Meet New Member David Frum
Introduced by Gerry Maurer
David Frum (pronounced Dah-Veed) was born at Bahia Blanca in Argentina. At age seven, his family moved to a kibbutz, a communal farm, in Israel. He says that to this day his favorite vehicle is a John Deere tractor. Let’s explore how an Argentine-Israeli farmer ended up in Seattle with an architecture practice that specializes in Health Care Design.
After his military service, David left Israel for Colorado Springs to attend Colorado College. It was there that he met his wife Elizabeth Labadie from Portland, Oregon. Two years after he left Colorado Springs for Minnesota, she followed and they married. They relocated the family to Seattle in 1990, 30 years ago.
They have two sons ages 32 and 33. David was advised by his oldest son’s wife that she would not be providing any grandchildren, at least until her medical residency was done. Fortunately, the residency is now complete, and they will be moving from California to Seattle this summer. His second son has also announced that he and his girlfriend plan to marry in 2021.
David has known about Rotary for many years. An uncle in Northbrook, Illinois (near Chicago) was a District Governor and encouraged him to join, but he was concerned about the weekly attendance requirements. Now that he has led Salus Healthcare Architecture, his own firm, for more than five years, he finally felt that he could make the commitment. So far, he has not found the weekly meetings difficult to manage.
When asked what is different about an architecture practice focused solely on healthcare, he explained that this is because healthcare has unique requirements. As an example, to provide more flexibility and surge capacity for a clinic or hospital, his firm has pioneered the use of movable walls. He commented that we had all probably seen this in action recently with some of the Covid-19 facilities designed and built by the Army Corps of Engineers. In 2018, David was named a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. This distinction is achieved by only 3% of the members of the AIA.
We thank his sponsors Jon Bridge and Diahnka Linear and welcome our newest member, David Frum, principal of Salus Healthcare Architecture, with the Classification of Architecture.
