Live from the TRPL #6: Built to Endure: Sustainability, Stewardship, and the Making of TRPL

CRAIG DYKERS:

I know when some people came from New York, they were like, "Where's the handrail on the boardwalk?" Well, you don't need it. It's just grass. So I think people will see that and they'll say, "Maybe I need to reconnect with the world around me because everything we've been doing for at least 200 years is separating us for that."

TED ROOSEVELT V:

Welcome to Live from the TRPL on Good Citizen, a podcast from the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. I'm Ted Roosevelt. The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library officially opened its doors on July 4th, 2026, and in the days leading up to it, the brand new auditorium hosted some really special talks, interviews, and panel discussions. These featured a striking lineup of voices, including historians, conservationists, architects, and political leaders. I wanted to give our podcast listeners a chance to hear some of these great speakers. So we've put together a short series, six episodes over six weeks. For this one, we've got a pretty special panel, Craig Dykers, Suzie Medley, and Willie Winn, the people responsible with designing and building the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. They tell a story about creating someplace extraordinary and about building it with the land, not just on it, about constructing a site for generations of visitors, but also for the animals, grasses, and even the weather systems that already live here in the badlands.

And the details are as wild as the landscape. During this episode, these experts discuss the difficult and forward thinking sustainability choices that showed up during construction. One stellar example is their creation of a new kind of concrete, managing to cut carbon without sacrificing durability. And then there are the towering rammed earth walls inside the library that are both ancient and seriously future minded. It's this kind of ambitious thinking and the commitment to follow through on it that allowed them to meet the tough certification standards of the Living Building Challenge. That's also what makes this place truly lasting and not just impressive on opening day. And so now I'll give you over to Jenn Carroll, the library's director of facilities, grounds and sustainability who moderated this panel. I hope you enjoy.

JENN CARROLL:

So today we're celebrating much more than the opening of this remarkable building. We're celebrating the vision, innovation, craftsmanship, partnership that transformed an extraordinary idea into the place we're standing today. Every great project has a story and that story is ultimately about people. Today, we're fortunate to hear from three individuals whose leadership, expertise and dedication help shape this library in ways that will be felt for generations. Let me introduce our panelists. So to my immediate left is Craig Dykers, co-founder of Snoheta at the internationally acclaimed architecture and design firm behind the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. Throughout his career, Craig has led some of the world's most celebrated cultural projects, always with a focus on creating places that strengthen the relationship between people, community, and the natural world. To Craig's left is Suzie Medley. Suzie is the Vice President of the Fisher Group and a lifelong North Dakotan.

She has played in an important leadership role throughout the development of this library while helping advance innovative construction practices and supporting the growth of North Dakota's construction industry. And to Suzie's left is Willie Winn, founder and CEO of Winn Construction. For more than four decades, Willie has built projects and communities across North Dakota and his team brought many of the libraries most distinctive features to life, including its remarkable architectural ramp walls. So thank you all for being here and let's begin.

All right. So great buildings aren't measured by opening day. They're measured by the lives they touch for decades to come. Every decision made on this project was an investment in the future. So Craig, when you imagine this building, what did it mean to design not just for today, but for generations who haven't yet walked through these doors?

CRAIG DYKERS:

Well, thank you. Yes, and it's a pleasure to be here with everyone. And I'm sorry, but Willie Winn has to be the coolest name. But no, I would say one thing that is very meaningful to our company is that we don't see this as a building. We see it as a landscape architecture, which we're landscape architects and architecture coming together. And what we hope is that we will break down those barriers that society has built over centuries that segregates architecture from the terrain that it sits on. So we hope in the future people will come here and they'll learn that a building is as much a part of the landscape as the landscape is a part of the building. And that's not very common thinking today, but it will be more in the future. The power of place is not simply a door and a roof.

It's what it takes to get there. As some of us in the building in our studio like to say, you can have a site without a building, but you can't have a building without a site.

JENN CARROLL:

Fantastic. And Suzie, Ben Olene and your team at Dickinson Ready Mix helped redefine what concrete can be through innovative lower carbon concrete mixes. Why do breakthroughs like this matter for future generations?

