Shara M. Castillo, R.A., AIA

Shara Castillo is a Vice President, and Architecture Design Principal for Michael Baker within the Integrated Design and Advisory (IDA) group.  The IDA vertical provides front and back-end services to bring together key disciplines to elevate the Michael Baker brand as a premier full-service professional consulting firm. In this national role, Ms. Castillo collaborates closely with leaders across practices, markets and office locations to provide architecture design leadership that delivers creative, high-impact architectural solutions and uniformly high design and production standards, while also driving operational excellence. Additionally, she will help drive client and industry engagement and expand Michael Baker’s presence in federal, aviation, transit and public sector projects, as well as private sector markets including corporate, industrial, manufacturing, defense, aerospace, higher education, life sciences, energy transition and healthcare.

Ms. Castillo has more than 20 years of architecture industry experience leading complex, large-scale and innovative architecture projects in technology, data centers, healthcare, industrial, manufacturing and institutional markets. Prior to joining Michael Baker, she served as Head of Architecture and Permitting for Tesla, Inc., where she directed over 11 million square feet of infrastructure projects, including data centers, manufacturing expansions, new vehicle programs, support facilities and workplace development initiatives. She also collaborated with cross-functional teams representing manufacturing, engineering and product development to ensure the seamless execution of design solutions. Ms. Castillo previously spent nearly 15 years as an Architect and Principal with the architecture firm Zimmer Gunsul Frasca (ZGF).

Ms. Castillo earned a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Texas at Austin.

She is a registered architect in the states of Texas and California and is registered with the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards and the American Institute of Architects.