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By Ellen Shubart, Class of 2006

When he was small — 8 or 9 years old – Joel enjoyed playing Sim City, building an urban environment. In the backyard he built his own clubhouse. He admired his father, who was an AS400 Service Manager at IBM, and his uncle, who worked at Alfred Benesch as a draftsman, designing bridges and buildings. Joel Holt has had his eye on architecture for most of his life.

As a young man of 19, he went to work at IBM for five years “in wing tips shoes and the blue suit,” he recalled in a recent interview.  “I loved looking out of the windows overlooking the buildings on the river,” he added. Almost two decades later, he is the new vice president of IT at the Chicago Architecture Center where the mission is to understand and appreciate good architecture. He fits right in.

Holt grew up in the Beverly section of Chicago, then in the suburb of Matteson. His father had their house built from the ground up, often going to the construction site to view the progress, providing more experience with architecture. While he lived in the suburbs, his grandmothers lived in the city, where the family visited often.

Holt spent the 16 years prior to coming to CAC at the YWCA Metropolitan Chicago, where he was the IT expert. Capitalizing on his hobbies, Joel added Creative Services to his title, eventually becoming a full-time Creative Director. After taking a Cinematography course at the New York Film Academy, Joel produced commercials, marketing materials, video promotional ads, and radio spots. He was also the resident DJ for all major YWCA events!

Joel doesn’t envision doing the same at CAC, but he does want to help marketing CAC programs to more people. His role is to include technology and apply new technologies to existing programs. “IT for the most part is a ‘necessary evil’,” he quips. Everything involves IT—from remote working, remote programming, apps, and social media. His job, Holt says, is to improve the processes that make these happen.

“When art mixes with business you have to deal with how everyone speaks together and to one another,” he says. “I love being here,” the new veep said of CAC. “I love our mission and what we are doing,” he commented after his third month on the job. “I love that we speak to art and architecture.”

Holt’s first order of business is “upgrading our networks” so they respond more quickly, moving CAC “out of the Stone Age.”

Although he has loved architecture since he was child, Holt admitted that he just did his first boat tour. Always the ad man, he suggests the tour should be pitched to young people. “It’s a great trip for couples,” he points out.

Joel notes that it is important use technological metrics from Google searches and other media platforms to position CAC programs. He anticipates such research will result in a strategy to differentiate CAC from its competitors. He talks about using Augmented Reality and other technology advances and confidently says CAC will be “with it — or a little bit ahead” of the state-of-the-art technology.

Today Holt lives in Flossmoor, a southern suburb. He has three children–a 15 year-old son who is a freshman at Homewood-Flossmoor High School, and twin girls, 13-year old 7^th graders. One of the twins, following her father’s hopes, has a strong desire to be an architect, he says. Holt and his fiancé have plans for a wedding in the next couple months. Looking at the upcoming wedding date, Holt joked that adding a new job at this point in his life is like a “cherry on the top.” Enjoy the sundae, Joel. Welcome to CAC.

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