Meet Our Designers

Scott brings more than 30 years of design experience and a childhood spent building cities in the sandbox to his leadership of our design team. His professional design background ranges from custom exhibits and displays to children’s museums and installations. Scott understands the intricacies of making a stunning visual impact while also offering a very personal experience. He is our color expert who believes "color doesn’t just offer decorative value, it directly affects our emotions, behaviors, and well-being." Scott believes that every playground should inspire the imagination of children, and they’ll take it from there.

As Standard Design Manager since 2022, Abby brings enthusiasm for design and managerial expertise from a background overseeing interior design showrooms. A child of baseball enthusiasts, her memories of the playground involve the sound of the bat crushing the ball and a "heads up!" fly ball warning. She loves seeing new projects come in from all over the world and draws inspiration from the ambition and cheer of the students at Glen Lake Elementary whose inclusive playground fundraising efforts came to life and went viral on TikTok.

As a kid Brandon used to swing as high as he could almost to the point where he thought he could fly. Brandon now uses his 3D design expertise to help others fly through and around our animated playground designs. Pulling from his enjoyable work environment at Landscape Structures to create these 3D fly through animations experiences, Brandon makes sure when he is designing to think of every possible detail right down to the textures and background visuals. Brandon focuses on the quality of our equipment to show that it can last far into the future. 

Cole celebrates his visits to the playground as one of the first freedoms he had as a child, and the equipment as a catalyst for imagination and friendship. He’s now able to create that reality for others. Working in 3D opens a vast world of possibilities. And working collaboratively inspires innovation. Cole and his team are constantly working to push beyond what’s expected of a playground render to accurately reflect the quality of our products to customers.

Dave's past experiences as a sculptor and painter with GFRC products gives him a unique approach to projects and makes him a key member of our expert design team. Dave enjoys the family like teamwork that goes into designing every project. With each project having its own requirements and constraints it keeps the job interesting and challenging at the same time. Dave particularly loves being able to integrate GFRC equipment into his designs to lead to a more natural outdoor aesthetic to play.

Gerald has essentially grown up with the industry, having been with Landscape Structures for more than 30 years. He’s a playground designer first and foremost, but also aids the design team in software use, safety standards, ADA standards, proper product use and overall design layout. Experience has taught him that understanding the timeless essentials of how kids play and look at things leads to designs that outlast the latest trends.

Ian’s industrial design background and experience designing furniture, toys and games allows him to utilize all his interests to create landscapes of play and unique learning opportunities for kids of all ages. He appreciates that every project brings its own challenges and that no two playgrounds are the same. Ian’s design approach to playgrounds is to envision an experience that encourages children to use their imagination to its fullest and develop their senses and social skills. Ian’s end goal is to motivate kids to live their dreams and make the most of their futures.

Before coming to Landscape Structures as a 3D Designer in May 2017, Joey redesigned gym spaces for Snap Fitness. Joey enjoys collaborating with fellow designers and challenging himself to improve his skills, learn new technology and impact the future of playground design. Since a child, Joey has been using his imagination on the playground to create unique interactions with friends. Now he uses it to help customers visualize their playground.

Prior to joining the SkyWays® by Landscape Structures team, Jon worked as a mechanical engineer. The most interesting part of Jon’s job, designing fully custom shade designs, is also the most challenging. In fact, some of the projects he works on contain one-of-a-kind custom designs where the entire SkyWays team collaborates on them. Jon prides himself on always thinking about what clients will need in the future and sets the project up for future phases. As an Oklahoma native, Jon was most excited to work on the shade structure for Woodson Park in Oklahoma City.

Katherine’s landscape architecture background has given her valuable experience taking on the Playground Designer role at Landscape Structures. Katherine believes her true imagination and creativity was cultivated on the playground with friends as a young child. Katherine loves creating unimaginable playgrounds and making them a reality. Her favorite challenge is bringing the highest amount of play value to a project with a smaller site and budget. Katherine enjoys creating playgrounds that make a difference for communities around the world, and that is what inspires her to do her best.

Kylie has the unique perspective of first designing splash pads for Aquatix® by Landscape Structures and then bringing that expertise to the playground design team. Kylie has always had a creative side that she used in custom framing and embroidery, and now she’s hoping that the unique play structures she designs spark that same creativity in kids. In fact, Kylie’s favorite project was a castle-themed playground that mimicked Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Mark worked with a prominent Twin Cities architecture firm and large-scale home builder before coming to Landscape Structures over 10 years ago. He enjoys the challenge of dealing with different design requirements. In his opinion, the way play spaces engage children is evolving, but the essentials of play remain the same. To address this, Mark focuses on open continuous play designs that are designed to be highly adaptable to needs in the future.

As a playground designer, Miranda’s job consists of modeling designs for play areas to create memorable experiences and spark the creativity of children of all ages and abilities. She creates 3D renderings of the playground so that children see the playground concept come to life before it goes in the ground. Miranda’s no stranger to bringing ideas to life, in her past role as a 3D exhibit designer, she created booth designs for the tradeshow industry. Miranda’s favorite product to design with is Smart Play® Breeze®.

In his nearly 30 years as a concept designer, Gunnar has approached every project with a childlike fascination. He makes use of local landmarks, relevant icons or even fairy tales to spark a play narrative. His background includes sculpting animals for the Rainforest Cafe®, building parade floats for Minneapolis’ Holidazzle and Aquatennial festivals, and teaching high school theater groups how to build their props. Gunnar knows how to bring out our inner stories and make them larger than life by capturing every detail and maximizing fun in any playground.

Scott's been a member of the design team at Landscape Structures since March 2019 where he came to us an architectural drafter. For every playground Scott designs, he challenges himself to work in as many play components to increase the play value and maximize the budget. Scott loves to hear when a playground that he designs gets installed because he knows kids in a neighborhood or school are benefiting from and enjoying his work of art. Scott's taken his childhood dream of becoming a paleontologist and includes the GFRC Fossil Dig on playground designs whenever the opportunity presents itself! 

Stefanie brought more than 11 years of experience in interior design, construction management and parenting to Landscape Structures when she started with us in 2011. Growing up in the country, there weren’t many neighbor kids for her to play with unless she went into town or the nearest playground. Valuing the playground as a social space influences the collaborative way Stefanie translates the ideas of local consultants and clients into places for children to make friends and let their imaginations run wild together.

Taylor enjoys using 3D software to build and show clients amazing custom and innovative project designs. She thrives on collaborating with her fellow designers and on the challenge of meeting tight deadlines without sacrificing quality. Taylor constantly looks at where technology is heading to incorporate it to deliver the best customer experience. The bright and uplifting culture at Landscape Structures inspires her to work smarter, making her designs stand out against the competition.

Victoria’s childhood joy of building forts, play houses, and imaginative play spaces has perfectly prepared her to design amazing playgrounds. She loves to explore what makes a community unique and translating that into the universal language of play. Some of her favorite projects have been ones with smaller budgets, challenging herself to still create a personal, unique finished product that the exceeds the client's wildest dreams.