Blog

By Ellen Shubart, Class of 2006

It was more than a twenty-year run – starting in the depths of a recession that made a receptionist job palatable for a Loyola University graduate. It was a fun ride, and working with docents is remembered as “the best job of my life,” by Barbara Gordon, who held the title of Docent Volunteer Coordinator for the second-longest time in docent history.

Barbara Hrbek, as she was known then, was living at home with her parents and a brother who, armed with a PhD, was stocking shelves at Jewel. In the recession, jobs were hard to come by. While traveling to school on the Blue Line, Barbara could look into the Chicago Architecture Foundation book shop in the Monadnock Building. Fascinated, she joined CAF as a student member and took tours, including those romantic ones by candlelight at Glessner House.

Administrative Assistant Wanted

Gordon found an ad in The Reader for a CAF “administrative assistant,” but it really was a receptionist, she recalls. She liked the job as it was a “fresh start”.  At that time the whole CAF operation was located on the first floor of 224 S. Michigan as well as at Glessner House. Her “office” was the front desk of the first-floor office suite on Michigan Avenue.

During her second year on the job, Barbara took the docent training program, and by the third year, spring of 1996, she took over docent training, following Pat Patterson. At this time, training consisted of on-the-street Chicago walks, as the Glessner House tours had been separated out.

Gordon found that working with the Education Committee meant that the program was fairly well set. Focusing on the sponsor-reader-certifier model, things were well organized. Each docent completed a written exam, an oral exam, and a final project. Those projects ranged from categorizing pictures to doing inventories of things. Under Education Committee chair Jane Buckwalter, the final projects were phased out. “It was not bad, but it was another thing that may or may not had added to learning,” Gordon says, looking back.

Best Ever Job

At the time, docents-in-training didn’t complete many building descriptions. Rather there was more practice going out on the streets. One aspect of docent training that significantly changed during Barb’s tenure was the interview process. It was not until Barb’s third year as the Volunteer Coordinator that she, and subsequent coordinators, became a participant in the interview process

Part of the docent corps herself, Gordon was open to lots of fun. There was the loving teasing from Harry Hirsch and Hy Speck about how Barbara Hrbek was a woman in search of a vowel; and another docent, looking at a photo of Barb’s small daughter, assumed the child belonged to her and Jason Neises, who were NOT married but merely shared an office.

About the “best ever job” – Gordon recalls how when she was doing training and introducing Professor Henry Binford, and later when she did the public programming, “I could not believe I was getting paid for this.” She considered her job to include setting up, coordinating Loop tours and the long-lived Highlights by Bus.

Toward the end of her CAF career, Gordon left the docent corps in the hands of Jason Neises and worked more on project management for Lynne Osmond. She coordinated one feasibility study for a possible center, oversaw the development of strategic plan, and coordinated consultants and staff. She left her job as Vice President for Program Operations after 20 years at CAF. “It was time,” she said.

Post CAF

Following her work at CAF, Gordon did a number of consulting projects herself, but “I found out I’m not a consultant.” Today she is the Executive Director of the Frank Lloyd Wright Conservancy, headquartered in Chicago.

Gordon and her husband Joe, who gave her a last name with a couple of vowels, lived in the city after they married in 2002. Today they live in Oak Park in a Queen Anne bungalow with their daughters Indigo, 16, and Isla, 14, both enrolled at Oak Park River Forest High School. Joe is a commercial solar power developer and designer.

We were lucky to have you, Barb.

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