Alice Hoffman, PE, LEED AP, is the President of Hoffman Management Partners (HMP), a firm devoted to managing complex projects and issues. She is a Professional Civil and Structural Engineer, having earned her BS at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MS inConstruction Management at MITs Sloan business school. As a Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design Accredited Professional, Alice is passionate about sustainable design, construction, and operation of constructed facilities and development of renewable energy.
Alices career has included a diverse range of projects, frominvestigating effects of hydrogen explosion in reactor containment buildings for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, to redesigning business processes for the US Federal Reserve Bank, Siemens and Toyota,to management of planning, design and construction of multiple building types. She has successfully managed both new and redesigned equipment, office, and computer buildings and cell towers for New England Telephone, mental health hospitals and health campus and power plants for the New York State Office of Design and Construction, a skyscraper in Times Square New York with foundations bordering on both a working subway line and a historic theater, her own residential building conversions in Brooklyn, a public/private mixed use district in Baltimore, and Ravens stadium for the Maryland Stadium Authority.
In 1999, Alice was hired by the Chicago Bears to help them find a site for a new stadium that would earn enough revenue to help them compete with other teams: Soldier Fields suites were located in metal trailers, andthe clubs, restrooms, and food service areas were completely outdated. Although the Bears had already placed a non-refundable deposit on landin Hoffman Estates, Alice noted that Chicago needed cash to save beautiful, historic Soldier Field: the seating structures were dangerously deteriorated, the colonnade ceilings were raining concrete, and the stadium was non-compliant with modern fire, safety, and exitcodes. Alice worked with the Bears, Mayor Daley, state legislators, the Chicago Park District, and the Architect Ben Wood to devise a plan that would solve those problems, keep the Bears in Soldier Field, and bringthe stadium into the top tier of revenue producers. The Bears assumed cost overrun risks, and Alices company held all the contracts for designers and contractors for the project and delivered the stadium in only 18 months, a record for a modern NFL stadium.
As a result of this successful public/private partnership, Chicagoans gained 19 new acres ofdynamic green space, including five new memorials for veterans andpolice, an Earth-themed Children's Garden, and a sled hill with snow-making equipment. The museums gained nearby indoor parking in the North Garage. The Illini at Urbana-Champaign gained millions from theBears' 2002 season played there. Taxpayers gained millions in rent from the Bears to support the Park District's beautification/greening of the City. Chicagoalso gained parking, concert, club/event rental and concession revenues, and Chicago & Illinois collected taxes on Bears, Fire and concert tickets. Chicagoans gained a venue with removable seats at field cornersand in the North endzone accommodating/attracting international soccer, the Fire and top concerts. Cutting-edge structural engineering allowed new state-of-the-art videoboards and press boxes cantilevered above theendzones, affording the "beauty shots" of our Chicago skyline featured on televised games, attracting visitors to Chicago. These views, the short distance between the colonnades, and modern exit codesmeant fewer seats than the Bears originally desired, but seats are on average closer to the action than any other NFL stadium seats, providing great fan experiences.
Soldier Field is a monument dedicatedto the men and women of the US Armed Forces 100 years ago, and, as the daughter of a proud Marine, Alice feels strongly that these aspects of the stadium and its grounds need to be expanded, publicized, celebrated,and opened to Veterans free of charge. Soldier Field is also a strong asset for the City of Chicago and State of Illinois and can be enhanced with the latest technology to continue to attract top concerts and world-class sporting and other events, thus returning the stadium to itsoriginal use as a Municipal Stadium.
Alices other volunteer service includes board membership in ValueSpring Global Technology, with the goal of bringing a free AI tutor to every child. As a former board member and President of the National Space Society, Alice re-focused the Society on education through contests and partnerships with industry to get students excited about STEM through her own childhood passion, spaceexploration and settlement. Alice enjoys her alpaca and fly-fishing ranch in Patagonia, Chile, where she demonstrates off-the-grid sustainable living and provides free custom designs for solar and Bergey Wind power systems. Alice can often be found biking or sailing along Chicagos beautiful lakefront.
