Findlay native gets prestigious design award

COLUMBUS — Findlay native Wendy Johnson has been inducted into the Retail Design Institute's Legion of Honor for "her lifetime achievements and lasting influence on the advancement of retail design," a release states. Johnson is currently an account management and operations partner with Chute Gerdeman, a Westerville-based design consulting firm. She received the award during a ceremony in New York City. Johnson said she was born in Findlay to parents who worked in education. "I knew in junior high school that I did not want to be a teacher or in education as a career … I wanted to experience what the 'real world' had to offer," she said in an email to The Courier. An active member of several extracurriculars while in high school, Johnson attended the University of Cincinnati's design, architecture, art and planning interior design program. While in college, she said her senior project was called "Literary Sense, a non-traditional bookstore which featured print, audio and video." Johnson was the student grand prize recipient of the 1994 Dupont-Antron student interior design national contest. After graduating with a bachelor of science degree, she joined Chute Gerdeman in 1994 and has worked her way through the ranks over the last 31 years. Around the same time, she married her high school sweetheart. She said she has quickly learned what she likes and does not like about her position. "My second co-op was at an architecture firm and I learned that I did not enjoy the large commercial buildings and hospitals," she said. "Once at CG, it was retail design at a very fast pace with varying projects from specialty retail, shop-in shops and restaurants. They opened pretty quickly so you could see your work completed and have lessons learned for continual improvement." At CG, she started as a designer before being promoted to program manager and senior program manager. Over the course of her 31-year career, she said the most challenging project was designing M&M's World in Times Square, New York City. "We started with a raw space that needed escalators, elevators and a new mezzanine as well as a dynamic storefront to capture the Times Square customer," she said, also saying she had a limited amount of time for completion. "It was challenging but also rewarding as we learned so many things over the course of that project." The project she is most proud of, she said, is a brand transformation of Exchange, formerly The Army and Air Force Exchange Service. When approaching a new project, she reports that honesty and transparency are always key to a successful project. In those she mentors, she finds its important to instill these same skills as well as the need to listen to the client. "You are never going about your clients business more than they are so you need to collaborate and bring them on this journey of understanding the opportunity with a creative solution. After receiving the Legacy of Honor award, she said she has had time to reflect on her career. "I was first in shock, but then had time to reflect on my 31 years and realized how much I grew from all of my mentors and peers and how I now mentor our next generation," she said. "It is such a prestigious award so just being nominated is an achievement." She currently resides in Upper Arlington with her family.