SUZIE MEDLEY:

Thank you so much, Jenn. So when the project first came to Dickinson Ready Mix, I remember talking with Ben Olene. Ben, will you stand up, our general manager, give him a round of applause for stepping in the arena and coming up with the mix design. I know the mix design they asked was reduce carbon and bringing it in on time, which meant the durability, getting it to cure on time was very difficult. But Ben stepped up and he talked to a lot of engineers. It took months of testing, problem solving, collaborating with suppliers, contractors, designers, and eventually he came up with a 65% reduction in the carbon content for the concrete, but the concrete is different in different places in the library. So it's not just one mix design that he had to come up with. Thank you.

JENN CARROLL:

Yeah.

CRAIG DYKERS:

It's great too, by the way.

JENN CARROLL:

It is great. And I think what we've learned over this project, it was a little intimidating upfront to kind of step out into a space around the concrete being different than normal. And I think we found out across the project that it actually is a benefit far more than a detriment as maybe we kind of had anticipated at first. So I think we can all agree that the most important decisions are often the ones we never see, but generations will benefit from them. So places become meaningful because people invest themselves in them. This library carries the fingerprints of hundreds of North Dakotans. Willie, what did this project mean to your team and did knowing that their children and grandchildren could one day walk these halls change the way they approached their work?

WILLIE WINN:

Well, for one thing, not everybody gets a chance to work on a presidential library, which was a big thing to me and our family and our workers. They all jumped on board and knew that it was going to be some different type of work and it was going to be long time. And we knew that a lot of people were going to come there and see it. And that was a real big deal to me.

JENN CARROLL:

Fantastic. Craig, you've worked around the world. What made working alongside North Dakota's builders and craftspeople so special?

CRAIG DYKERS:

Well, obviously I think everybody who's been here knows people are just downright friendly, even when they're mad at you. So that makes a difference. Any building project has challenges. There's no such thing as a building that... In fact, if it didn't have challenges, I would argue it's not a good building. So coming to terms with decisions that were hard to make was always a friendly kind of experience and we worked things out in ways together. So that's very unique and I don't think... I mean, there are places that are also friendly, but this is particularly that way. And also it's not a very densely populated place. So certainly trying to build in a remote location. North Dakota is already remote. Modora is even more remote. And this little butte outside of Madora is like an extra level of remote just to get all the construction crews up here and all the teams up here and everything and to do it without annihilating the landscape while it was happening because it's easy.

Construction is a very aggressive, kind of angry process. So to try and tone it down and make it softer was a big part of that. So I think for me, I'll take away the congeniality of people and also, and by the way, that's not meant to say that there wasn't innovation or extreme thinking. It was just done in a framework of kind of a friendly atmosphere.

JENN CARROLL:

So we like to call that North Dakota nice. And Craig, I can't imagine anybody being mad at you.

CRAIG DYKERS:

Oh yeah.

WILLIE WINN:

Really? You want to do what?

JENN CARROLL:

So this building will welcome visitors from around the world, but it will always be rooted in the people that built it. Every meaningful project reaches a point where someone has to decide whether to accept limits or push beyond them. Craig, what moment during the design process convinced you this project could redefine what's possible in sustainable architecture?

CRAIG DYKERS:

Well, not every aspect of the sustainable thinking or sustainable ideology or environmental sensitivity was a part of the original project. It was actually fairly simple. Over time, step by step, they kept ratcheting it up another level, another level and another level. And when the living building certification and the challenge of that arrived, it really wasn't, even for us, it was a little lesser known. And for everybody to take it on and say, "Well, yeah, not only are we going to do it, we're going to have a team of like 30 people helping it out to make sure that it happens." That's a rare kind of client kind of direction. So I think when we finally got to that and your team and the teams that are associated with you were applying themselves to the project, we knew that it would be real because you don't always succeed.

Everyone wants it to succeed because we all like, "Wow, yeah, we're going to do that." But it's a bit like Theodore Roosevelt himself who we always would've said, "You have to take it on. It's probably not possible, but let's do it." And I always say Theodore Roosevelt was in every design meeting telling us, "Yeah, I know you can't do this, but do it anyway," sort of thing.

