About Hufft

Black Lives Matter

A letter from Matthew Hufft

I am a privileged white male, working in a predominately white profession. Equal rights have always been important to me. In fact, we are currently working on several projects that have driving goals of providing opportunity and justice for racial minorities. But I am still a privileged white male. I have had many opportunities that minority members of our community have not.

The recent tragic events have caused the world, and us at Hufft, to reflect on our reality and privilege in comparison to those with a different reality and less privilege. I feel ashamed to admit I did not realize how bad this was.

I wish we had done this sooner, but we pledge to do better now. We have many ideas. And no doubt as we move down the road fulfilling our pledge to do better, we will discover new ideas or ways to help. Most importantly, we know that we need to turn our ideas into actions. Our professional knowledge base lies in Design and Fabrication. It is this area that will be our starting place for implementing positive change — from a concerted effort to address the systemic issues and unconscious biases that play into recruitment, to big picture changes that need to happen in urban design and planning.

We understand that words are not enough so we will hold ourselves publicly accountable. On the anniversary of George Floyd’s death, May 25, 2021, we will report back on our progress, our challenges, our research, our failures, and our success. If anyone reading this message has specific ideas, people, or institutions that we can help – please share.

There is work to be done. A lot of it. We pledge to do our part.