By Ellen Shubart, Class of 2006
A born-and-bred Floridian who plays the clarinet at a professional level, Alex Hinand is not exactly a typical Manager of Tour Operations at an architecture-centric organization. But it is his Floridan background, including working at an historic house museum, that brought him to this place.
Hinand grew up in a suburb of Sarasota. He was a clarinet performance major when he graduated from Florida State University, home of the Seminoles. “But I needed something with a bit more job stability,” he admitted, so he earned an MA in Arts Administration. That drew him to Chicago for a job – interim Director of Operations for the Chicago Youth Symphony. He moved on to become the Ensemble Operations Manager for Roosevelt University’s Music Conservatory that includes the choirs, chorus, and other smaller orchestral ensembles. “I love music,” Alex says. But he sees music as more than just concertos or symphonies by “old, dead, white guys.” He is interested in beyond just the classics, looking for new music and new voices.
Nevertheless, an interest in social justice drew him to the Jewish Council of Urban Affairs, where he worked as Operations Manager. The urban affairs group is an NGO advocating for economic and social justice for the general community. While a Jewish organization, it advocates for police accountability and community safety, immigration reform and solving the problems of homelessness. The organization proposes allocating a portion of real estate taxes for services for the now homeless. Hinand was there for a year and half, supporting all the social justice goals.
An interest in architecture drew Hinand elsewhere. While in graduate school he worked on the creation of the Call-Collins House, a house museum in Tallahassee. The 1825 home is one of the best preserved antebellum residences in Florida, according to its website. It was built by enslaved people for the territorial governors of Florida. Hinand was involved in telling the story of that building as well as the story of one of largest slave holders in Florida, its governor. The mission of the Grove Museum, the umbrella organization for the building, is to preserve and interpret the Call-Collins House and its surrounding area. The site has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1972. “I love the museum,” Hinand says. “I learned so much about bricks, how skilled the enslaved persons were to be able build such a structure, and I love telling the stories of the architectural elements.”
Hinand’s job as CAC’s Manager of Tour Operations, which he has held for just over two months, is focused on data and building out the tour schedule. He was pleased to sit in on the recent Tour Committee meeting and the initial discussion of what numbers and kinds of tours CAC will be offering in the future. He would like to shore up and develop relationships with local partners to offer more and different tours, he says. Hoping to both highlight docents as well as tours, he is seeking tours that will move CAC into different and new neighborhoods and highlight underserved communities.
While his life has been in Florida and now Chicago, most of Hinand’s extended family is in Portland, Oregon. His younger brother is still in Orlando, working for Universal Studios in the marketing department, but both his parents and grand parents live in Portland, he reports. It’s a pull to the northwest, Hinand says, but right now he’s sticking with Chicago. “I love Chicago,” he proclaims, and post-pandemic he wants to get back into the “scene” of small storefront theaters, museums, and concerts.” An Andersonville resident, he thinks it’ll be easy to find all of those activities.
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