If you’re lucky enough, you’ve had a mentor or guru or role model worthy of being a source of inspiration for life. I’m lucky enough and that person is my older sister, Deborah, who with her husband Rudy, have had respective flourishing careers as a graphic designer and architect since the 1970’s.

Having met at WED (later WDI), the “Imagineering” design division of Disney, they helped craft the vision at Walt Disney World’s EPCOT Center and then pulled three multi-year stints as an executive design team overseeing the day-to-day creative operations at Tokyo Disneyland, helping to craft that park and the expansion companion DisneySea effort. Post-Disney, they are now continuing to thrive in their own practice, reshaping the global brand for clients like the Tokyo-based restaurant chain Yoshinoya.

No, not because he parades around Africa, adopting babies.

No, not because he scored Angelina Jolie, but he does get big points for that.

No, not because of Fight Club or working with Guy Ritchie in Snatch or because he’s going to play John Dean in the upcoming “Dirty Tricks.”

No, not for any of those reasons, though they certainly help (or hinder, depending upon your perspective). No, Brad Pitt is cool because he is a major architecture fan and that instantly scores points in my book. He went so far as to even get his proverbial hands dirty as an apprentice in Frank Gehry’s L.A. studio. Yeah Gehry, you know, the guy who does all the wavy, metallic buildings. While there, he apparently designed a mixed-use complex in Sussex, England.

Additionally, he is a studied architecture aficionado, fan of Frank Lloyd Wright and supporter of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

In the last year, he’s taken up his own project of building 150 low-cost, sustainable residential housing in New Orleans’ devastated 9th Ward district, in hopes of spearheading a grass-roots effort to encourage a duplicative effect.He’s also cool because he doesn’t seem too full of himself.

Yes, the African baby thing gets mocked, but at least they “innovated” it, no? He does to genuinely care about social issues, which depending upon how raised your eyebrow is, can be good or bad. Nonetheless, he manages to come across as pretty normal, accessible guy.