Jeffrey Ericson

About Jeffrey Ericson

I spent 25 years designing the environments that people build their lives around. Parts of it were greatly rewarding - building an organization to leverage our skills and talents, learning (and failing, and trying again) to lead and inspire; and as any creator knows, that crack-addictive moment when the vision you have in your head comes to life. The most powerful moments are in the service of other people. Buildings are beautiful and substantial, but like a suit of clothes, their true measure comes in how well they fit the people who occupy them. We learned first hand, again and again, how influential our buildings and cities are in our lives. I\'ve spent my professional career chasing two related theses: first is process. HOW things get done. I learned as a precocious kid the power of a vision – and then importance of ruthlessly working out every part of the path to get there; a vision without a way to get there is just fantasy. The rigor and discipline to create that path is what separates the people we celebrate from those we’ve never heard of. The beauty of Architecture is that each project is substantial enough that the process matters, but small enough for a feedback loop: did we achieve the vision? Where did we fall short? How can we do it better next time? The second big idea is the power of cities - they’ve fascinated me since I was a kid. Why do we live there, how do they work and change? How has that changed over time and what impact does that have overall? I’ve come to the conclusion that for most of us, cities don’t work. We stopped building effective cities 80 years ago, and no longer have the skills to make them. Only 9% of us live in dense urban places – their scarcity drives up prices, and they still out-perform. Meanwhile the rest of us live in places that tie us to a car for every trip – the housing is cheaper, but the power of the networks is exponentially weaker. So the big question is this: given that making new legacy cities is a fantasy as I’ve defined it, how do we get people the benefits that these places create – access, visibility, productivity: opportunity. My solution is RubyRide – ubiquitous transportation so reliable, safe and affordable that it effectively goes away – you just find yourself where you need to be when you need to be there. Your legs, augmented by tools like Uber and Lyft do that in legacy cities, but don’t really work where every trip is in a car. That’s where we come in. Please check us out.

Experience

1. Founder

   Rubyride

   Sep 2013 — Present · Pittsburgh, PA, US

   Mobility for all. 75% of Americans live in low- and medium-density cities and towns, where the only real option is to drive yourself. Our Connected Communities platform offers the first real alternative to owning a car in almost 100 years! More than just a ride - it\'s a better way to experience YOUR community.

Education

• University of Colorado at Boulder

  Architectural Engineering & Creative Writing

  1986 — 1989

• Arizona State University

  M.S., Construction Management

  1996 — 1998

• Arizona State University

  M. Arch, Architecture

  1996 — 1998

• Arizona State University

  Bs. Arch., Architecture

  1992 — 1995