JENN CARROLL:

I agree. And I think that's attributed to having a CEO that's a visionary. Ed pushed our team beyond the boundaries. Every time we would come back to Ed and say, "Well, I don't know that this is possible." It was a figure it out. Let's figure it out and get it done. So I really resonated with the fact that he really, not only from an innovation perspective, sustainability perspective, did he push us, but we pushed the boundaries in a lot of different ways on this project that likely wouldn't have happened had we not had the leadership team and the board and the CEO.

CRAIG DYKERS:

And even the then governor, now secretary of interior was pushing this very, very strongly. And sometimes just little things. One of my favorite stories is when we were trying to figure out how close the parking should be to the building. And it's often the case in the United States, people want to park inside the front door. So how do we get a road into the front door? And we were trying to preserve the landscape and make this beautiful place have its strength after the building opens. And so we found an area and some people were nervous. It's too far away. And the then governor, now secretary said, "Well, you know what? There's a shopping mall in Fargo. Measure the distance from the closest parking lot space to the door of the shopping mall. And I guarantee you it's further away than what your parking space is here." And so we presented that and it's kind of hard to say, "Well, it should be closer." So we were closer than the Fargo shopping mall parking.

JENN CARROLL:

Priorities. Parking was a really challenging conversation. I think we talked a lot about the number of parking spaces that were necessary to support the activities on the bluff top and how do we overcome that. But I think the result, when you look at the project today and the preservation of the landscape that occurred, it was important. Those hard conversations were important to our success. So Willie, your crews mastered construction techniques that only a handful of contractors in the country have accomplished. How did embracing those challenges change what your team believes is possible?

WILLIE WINN:

Well, if you know Steve, you can't say no to him, which I did a few times because I said we've never done this before.

CRAIG DYKERS:

No, I don't think Steve is.

WILLIE WINN:

Never did this before, but you can't say no to Steve. And pretty soon it was... I'm glad we took it on because it was exciting for me anyway and our men that did it. We took a trip to Sheridan and Cheyenne and looked at some walls and Craig was alone.

CRAIG DYKERS:

No, I wasn't alone —

WILLIE WINN:

You weren't there. Aaron was alone. And quite a few other people. I'm bad with names, but there was some good people that came along, talked a lot about what it should be versus what we were looking at, come up with some good plans. There was a Jennifer along, Jennifer Jackson, very talented person and some other people. I can't remember their names, good bunch. But all those discussions we had and talking about what we were going to do brought us to the plan. And then our guy, Kenny Jessup, very good young man, hard work, and he took it over and we spent hours talking about what to do, what not to do, which with Kenny, he'll only talk to you about 15 minutes and he's got — but it was actually fun. It was exciting and challenging. And those guys took it and did a great job with it. And I think it turned out very nice.

It was stressing for a while because once it's done, you can't look at it for a while. And then I was afraid of what Aaron was going to say, and so there I go.

SUZIE MEDLEY:

I think it's so amazing when we're picking out all these little pieces, like you were talking about the rammed earth walls, the concrete, all the little samples we look at for the chairs you're sitting in to the walls that we're putting up. When you see it come together, it's amazing. The drawings and mock-ups, it doesn't even compare. I even see the videos online and in person, it is so beautiful. It's so worth coming to see.

CRAIG DYKERS:

You know what? Yeah. I wanted to say something that I don't think I've told you before. We haven't had a lot of time to talk since it opened, but I have the privilege of being able to lecture around the world in many, many places. It's very fortunate. And I've mentioned that Ramdarth wall in your company several times in the most far away places you can imagine. It was not long ago in Colombia in Bogota, and I showed a picture of that wall and I tell the story how we put out this rammed earth wall to bid and everybody said, "We're not touching it. Nobody's going to get close." And then your team and some younger people who remind us a little bit of ourselves because we were a very young company at one time. I was 28 when we started our company and we took on the Alexandria Library in Egypt.

