Architect Mack Wakeford continues to build on his Albany legacy

ALBANY — As he moves into his 50th year of doing the thing he was born to do, the thing outside his family he loves most, architect Mack Wakeford has allowed himself to take stock as he prepares to ease into work for the first time as a solo practitioner of his art.

“As I drive through Albany every day, looking around at the buildings I pass, I can’t help but think about my place in this community,” Wakeford, 77, said during a recent conversation in the home he shares with wife Karen. “I pass by buildings and think, ‘Yeah, I helped design that building and that one and that one.’

“I’ll find myself thinking ‘I’m glad I got to do that building; it turned out well,’ but there are others that make me think ‘I missed the ball there; I wish I could do that one over.'”

Such is the constant internal conflict of a perfectionist who has, indeed, left an indelible mark on the city where he was born and raised. A list of buildings designed by the Yielding, Wakeford & McGee architectural firm could be used as a guidebook for the community’s modern history: the Albany Museum of Art; the Creekside Education Center at Chehaw Park; the transformation of the old Gordon Hotel into the city’s Water, Gas & Light Commission offices; the downtown Central Library; the Albany-Dougherty Government Center; the Kay Hind Senior Life Center; renovations at Marine Corps Logistics Base-Albany; projects at multiple Albany public and private schools; additions to Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital; doctors’ offices throughout the city; several banks; a plethora of churches; a number of plantation structures, and some of the community’s most well-known residences.

And that list doesn’t include work he and the firm did in other parts of the state

Wakeford, a graduate of Auburn University, talked about his career as he announced that he and his current partner, Kent McClure, planned to dissolve the corporation that has played such an integral role in the development of Albany and southwest Georgia. But, as those who know Wakeford best would no doubt assume, that doesn’t mean he’s walking away from this thing that has consumed him since he was a young boy.

“Overhead just continues to increase and increase,” Wakeford said of the firm that he started in 1975 with partner J.M. Yielding. “There are many factors, but COVID really changed everything. Kent has maintained our office on Roosevelt for the last few years, but it just didn’t make sense for us to keep that up with costs constantly rising. Continuing to work as an individual will allow us to control costs much better.”

Anyone who was surprised that Wakeford chose architecture as a profession did not know the man. After all, he decided when he was 10 years old that that’s what he wanted to be.

“I can’t explain it, but there was just something that clicked,” Wakeford said. “I took drafting classes in high school because there was never any doubt in my mind that this is what I was going to do.”

Of course there was that period at Auburn when he was encouraged by university officials to maybe choose another major since he didn’t initially put in the work needed to succeed in his chosen major.

“They put me on probation — I had to sit out a year — but I told them I was not going to choose another field,” Wakeford said. “That was a wake-up call. That’s when I turned my focus on my work.”

After graduating Auburn in 1971, Wakeford was commissioned as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army and after training at Fort Benning, he was prepared to head to Vietnam. But the U.S. withdrawal from that country not only sped up the end of his Army career, it also left him jobless. Thankfully, Karen (nee Hinson), whom he’d dated while attending Albany High School and married in 1969, had a job as a classical studies instructor at Auburn.

But Wakeford talked himself into a job with Albany architect Hugh Gaston in 1971, and the Wakefords — with the first of their two children in tow — came home. He worked with the local firm until 1975, when he and Yielding approached Gaston for his thoughts on their breaking off and starting a new firm. Their boss obviously didn’t cotton to the idea.

“He told us to have our stuff out of the office by the end of the day,” Wakeford said.

So he and Yielding used the equity in their homes and cars — and had to have Wakeford’s father co-sign on a $15,000 line of credit — to start Yielding and Wakeford. There was, to say the least, a great deal of trepidation.

“Starting a new firm during a recession is not the best business plan in the world,” Wakeford said. “But fear is a great motivator, and we were terrified.”

The new firm got a break right out of the box when a surprise call “out of the blue” from officials at Albany State University offering a job designing new classroom buildings was the lifeline Yielding and Wakeford needed. A short while later, the firm was hired to design renovations on the city’s Water, Gas & Light building.

“We got the C&S bank branch project shortly after that, and we were on our way,” Wakeford said.

Hundreds and hundreds of jobs later, Yielding, Wakeford & McGee (Darrell, the firm’s first employee) has earned a reputation as one of the region’s premier architectural firms. Along the way, employees like Linda Daniels and David Maschke have broken off and started their own architectural businesses.

Wakeford, meanwhile, says he has no plans to give up his passion.

“I definitely won’t be full speed ahead — I’m 77 years old,” he said. “But I still enjoy this. I’ve turned down some jobs that are large-scope projects, but I’ll keep working on projects as long as I still enjoy it.”

He’ll share his home office space with Karen, who has done consulting work in the health care industry for the past three decades.

“I’ve been in the background throughout his career, and it was a bittersweet moment when we cleaned out the offices on Roosevelt,” she said.

Her husband agreed.

“My involvement with this firm has been one of the highlights of my life,” he said. “As our business grew to include up to 12 employees, there were never squabbles. We were always on the same page, like a little family.”

Now, with son Donald, who is an assistant district attorney in Atlanta, and daughter Carrie Jackson, an art teacher in Fairhope, Ala., professionals in their own right, Mack and Karen are a team of two. But, as they will readily attest, there’s still enough of that special fire inside this consummate professional to ignite the passion that has carried him through five decades of work that has spawned a legacy that is now a part of his hometown’s history. 

(Contact Wakeford at [email protected] or call (229) 881-4133).