Blog

By Brent Hoffmann, Class of  2005

“What are you drinking right now?” Jeff Marcella asked his online audience.

“Is it a Chicago-area microbrew, a microbrew from elsewhere, an international beer, American microbrew, or you’re not a beer drinker?”  He waited for replies on the Zoom chatline on his computer screen.  “In my introduction I like to get a ‘beer reading’ of my tourees,” he explains.  Jeff — who usually leads his pub tours on foot — recently treated docents and CAC members to a well-researched and entertaining virtual Buildings and Beer tour on Zoom.  In case you’re wondering,  his favorite brew is Saison Dupont, “a classic farmhouse ale.”

“The pub tours are my favorite tours,” he continues.  “I like the camaraderie.  I engage with my tourees right from the start and push them to do a good bit of the talking and interacting.  If they’re interested in history, let’s go more into the history of the pubs and brewing.  If they want to talk about the structure of the buildings, let’s do structure and learn what they know and can contribute.  When I get a combination of locals and out-of-towners, I tag the locals to tell their stories about Chicago pubs.  I know I’ve done well when, at the last pub on the tour, my tourees ask me to stay, and tell more stories and keep asking questions for an hour or so.”

Levi Said?

“On one of my Treasures tours,” he continues, “I was showing off the Marshall Field store.  I told how Field had said, ‘Give the lady what she wants.’  And a guy walking by with his teenage kid stopped and said, ‘No, Levi Leiter actually said that first, even though Field gets the credit — and this is his great-grandson.’  As the tourees looked thrilled, I gave the guy time to tell what he knew about the Leiter family ancestor.  And I gave him a quizzical look, so he must have thought that I was going to ask for a money grant to CAF.  ‘No, he said, our money was gone two generations ago’.”

Before Beer

Jeff grew up in New Castle, Pennsylvania., near Pittsburgh.  He moved to Washington, D.C., where he earned a BA in theology at Georgetown University.  “It was also in D.C. that I met my wife-to-be, Gail,” he says.  Jeff married, relocated to Pittsburgh, then moved to Chicago for graduate school in 1994.  He earned two degrees at the University of Chicago: a Master of Public Policy and a Master of Divinity.

In 1998, Jeff joined the Chicago Mayor’s Office of Workforce Development. He  led job training programs for low-income and unemployed Chicagoans.  In 2008 he left to become a management consultant.  He serves clients nationwide from his office at home, a Chicago bungalow in West Rogers Park, where he lives with his wife, son, and two cats.

“I’m a consultant to governments and nonprofits with a focus on workforce development, specifically on publicly funded job-preparation and job-training programs,” he explains.  “The organizations I fund are going to be part of the next phase of economic recovery.  They’ll support people who are laid off, who need retraining, skill upgrades, and redirection into the job and industries that will be growing and restructuring as we rebuild the economy.”

Began as a Hobby

“When we moved to Chicago, I fell in love with the architecture and design of the city,” Jeff says.  “I didn’t have time to do much beyond studies and work, and Gail was in the end of medical school and start of her residency. I needed a hobby so I’d have something productive to do on all those days when she was at work, on rotations, and on 24-hour shifts.  A friend and I decided to take the CAF class together, and I became a docent in 2001.  So I’m now one of the youngest-oldest, longest-serving docents, having been at it for almost 20 years.”

In addition to the River North and Andersonville pub tours, Jeff is certified for the Art Deco Skyscrapers: The Loop, Art Deco: Riverfront Favorites, Historic Skyscrapers and the Historic Treasures tours.  He helped develop the first pub tours.  Jeff also served on the docent policy-planning committee and has often been a mentor and certifier for docent classes.

“Besides CAC and my sub-expertise in beer, brewing, and the microbrew industry, I’m an avid gardener and home chef,” he says.  “My wife and I enjoy cooking and exploring new cuisines and finding ways to use new ingredients from our garden and the farmers market.  We’re busy, too, parenting our son, who’s a drummer, lacrosse player, and started this fall at an arts high school.  I look forward to a couple more decades as a docent.  I’m excited to get back on the streets and explore some of the spots other docents have highlighted in their CAC Live presentations – and maybe help create another pub tour.”

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