Mary Hart Brings Empathetic Leadership and Military Precision to HKS’ Mission Critical Practice
When Mary Hart was in high school, a teacher asked her to write down her top three career choices.
“I put architect, race car driver and rock star,” she said.
Hart had become fascinated with buildings and infrastructure as a child while visiting job sites with her father, who worked as a contractor in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. She also loved cars and music, but the motion sickness and stage fright she experienced at the time made two of her career options non-starters.
“Architecture just made sense,” said Hart, a Principal and Mission Critical practice leader at HKS.
But even before her dream of being an architect took shape, Hart knew she wanted to attend college. Her parents both passed away when she was young — her mother before she turned 1, and her father when she was 14. She received support from her stepmother and older half siblings during high school and navigated the challenges of adolescence while living in multiple places. Through it all, she kept an eye on her goal of pursuing higher education.
“Bouncing around from home to home, I had the potential to be a really bad kid, but there was something in me that always stopped me at the eleventh hour that said, ‘You’re not going to be what you want to be if you go down this path,’” Hart recalled. “Once I got into college, I had to straighten up my life or I wasn’t going to succeed.”
Starting a Life of Service
An Army recruiter approached Hart when she was in junior college, and she opted to take advantage of the scholarship that came with joining The Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) at Texas Christian University. The school didn’t have an architecture program, so she sought a business degree with the belief that no matter where her career led her, understanding the ins and outs of business would help.
She graduated in 1988 and joined the Texas Army National Guard as a Communications Officer. The role required her to travel for training several times a year, including a two-week stretch every summer.
“My personality fit great with the Army,” Hart said. “I was always organized, kept things clean, and I was an early riser.”
Hart worked as a manager at regional supermarket chain Tom Thumb for six years as she simultaneously served in the Guard, helping numerous stores in the Dallas-Fort Worth area grow by using her business savvy and organizational skills. It was also during this time Hart met her wife, Linda Reyes-Hart. The couple first connected while visiting a mutual friend in the hospital and then really hit it off a few months later at a party Hart threw to celebrate that same friend’s recovery. A week later, Hart “got up enough courage to ask her on a date” and the rest is history — they’ve been together more than 30 years.
In 1994, Hart became newly determined to follow her dream and enrolled full time in the University of Texas at Arlington’s Master of Architecture program, which permitted students with prior degrees to complete undergraduate and graduate architecture courses in three years. After she reached that milestone, she moved on to the next ones: gaining employment in an architecture firm and achieving licensure.
Parallel and Complementary Paths
As Hart built her architecture career in Dallas, she also rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Texas Army National Guard. She served deployments in Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan before retiring from the military in 2011 after 22 years of service.
Some might call it a double life, but Hart believes her parallel career paths as an architect and service member are inextricably linked. As a signal officer, she led teams setting up communications networks and equipment ranging from Vietnam-era telecom devices to modern computer systems. As an architect, she has designed and delivered millions of square feet of commercial offices, data centers, operations centers — many of which include corporate and civilian versions of the equipment she operated in the military.
Hart fondly recalled a time where she was able to leverage her design skills on a peacekeeping mission in Bosnia. She used Microsoft PowerPoint (the only available software) to redesign her unit’s Network Operations Center, transforming a dusty plywood command office into a secure open-plan workplace with independent computer stations and collaborative space with large wall monitors.
“Most of the time, I’m using my Army career to support my civilian job,” Hart said. “It was really neat to go the opposite direction, to use my civilian job with my Army career.”
Casey Montague, a fellow architect and retired Texas Army National Guard officer, said that during her years in the service, Hart developed a reputation for being an extremely skilled officer with strategic and tactical capabilities. She also became renowned as an exemplary leader and supportive teammate who always looked out for others.
“In the Texas National Guard, everybody knew who Mary Hart was and wanted her on their team,” said Montague.
“In the Texas National Guard, everybody knew who Mary Hart was and wanted her on their team.”
The military isn’t the only community where Mary developed a reputation that preceded her. She also built relationships with other designers and architects throughout Texas who knew her to be an exceptional project manager and professional leader — including Dutch Wickes, a Mission Critical practice leader at HKS, who invited her to join the firm in 2021.
Leading a Growing Practice
When she came to HKS, Hart was excited to get back to designing data and operations centers, which she had an affinity for since early in her architecture career. She also looked forward to growing as a leader and leveraging the knowledge she gained while getting an MBA after she retired from the military. From day one, her role as Principal and Mission Critical practice leader at HKS was a perfect match.
