Blog

By Brent Hoffmann, Class of 2005

“I wear a Chicago flag shirt every time I lead river tours,” said Lance Friedmann. “I even have a different shirt for warm, mild and cold days. It’s one of my themes. I thread one or two themes through my tours. First is the flag as a narrative device. I use the symbols on the flag to talk about Chicago history, working them in throughout my tour. Then I quiz the tourees at the end to see if they remember all of them. I make sure they always get 100 percent on the quiz. Second is that I talk about the river in terms of ‘renewal’ – how neighborhoods like River North have been renewed, and buildings like London House, and even the river itself when it was reversed.

“I enjoy the river cruise for the number and tremendous quality of the buildings. The Chicago River keeps changing. I focus energy on conveying my passion for

architecture, and on interacting with my tourees. I’ve reduced the number of buildings I talk about. People want time to absorb and reflect on the things they’ve just heard and seen.

The tourees’ experience of seeing the buildings from the river is unique,” continued Lance. “And the feedback at the end of the tour is very rewarding. “For example, one of my out-of-town patrons, a CAF member, said it was the best river tour she’d ever taken, and she’d taken it six times.”

The Unexpected
On one of Lance’s river tours, he was alerted that a tourist had fallen off the dock into the water near the Michigan Avenue Bridge. “I saw the nearest boat make its way toward the swimmer. Then a person on the shore dived in to rescue him, so now we had two swimmers in the water. This was all that the people on my boat wanted to watch, so I suspended my tour for a few minutes until everyone could see that both swimmers had been rescued. That’s one of the realities of being a docent: reacting to unexpected events.”

Oreos
After earning a BA in economics at Stanford University and an MBA at Harvard, Lance worked in marketing and management positions. He spent his last 25 years with Kraft Foods. “Much of my work at Kraft was international, including assignments in Mexico City and Shanghai,” he said. Lance became senior vice president of marketing, then led global marketing at Mondelez International, Kraft’s spin-off of its global snack and foods brands. “I was responsible for all-time favorites like Oreos and Triscuits. Also for Belvita, a healthy breakfast biscuit that’s been a big success for the company.”

In 2015, he retired from Mondelez and became a CAF docent. Lance explained, “My passion for architecture was kindled by architectural history classes in my senior year at Stanford. Since then, I always made it a point to explore architecture in every city I visited. As I neared retirement, I knew I wanted to pursue my interest in architecture. So when a friend asked, ‘Have you thought about becoming a docent for CAF?,’ I realized, that’s it!”

Tours & More
Lance, who also leads the Chicago Masterworks tour, is chairman of the docent Marketing Committee. He serves on the docent Long-Range Planning Committee, the Tour Roster Committee, and the CAF Move Task Force. He is co-leader of the Project Fresh task force, which will recommend ways to make core tours more engaging. He helped organize the 2017 River Cruise kickoff, river refresher session, and the docent enrichment event at the new 150 N. Riverside building. In 2016 he organized a modern architecture tour for his 2015 classmates to Columbus, Indiana. He followed up with a class tour of Graceland Cemetery in 2017. “Both our Columbus and cemetery excursions were led by the incomparable docent Henry Kuehn,” he said. “The Graceland tour was preparatory to the issuance of Henry’s book, Architects’ Gravesites.”

At the 2017 Docent Appreciation Night, Lance received a Docent Service Award. He explained, “The award acknowledged my service on the committees and task forces. It highlighted my emphasis on the use of data to help guide our decisions, particularly on the tour roster task force.”

Lance also is a member of the Chicago Leadership Council of American Jewish World Service.

Travel, Architecture
Lance and his wife Sari are avid travelers. They visited India and Sri Lanka in 2016. “We were impressed by the step wells in Gujarat, India. “These extraordinary structures, dug seven stories into the ground, provided water for the animals of Silk Road merchants. They were safe sleeping spaces as well as meeting places for traders,” Lance said. “In Ahmedabad, an ancient city in Gujarat, we visited Corbusier- and Louis Kahn-designed buildings — as well as the old city, which was just designated a UNESCO World Heritage City.” On the island of Sri Lanka, they admired the “exquisite colors, symmetry and grace” of the Last House, the final design of Sri Lankan architect Geoffery Bawa.

“When we travel, I often wear my Chicago flag shirt. It’s a conversation-starter, and a good way to advertise Chicago and our world-famous river tour.”