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By Brent Hoffman, Class of 2005

“It’s really the kids who make the tour, so it’s always great when they really get into it,” said Chuck Pierret. The CAC education guide leads the 90- minute Chicago: City of Architecture and the Science of Architecture tours for school groups. His tour-takers are fourth-to-eighth graders, up to 12 at a time. It’s a bit like herding cats for Chuck, a veteran wrangler himself as a father of three (now adults). “Generally, the younger kids pay attention and are excited to answer questions. Middle schoolers can be too cool to be seen as participating. But when you have middle-schoolers that actually get into the tour, that’s especially memorable.”

After demonstrating architecture principles at CAC, Chuck escorts the youngsters on a field trip down Michigan Ave. to the Carbide and Carbon building for the City of Architecture tour. And to the Cultural Center, including the Tiffany dome, for his science tour. Enroute are the sugary temptations of the Nutella Café, then Stan’s where kids often ask, “can we stop for a donut?”

“My favorite kids tour is the City of Architecture,” continued Chuck. “It gives you a chance to talk about the history of Chicago as well as the history of the city’s architecture. The Carbide and Carbon building and Marina City are iconic. So, the kids generally can spot the distinctive architectural styles and learn a lot. And with kids, you want them to actively participate, or they’ll lose interest and tune you out. You want them to feel that they’re smart enough to lead the tour themselves.”

Statistics

Chuck grew up in Waukegan but when he was eight his family moved to Muskogee, a small town in eastern Oklahoma. After graduating with a degree in international relations at Stanford University in California, he returned to Chicago, where he worked for Information Resources, a market research firm. After earning a Ph.D. in economics at Northwestern University, his next home was in Silver Springs, Md., from where he commuted to nearby Washington, D.C. He was an economist and statistician with the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Explained Chuck, “I was the director of the National Longitudinal Surveys. We did demographic surveys that interviewed the same cohort of people over long periods of time, up to 45 years, to determine how demographic and economic variables interact in the long term. These surveys form the basis of a series of academic datasets, available to anyone online, that have been used by academics to write over 5,000 articles in scholarly journals.”

In 2018, Chuck relocated to Evanston to be closer to his family. He continued to work remotely for the Bureau until retiring in 2018. “That was a couple of years after my wife, Carol Muskin [recently profiled in The Bridge], had become an education guide for the Center,” he said. “She was having such a good time that I thought I should become a guide as well. School groups usually need several guides. That allows Carol and me to sign up and work with the same groups, so we can commute together, which makes it very convenient.”

Engineering Fest

“In addition to the kids’ tours, I helped develop a couple of the tours that were a part of Engineering Fest, which regularly runs in the winter. I worked on a CAC committee that researched the Chicago fire and its aftermath. We developed the Great Chicago Fire family and school tour. Unfortunately, it was dropped because, with Covid, very few school tours were being given.”

When not educating children in architecture, Chuck plays tennis and basketball at the Evanston Senior Center. “I volunteer as a tutor to fifth- graders in math and other subjects and help low-income families prepare their tax filings through the Volunteers in Tax Assistance program,” he added.

“I enjoy cooking, going to the theater, reading, and traveling.” Over the years, Chuck and Carol hosted eight live-in foreign exchange students, both in Silver Springs and Evanston. “They’d stay with us for up to 10 months during their school year. We’ve visited many of them in their home countries. One of our students was a Thai girl who’s about to move back to Thailand, so we hope to visit her there in the next year or two.”

Avid travelers, the Muskin-Pierrets went on the CAC docent enrichment trip to Columbus, Ind. Also in 2023, they toured Portugal, “a beautiful country with gorgeous buildings,” said Chuck. “And we recently went to Buffalo, N.Y., to see the architecture, especially the Richardson, Sullivan, and Wright buildings.”

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