Sam Olbekson was first exposed to architecture at age five, when his uncle was a construction worker on a project to build the Minneapolis American Indian Center.

Decades later, Olbekson, 51, now runs his own architecture firm, Full Circle Indigenous Planning. He’s also MAIC's board president, designing an addition to the building which will begin construction next month.

A citizen of the White Earth Nation of Ojibwe in Minnesota, Olbekson split his childhood between the area’s reservations and urban Native American populations, observing and experiencing their impoverished living conditions. Inspired by his childhood interest in art, math, and social justice, he went onto study architecture in college and later earned a graduate degree in urban design.