And I think if we were any older and more experienced, we would've walked away from it. So there was some youth there and we had just enough naivete to say, "Yeah, we're going to do it." And you did it. And I'll never forget when we took away the first scaffolding and everybody was there. I never once thought it wouldn't be successful. I knew you were going to do it, but it was nerve racking. And they pulled off the screen and I remember the air coming out of everybody's mouth was just wow. And the two guys that were there, and I wish I could remember their names, I though they were going to collapse. They were like these big guys and they were... And that was one of my favorite moments I can remember of any project in nearly 40 years. Thank you.

WILLIE WINN:

Thank you. Thank you.

JENN CARROLL:

So just for a little additional context to this conversation around the Ramdarth Wall, Steve Forrie is the general superintendent for JE Dunn Construction who was the construction manager at risk on the project. And it took Steve about nine months to convince Willie that this was a piece of the project he wanted to take on. And I will say it is one of the pieces that is the most appreciated pieces of the project. Everybody that walks into that lobby has a very distinct reaction when they see it. So we're incredibly grateful that Willie took the risk, that Kenny took the risk, and that they stepped into the arena and made it happen. So yeah.

WILLIE WINN:

Thank you.

JENN CARROLL:

And we always like to share on tours the little fun fact. Kenny lost about 30 pounds through the process. It's about a three month time from start to pulling the forms off, and I think he was a little nervous about what the outcome would be, but it's incredible. Absolutely amazing.

CRAIG DYKERS:

And if some of you don't know, you may know this already, we've tried to say it a few times, talk about a sustainable building practice. This construction technique is at least 20,000 years old. So it existed long before industrialization, long before humans were rebuilding in any kind of significantly methodological way. So you will find it in every corner of the earth. Even here, the indigenous tribal nations would use ram earth in different locations in the Americas. You'll find it in Asia, in Africa, even in Europe. And it really requires nothing but dirt and muscle. That's all it is.

WILLIE WINN:

I would like to have Kenny stand up and his wife there here somewhere. It's right there. That guy. He's the guy right there. Gets it done.

JENN CARROLL:

Fantastic. Okay. Let's skip to the next one. So the finest craftsmanship isn't measured only by what we build. It's measured by the impact we leave behind. Suzie, where do you see the greatest opportunity for the construction industry to build more responsibly without sacrificing quality or performance?

SUZIE MEDLEY:

Thank you so much, Jenn. I don't know where to begin this one. I think that the biggest point is trying to mesh sustainability with durability. And what we did here is we did reduce the carbon footprint, which will be more sustainable over the years, but we did not compromise our durability. And that was a hard blend to come together. And to do that, it really took everybody, meeting contractors, engineers, everybody had to get together to approve these new designs.

JENN CARROLL:

Suzie, do you anticipate that Dickinson Ready Mix will continue to use low carbon concrete on projects?

SUZIE MEDLEY:

I think so. I really think that's the wave of the future. I was talking to Ben Oline and he really pointed out that it would be great if people would understand less is not always more. And with less, you can make something sustainable and durable that lasts over time. And that really is where I think construction is moving. I think contractors are very much more aware of the impact of the environment when they are building. You just don't see that because it's happening behind the scenes, in labs, in engineering offices, and it's not something really publicized that people want to hear about.

CRAIG DYKERS:

It's one thing I like to say as a metaphor for people to understand this better, is that if you make a building, any building, anywhere, somewhere, there's a hole in the ground equal to the size of the building you just made, because you have to get those resources from somewhere. So there's some place out there where you're taking them from to bring them here. And sometimes those holes are even bigger than the building. So understanding it in that simple way often helps people to understand the impact of what it is that we do, because it is a kind of a ruthless business to make things. So we have to work extra hard to keep it clean and keep it responsible.

SUZIE MEDLEY:

So true.

JENN CARROLL:

So Willie, can you speak to, from your perspective, the change in the concrete mix? How did that impact your trade and is there a benefit to it? Would you be willing to work with it again? Can you speak to that a little bit?

WILLIE WINN:

Well, in the beginning it was like it always works in the lab. Somehow you got to take it out in the field and make it work. So it wasn't a whole lot different, but it just took a little bit of how to do this, how to do that. It was mostly in the flat work, the finishing different, and yeah, that was about it. You had to learn how to take care of it and what to do because the slump was higher, but then it would set up quicker. So it just took a little bit, but after a while, those boys had it and they didn't know the difference. It worked.

