Simone A. Early

Secretary Gorzkowicz of the Executive Office for Administration and Finance appointed Simone Early as the Executive Director of the Designer Selection Board Agency in December of 2023. The Designer Selection Board (DSB) acts as the central administrative authority for the selection of firms to provide “design services” for State building projects throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Executive Director (ED) plays a foundational role in the Commonwealth’s Designer Selection Board operations. In every aspect, the ED supports the DSB’s integrity, fairness, transparency, promotes design excellence, and fosters broad based participation in the Commonwealth’s capital building projects.

Before joining the Designer Selection Board Agency, Simone spent 13 years at what is now the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities working as an architect and managing the Architects, Engineers and Sustainability Unit for the Bureau of Design and Construction for state-aided Public Housing across the Commonwealth. In this role, she developed design and construction guidelines and contracts, advanced sustainability strategy including climate hazard, resiliency, and healthy building environment planning and guidelines, coordinated and oversaw special project development (modernization of elderly housing, accessible unit modernization, portfolio wide septic assessment, and portfolio wide decarbonization studies), and collaborated with external stakeholders. Her role also included stewardship of the designer selection process, negotiations, and contracts, as well as working on and providing subject matter expertise on the Cap Hub project management system, the capital inventory systems, and coordinating the EOHLC integration with the DSB’s Designer Selection Network.

Earlier in her career, in the private and non-profit sector, Simone’s design portfolio encompassed work on courthouses, schools, universities, churches, hotels, and affordable housing development, amongst other community and public project types.

Her civic engagement activities include service on the Mass Historic Commission as the EOHLC’s Undersecretary’s appointee, the Mass Community Development Corp for Housing Quality and Health, Mass Cultural Council on the Arts, and the Town of Essex Planning Board.

She earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a Master of Architecture from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design.  

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ROLE

The ED administers six very significant roles:

1) Directs the DSB application and selection process to ensure full integrity, transparency, and design excellence, while ensuring that various steps within the processes are streamlined, efficient, and approachable;

2) Promotes and facilitates participation in Commonwealth projects within the Architect and Engineering community and guides A/E firms in DSB processes. In this process, the ED works to expand and strengthen the participation of minority/women/veteran-owned, and small and emerging business enterprises through policy and initiatives;

3) Develops and maintains partnerships with User Agencies, DCAMM, and the Governor’s Office in collaboration with the Board, working closely with DCAMM and user agencies on project scope, advertisements, and evaluations;

4) Supervises the DSB staff, infrastructure, and budget, implementing and improving the development of user-friendly application submission, review, and data collection systems proactively;

5) Develops DSB programs, initiatives, and presentations, disseminates annual reports on operations and outcomes, and promotes innovation in establishing performance metrics and targets for broad firm participation and evaluation; and

6) Develops policy and procedures in collaboration with the Designer Selection Board, user agencies, the Governor’s office, and community stakeholders in the pursuit of the Designer Selection Board’s mission to ensure that the Commonwealth receives the highest quality design services for all its public building projects; to provide for increased confidence in the procedures followed in the procurement of design and design related services; to promote consistency in the methods of procurement of design and design related services for all public building projects in the commonwealth; to foster effective broad-based participation in public work within the design professions; to provide safeguards for the maintenance of the integrity of the system for procurement of designers' services within the Commonwealth.

Contact: Simone.a.early@mass.gov