Bill Hellmuth, HOK chairman and CEO, Dies at 69

After a lengthy illness, HOK CEO and chairman Bill Hellmuth, FAIA, passed away on April 6. The Washington, D.C.–based architect, who was slated to retire from the firm this month, was 69 years old.

“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,” said Carl Galioto, president of HOK, in a statement published by the firm. “He truly was one of a kind and it was my great pleasure to work with him.”

Hellmuth—whose uncle George Hellmuth was one of HOK’s founding partners—first joined the HOK team in 1991, working his way up to became the firm’s CEO and chairmain in 2016 and 2017, respectively. During his tenure, the University of Virginia– and Princeton–trained architect designed many recognizable buildings around the world, including Virginia’s Hampton Roads Convention Center and National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company Headquarters in the United Arab Emirates, and the NOAA’s National Center for Weather and Climate Prediction in Maryland. According to HOK, Hellmuth’s work earned 29 awards from The American Institute of Architects.

“My challenge, and our challenge,” Hellmuth told ARCHITECT in 2016, “is to make sure that we are increasingly improving the design quality every single day. Improving the aspirations of our clients, and having them come to the fore in our buildings.”