of a faith-based job reentry program, he coached professionals individually and in groups. He also currently provides advisory support to a local church project extending his experience into a community-oriented advisory setting. Outside of his professional activities, travel is a personal interest that complements the discipline, persistence, and long-term orientation evident throughout his career.
As he explores board and advisory opportunities, Schiller is particularly interested in organizations connected to construction, project delivery, architecture, development, infrastructure, and the broader built environment, while remaining open to companies of varying sizes. He is motivated by the opportunity to help organizations make projects happen efficiently, control unnecessary costs, reduce operational interruption, and keep leadership focused on practical outcomes. His combination of business ownership, international experience, public-sector service, architectural practice, project management, regulatory knowledge, and technical expertise enables him to contribute both strategic perspective and an informed understanding of what successful execution requires.
Ultimately, H. Schiller Cassell III’s career reflects a consistent commitment to making complicated projects more manageable and ambitious objectives more achievable. Whether directing an architectural practice overseas, managing multidisciplinary project teams, improving a public permitting process, guiding major educational and justice projects, examining building plans, or advising owners, he has focused on creating durable value through preparation, collaboration, technical discipline, and responsible execution. He brings to board service the perspective of a professional who has spent more than 40 years not simply envisioning projects, but working through the organizational, regulatory, financial, and human complexities required to bring them successfully to completion.
Character:
Schiller demonstrates a pragmatic, collaborative, and service-oriented leadership style shaped by more than four decades of responsibility to clients, public agencies, project teams, and communities. His career reflects persistence, accountability, professional discipline, and a consistent commitment to creating environments in which people and projects can perform successfully.
Knowledge:
His expertise spans architecture, construction, project delivery, building performance, accessibility, regulatory compliance, sustainability, energy efficiency, planning, budgeting, contracts, and multidisciplinary project management. National and international experience, advanced architectural education, professional credentials, and exposure to both private and public sectors give him a broad understanding of the interconnected forces affecting the built environment.
Strategic:
Schiller approaches strategy through the lens of execution, examining how objectives can be converted into realistic plans, coordinated teams, manageable costs, compliant designs, and measurable project outcomes. His experience as an owner, managing director, architect, project leader, regulator, and advisor allows him to evaluate challenges from multiple stakeholder perspectives while remaining focused on long-term value.
Communication:
Experienced in communicating across professional disciplines, organizational levels, government agencies, cultures, and stakeholder groups, translating technical complexity into information that supports informed decisions. His public-speaking experience, international background, collaborative leadership style, and comfort working with owners and multidisciplinary teams position him to contribute thoughtfully to boardroom dialogue and stakeholder engagement.