JENN CARROLL:

Awesome. So great buildings don't happen by accident. They're the result of people who care deeply about doing things the right way. Long after we're gone, this building will continue welcoming visitors, shaping conversations and inspiring new ideas. Every generation leaves something behind. This is one of ours. Craig, what do you hope people feel the moment they arrive here, 50 or even a hundred years from now?

CRAIG DYKERS:

Where's the bathroom? No. I'm glad I didn't drive a car here. No, I mean this place when you come here, and I started with this early on, the places that we build within, the landscapes, the terrains, the habitats, the places where we occupy, because every time we occupy a place, whatever it is, a home or a library, you're displacing things, birds, animals, grasses, all of these things get pushed to the side. And this project does not do that. It puts it in the center. I think when people come here and they see that you can build for yourself, because this is for us, but you're also building for the rest of the population that is around us, all the living creatures that are losing their habitat, losing ways to stay alive anymore. I mean, the amount of loss of life that we are experiencing at this moment in time is exceptional.

I think that when they come back here and they see... I brought this because I'm so happy. There's my little rabbit. When they see the little rabbits or whatever they see out there, even if it's a scorpion or I don't care what it is, even if it's a rattlesnake, it's life and it's life in its purest sense. That's the other thing about this. I know when some people came from New York, they were like, "Where's the handrail on the boardwalk?" Well, you don't need it. It's just grass.

So I think people will see that and they'll say, "Maybe I need to reconnect with the world around me because everything we've been doing for at least 200 years is separating us for that. We're so into the industrialization of our lives. Even it's hard to open a door anymore by yourself. They're like rotating doors or escalators. You can't even take a stair anymore because you got to get on a motorized one and lights are all artificial. There's hardly any natural light. So grasses in the native plants that we have growing here are disappearing quickly. So that's my hope. They'll come back and they say," Yeah, you don't have to have one erase the other. They both support each other, which is I think Theodore Roosevelt's sort of dedication even to politics. He even said, "You can be a plant or a building, but you can both get along."

JENN CARROLL:

I think that's one of my favorite things about the project is whether you're inside or outside, you have this connection to nature through the materiality that surrounds you, through the landscape. And I think you're absolutely right, Craig. We need a reconnection to that. And we're providing that opportunity to our visitors, the ability that someone that requires ADA assistance can get out into the badlands today and have that experience where they might not otherwise have that opportunity. I think that connection to nature is so important to our communities that we are having the opportunity to provide that here. And so I'm so grateful that that was the vision early on and that vision has been fulfilled upon. Suzie, what lasting impact do you hope this project has on the future of construction in North Dakota and beyond?

SUZIE MEDLEY:

Thank you, Jenn. I think one main point we really need to bring out is that this was built in North Dakota, buy North Dakotans with North Dakota material. And I think if you put all these North Dakotans in a room, there's nothing they can't do. And this library is a testament to it. It's phenomenal. And I think this will bring children out, away from their screens and coming out. And even though there's a lot of AI in the library to keep them entertained, I think there's so much beauty in the walk around that it will let them enjoy nature in a very safe and beautiful environment. And I think it's important that our library, we treasure and protect our natural resources. And we do that here. And I know Craig, you could even talk more about all the plants and how they're —

CRAIG DYKERS:

At least the landscape architects couldn't —

SUZIE MEDLEY:

Oh yes. Yes. All the different plants and how they're trying to bring in all the plants of North Dakota and the sustainability.

JENN CARROLL:

Yeah. I think one of the things that we haven't talked a lot about is the intentionality that was placed on finding resources within our immediate area, whether it be people resources or material resources. There was a lot of effort put on ensuring that we were looking local first, really trying to support the economy in North Dakota and beyond. I think about when we talk about materials, Dickinson ready mixes, low carbon concrete to north steel is the steel that was utilized for the project. The wood for the majority has come out of the Pacific Northwest, knowing we don't have forest here in our immediate area, but really trying to focus on where our sourcing was to ensure that we were supporting our communities first before outsourcing to other areas.

