December 11, 2017
Duane Grieve
The selection committee of the board of directors of the East Tennessee Community Design Center has tapped Knoxville Vice Mayor Duane Grieve to be its next executive director.
Grieve, the unanimous choice of the committee, will be officially approved for the position when the board meets next month in a special session.
“We are thrilled to have someone of Duane’s caliber as our next executive director,” said Rick Blackburn, president of the board of the East Tennessee Community Design Center (ETCDC). “All of his experience in both the public and private sectors will allow him to jump into the job and immediately get to work. It could not have worked out better for us.”
Grieve, the owner/architect of Grieve Associates Architects for 30 years, has been a member of Knoxville City Council since 2009. He was re-elected in 2013 and then elected vice mayor in December 2015. Grieve exits public office later this month because of term limits.
“It is an honor for me to be selected as the next executive director of the East Tennessee Community Design Center,” Grieve said. “Bruce McCarty was a mentor while I was getting my degree at the University of Tennessee College of Architecture, so to get the opportunity to become the director of an organization he founded is very meaningful to me.
“I believe in the CDC and care very much about the non-profit work that they do. I am hopeful that my experience in private practice, my affiliation with the American Institute of Architects, my UT teaching tenure and my work in the community as a city councilman will be beneficial in furthering the goals and mission of the organization.”
Having a personal interest in historic preservation, Grieve was responsible for restoration of the original Miller’s Department Store on Gay Street (now the headquarters of Knoxville Utilities Board), Anderson Hall at Maryville College and Alumni Gym at the Tennessee School for the Deaf, among others. Grieve’s office is located at Emory Place in one of three vintage 1880s buildings that he restored in the early 1980s.
His practice encompasses commercial, city/state and custom residential projects, including the Volunteer Ministry Center’s new headquarters, Maryville Municipal Center and several UT projects.
For 14 years until 1986, Grieve was a tenured assistant professor of architecture at his alma mater and has served as an adjunct professor in professional practice during various semesters.
Active in the American Institute of Architects (AIA) since the 1980s, Grieve became an AIA fellow in 1997 for his service to the profession. He was local and state president, Gulf States regional director, national treasurer and chairman of the National AIA Trust.
From 2008-2009, he was president of Scenic Knoxville where, under his leadership, digital billboards were banned in the city.
In Knoxville, he has served in many volunteer capacities over the years and currently serves on the boards of Legacy Parks Foundation, Knoxville History Project, Arts & Culture Alliance and the city’s Public Arts Committee.
The East Tennessee Community Design Center is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to make East Tennessee a better place to live and work by bringing professional design and planning assistance to community groups and nonprofit organizations. The organization receives pro bono design assistance from area architects, landscape architects, planners and other professionals. It was established in 1969.
