Continental Who's Who

Margery al-Chalabi

Margery al-Chalabi is recognized by Continental Who’s Who as a Pinnacle Professional Member in the field of Urban Development in recognition of her role as President of ACG: The al Chalabi Group Ltd.

In 1956, a time when very few young girls thought about becoming an architect and even fewer attempted it, Margery Pupać, daughter of a factory worker and a housewife, was accepted by Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University). She graduated in 1961 with a B.Arch degree, and only $1,000 in debt; the latter due to a series of scholarships, part-time and summer work.

For the next year she worked as an architect planner with the Allegheny County Redevelopment Authority working on renewal and redevelopment plans for many of the small towns/cities in the Pittsburgh metro area. “I didn’t realize, then, that I was having a ‘Gap Year’; but, I guess I was.” It was a time to pay back part of the loan and to save funds to continue her education – a Master’s Degree in Urban Planning and Regional Economics at the Athens Technological Institute in Athens, Greece. At that time, young women didn’t take off – alone – for a graduate education in a foreign country; but she did, armed with a Ford Foundation Fellowship and, later, an institute-guaranteed work permit for work with and stipend from the A&E consulting firm, Doxiadis Associates. She graduated in March 1965 with an M.Sc Degree; and, after 2½ years, Margery al Chalabi returned to the United States married to a fellow student who, much later, would become her partner in their eponymous firm – ACG: The al Chalabi Group, Ltd. Suhail al Chalabi, born in Baghdad, received his B.Arch degree from MIT shortly before coming to Athens for graduate study, and to work with the planner Constantinos Doxiadis, who had developed the Master Plan for Baghdad and planned substantial low and moderate housing projects for Iraq, while Suhail’s father was a Director of the Iraq Development Board, with funding of seven percent of the nation’s oil revenues.

For the first eighteen years after her return, Ms. al Chalabi held a series of increasingly responsible positions: a G11 planner with the newly-formed U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; Urban Planner with the Chicago Department of Urban Renewal; Assistant Vice President, then Vice President, at Real Estate Research Corporation (where she directed landmark studies in development and redevelopment for the Departments of Housing and Urban Development, Defense and the Interior, as well as Downtown Plans for Cincinnati, Charlotte and Rochester. Then, a short stint for an accounting firm (establishing their public planning division) before joining Mayor Jane M. Byrne’s Mayoral Office and Department of Planning where, as Assistant Director of City Development, she assisted the Mayor’s Chief of Staff in overseeing planning for five departments; and, as Deputy Commissioner of the Planning Department, prepared the City’s Comprehensive Plan, Chicago 1992, which combined goals and policies and the Ten-Year Capital Development Strategy Program prepared to accommodate the recently-won 1992 World’s Fair (lost when Mayor Byrne lost re-election in 1983).

With the election loss, Ms. al Chalabi founded the firm ACG: The al Chalabi Group, Ltd. She was joined four months later by her husband, Suhail al Chalabi, who as Commissioner of Economic Development in the Byrne Administration, remained for a four-month transition period to the Administration of Mayor Harold Washington. One of the firm’s first projects was the acquisition and preservation of the landmark Chicago Theater, using historic tax syndication (gleaned from the stint with the accounting firm) and the economic development tools (utilized by the Department of Economic Development). Then came the 20-plus years planning for the Third Airport for Chicago, where the firm developed sophisticated forecast and impact models. These models have been used by the firm in many subsequent transportation plans (airports, bridges, tollroads, urban and suburban bus systems, inter-modal facilities) and forecast documents (for population, employment, economic impact, build/no build impacts, revenues, etc.). The planning and development work of the firm specialized in creative impact analyses and carried these innovations into its recommended solutions. Key among these analyses was the Build/No-Build Impacts analysis that quantified both the consequences of unmet demands as well as the range of impacts due to construction of the needed facility. The firm work continued for thirty-three years, as Ms. al Chalabi completed projects on the books and prepared the report, The Final Summary, in 2016, a year after the death of her husband and partner. The firm continues as an atelier for Ms. al Chalabi’s work on memoirs, occasional articles, reports and presentations on historic preservation and archaeological sites in the Near East. She also is compiling a list of major ACG reports to be reproduced in print and electronic files for donation to a local library.

Ms. al Chalabi considers herself retired from consulting work, but committed to continued investigation, observation, analyses and writing. She serves on the Board of The Cliff Dwellers Club, which she helped open to women with her membership in 1985 as part of its first group of six women. And she is actively involved in the arts (with her first art exhibit (2/1-3/25/17) and culture of Chicago, U.S., and the world (with presentations on archaeology and historic preservation) and attendance at orchestral, ballet, theater, art, and presentations at cultural and educational institutions.