SUZIE MEDLEY:

And I do believe that when local contractors are actually doing the work, there is a lot more responsibility and pride in it than some contractor that just kind of comes in, they pass through, they do the work and they're gone because we are going to be bringing our children and they'll be bringing their children in here to see it.

JENN CARROLL:

And I think that's a great point that we haven't even talked about today is the pride aspect. Having had the opportunity to be a part of the project, starting in the design phase, moving through construction and being on site on a fairly regular basis, the tradespeople that worked on this project, you could see the pride that they took in their work knowing the impact that this place will have well into the future. And so it was really interesting to see, I mean, Willie, I'm hoping you can speak to this a little bit, but it was really interesting to see how the tradespeople took their time, were intentional. They wanted to share their work with others. So I think it was an important aspect in the project and it's a great element, Suzie, to highlight is that everyone that's been a part of this, I believe, has really taken a lot of pride in their work.

So Willie, I'll ask you to speak to that with your staff. And then I'd also ask you to speak about when your grandchildren stand here one day, what do you hope they'll understand about the people who built this place?

WILLIE WINN:

Well, with our people, I'm reminding them every day, there's going to be hundreds and thousands of people coming to see this and your kids and grandkids will be there. So make sure what you do, you pay attention and do a great job. And every one of the ramrods that came out here that run the crews, they had pride in what they did and they cared about what they did to the end. And it goes back to Kenny, he was over top of all of them and made sure every day that things turned out the way they were supposed to. And so down the road when people come here, I'm hoping that they see that there's a lot of hardworking men that worked many hours and it was hot. At times it was hot and windy. Sometimes like I said today, sometimes it rained sideways, sometimes straight down, sometimes light, sometimes it stormed.

And so over three years, those boys worked in all those conditions and nobody whined, nobody complained. They just went out and got it done every day because they knew where we were all headed to here. That's where we're headed.

JENN CARROLL:

And just so you know, Willie's team were the first ones on site June 8th of 2023. They were the first ones to move earth on the site and they were here as of this morning filling in some areas. So they have been a part of this project every day since we broke ground on June 8th, and they've been an important part. I will say another aspect that's been really interesting is that Willie mentioned the men that did the work on this project, but there have been a lot of women on this project, which has been, I will say, has been impressive from the design side of things to tradespeople, to the contractor. I have been so impressed in the amount of women that have been a part of this project, which I think has been really impactful when you look at the end results.

CRAIG DYKERS:

Sometimes it's just visual. I have seen many times here when I've seen more female staff or people on site than male. It's not a trifle thing. It was a large number.

JENN CARROLL:

Yes, absolutely. So as we've heard today, the library represents far more than extraordinary design or construction. It reflects what's possible when vision, innovation, craftsmanship, and community come together in service of something larger than ourselves. Theodore Roosevelt once said, "Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing." Looking around us today and listening to the stories behind this place, I think it's safe to say this was work worth doing. On behalf of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, thank you Craig, Suzie, and Willie for sharing your stories and for the role that each of you have played in creating this extraordinary place. And thank you to all of you for joining us today. And I hope you enjoy the rest of this historic celebration.

CRAIG DYKERS:

Could I ask my team to stand up too? They deserve it.

WILLIE WINN:

And since I guess I missed the women, but —

SUZIE MEDLEY:

How about calling you out, Willie?

WILLIE WINN:

I have to say, I think I heard a while back saying it's behind every good man is a woman rolling her eyes. And so my wife Billie Jo's out here. And my two daughters are here, Taryn and Tiffany are here and my granddaughter, Leika.

CRAIG DYKERS:

If Willie Winn isn't cool enough, you got Willie and Billie Winn.

JENN CARROLL:

All right. Thank you so much for being here today.

TED ROOSEVELT V:

Listeners, so glad to have you along for Live from the TRPL, our special six part series from the library's grand opening. You can find more interviews and talks like these online at trlibrary.com/video, where you'll also see the library's opening ceremony, drone shows, news stories, historical footage, and so much more. Check it out and thanks for listening.