Carrier Johnson + Culture Heads into 50 Years Under New Leadership
By Ray Huard
Read full article from The San Diego Business Journal here.
Carrier Johnson + Culture will enter their 50th year as a San Diego-based company under a new leadership structure that includes new CEO David Huchteman (right) and Marin Gertler as chief design officer. Photo courtesy of Carrier Johnson + Culture
SAN DIEGO – Carrier Johnson + Culture, one of San Diego’s oldest and best-known architectural firms, has appointed a new leadership team as the firm prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2027.
Heading the firm will be David Huchteman as CEO and Marin Gertler as chief design officer and Jackie Angel continuing as chief operating officer.
Gordon Carrier will continue as executive chairman.
“CJ+Culture has always thrived through trusted, complementary leadership that blends vision, discipline and passion,” Carrier said. “David and Marin embody that spirit, bringing creative rigor and unstoppable energy to guide our talented team into an exciting future.”
Huchteman said that the leadership changes were “a moment of tremendous momentum.”
“This is just a very intentional part of our firm’s succession planning, and really, promotion of the next generation of leadership,” Huchteman said, adding that, “We see this as a major inflection point. It is about turning the page to the next chapter of who the firm is and how do we set ourselves up for the future.”
“We’re really looking at not changing who we are. It’s more about a realignment so we’re really set up for the next 25 years and beyond,” Huchteman said. “It’s about kind of simplifying things. It’s kind of getting back to the basics. We are making sure that we’re really homing in on what brings the greatest value to our clients.”
In its first 50 years, Carrier Johnson + Culture has “defined a lot of the city’s fabric,” Gertler said.
“We’re really focusing on how to continue that legacy and expand on it and bring in additional points of view and strengthen it,” said Gertler, who joined Carrier Johnson + Culture in August 2025 as firmwide head of design and design principles.
A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, Gertler was founder of CREARE Collaborative and senior vice president of IQHQ before joining Carrier Johnson + Culture.
Huchteman was principal and managing director of the firm’s Los Angeles office before becoming CEO and had been studio principal and director of special services for AC Martin.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in architecture from the Pratt Institute.
Founded in 1977 as Buss Silvers Hughes & Associates, the firm became Carrier Johnson after Gordon Carrier and Michael Johnson assumed principal leadership. Johnson died in 2020.
Carrier Johnson added + Culture to its name in 2007, “codifying a philosophy of uncovering each client’s unique narrative to deliver authentic, differentiated environments,” according to the firm.
Designed by Carrier Johnson + Culture, West is a 790,000-square-foot project in downtown San Diego that combines 300,000 square feet of office space and 17,000 square feet of retail space with 432 apartments. Photo courtesy of Carrier Johnson + Culture
Growing with Care
In the early 2000s, the firm opened offices in Los Angeles and Seattle, designing such landmark projects as Ballpark Village, the Point Loma Nazarene University Science Complex, and the zero-net-energy Robert Redford Conservancy in Claremont and expanded its international work across Asia and the Middle East.
“We’re able to give this real-life history lesson, just walking down Broadway to the waterfront with all of our projects,” Gertler said. “That enables us to transcend the old and the new.”
For the past 10 to 15 years, the firm has expanded to design high-rise residential projects, but higher education and civic projects have been at the core of what it does.
“That’s been a lot of what my focus has been in L.A.,” Huchteman said.
At its peak, Carrier Johnson + Culture had a staff of about 120, but it’s since reduced its staff to 68.
Huchteman said that he wants the firm to grow, potentially reaching 150 employees spread across three offices.
“We want to do that very carefully, Huchteman said. “Once you start to get over 150 employees, you start to lose touch with who you are.”
As it grows, Gertler said that the firm is expanding its reach throughout California and beyond.
“We’re not just on the West Coast. We’re definitely branching out in the projects that we’re doing,” Gertler said.
They include aquariums in Kansas and Orange County.
In San Diego County, the firm is working on a surf wave project in Oceanside, and Courthouse Commons by Holland Partners on the former site of the San Diego County Superior Court.
“We’re very agile for our size to execute everything from large master plans and high rises to small uses,” Gertler said.