“I walked in here and it felt like I’d been here forever,” Hart said.
During the last two years, Hart has been a key player in expanding the HKS Mission Critical practice, which now has three times as many staff members as when she started and is experiencing an influx of projects and revenue due to increasing demand for secure data centers and similar facilities. She is particularly excited about the growing practice’s diversity and the opportunities it has provided her to help shape younger professionals as they learn new project types and become a cohesive, highly functioning team.
“I’ve always had a passion for helping people see outside themselves or beyond themselves to become something better,” Hart said. “I think I do a pretty good job at looking at personalities and finding where the gaps are and where they can connect to make a great team.”
Two of the people Hart personally brought aboard the HKS Mission Critical team are her National Guard colleague, Montague, and architect Rachel Franklin, who was introduced to Hart through a friend in 2022. When they met, Franklin was instantly taken with Hart’s story and joined her at HKS not long after.
“Immediately, she was an open book and was open to being a mentor for me,” Franklin said. “Learning about Mary’s life, I thought I could learn about how I could navigate this industry as a gay woman.”
Openly identifying as a lesbian in her professional life, Hart has used her voice to create impact through the HKS PRIDE Affinity and Inclusion Group, which develops programs and informs policies in support of the firm’s LGBTQIA+ employee base. As a founder of the group, she has been influential in the firm’s participation in the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index, building on her and Reyes-Hart’s longstanding involvement in HRC advocacy efforts and committees.
Franklin said that seeing Hart proudly be her authentic self at work has inspired her to integrate her own professional life more intentionally with the personal life she shares with her wife and children. She’s also been taking notes about the ways in which Hart has risen to high-ranking roles in the military and in architecture while maintaining a calm air of humility.
“To meet somebody who is as successful as she is and as humble as she is…it is so inspiring to me, I can’t even explain it,” said Franklin.
Hart guides her team’s project work from a kind and caring point of view while also bringing military sensibilities of efficiency and productivity to the table, according to her colleagues. Montague and Franklin both said that in addition to taking time to help them learn the particulars of designing Mission Critical projects, Hart consistently balances keeping track of progress on their many projects while serving as an empathetic and invested leader throughout the firm.
“Mary is reaching out across the entire Mission Critical practice and making an impact on everybody,” said Montague. “She is full of knowledge and ready and willing to share it with anyone who is willing to learn and get better.”
Not one to shy away from doing things differently, Hart is also celebrated by her teammates for being an out-of-the-box thinker who seeks to integrate new technology into their workflow and deeply cares about improving project outcomes.
“Her forward-thinking, positive attitude about what she wants Mission Critical to be is infectious,” Franklin said.
A New Chapter, a New Challenge
In her time outside of work, Hart enjoys cooking, gardening and spending time outdoors with Reyes-Hart, who works remotely as a director of digital experience for an Arkansas-based bank. Hart says that through her schooling, deployments, travels and career advancements, her wife has been an immense source of support and love.
“Linda is my rock. She keeps me grounded when things are going haywire and she has consistently supported me and cared for me,” Hart said. “I would not be where I am today without her.”
The couple’s love of nature and their hobbies of hiking and biking recently compelled them to relocate to the Denver area. Hart said the impending move is due to several factors: her desire to escape the Texas heat; because she has been supported by HKS to transition to the firm’s Denver office; and because she didn’t want to wait until she retires to pursue her and her wife’s longtime dream of living in Colorado.
“We decided you only live once,” Hart said. “I don’t want to wait until I’m 65 and my knees don’t work anymore to go hiking in Colorado. I can’t wait to be able to go out and be in nature every day.”
The relocation is also indicative of Hart being “ready for a new challenge,” she said. This is an unsurprising statement to hear from a determined and ambitious person who served 22 years in the military, obtained three degrees and leads a team at a global design firm. Her life story is a master class in tackling big challenges.
As she embarks on this new chapter, Hart is energized by thoughts of the future — the fun and rewarding experiences she will share with Reyes-Hart and how she can continue to grow in service to others as an architect and mentor.
“When I came to HKS, I promised myself that I’m not here to be anything other than who I am, to do a good job, to support the people I work with, and build buildings,” Hart said. “That’s what it’s about.”
