Foundations + Futures: The 1970s with Dean Illingworth

In this first chapter of Foundations + Futures: By the Decade, we travel back to 1976—when Schmidt Associates was born from a bold idea, one chair, two employees, and a deep belief that architecture should serve people first.

Dean Illingworth, a longtime Schmidt Associates team member and firsthand witness to the firm's earliest days, joins host Sarah Hempstead to bring the 1970s to life. From hand-drafted drawings on repurposed doors to animal safaris for third graders, Dean shares the stories that reveal who Wayne Schmidt was—not just as a founder, but as a leader who practiced servant leadership long before it had a name.

Listeners will hear about:

• The real story behind "one chair, two employees"—and the doors that became drafting tables
• How a staged job interview landed Dean his first day at the firm (and why he was left alone in the office)
• The Hammond Block, Mass Ave, and the birth of the firm's historic preservation expertise
• The restoration of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument—a project that shaped the firm's identity and its place in Indianapolis
• The roots of Schmidt's K–12 education practice and early community-centered work

This decade was about conviction—showing up for communities, leading with empathy, and building something bigger than a business. The 1970s gave Schmidt Associates its DNA, and you can still feel it today.

🔗 Subscribe and follow us at @SchmidtAssociates on LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook. #WeAreSchmidt

Transcript

Sarah Hempstead: [00:00:00] Every legacy starts somewhere. For us, it began with one chair, two employees, and a bold idea. Welcome to Foundations and Futures by the Decade. I'm Sarah Hempstead, and in this series we're exploring our story one decade at a time through the people, projects and values that shaped us as we celebrate 50 Years of Schmidt Associates and Honor 100 years of Aerosmith's history.

We're reflecting on a combined 150 years of design impact. Throughout this series, you'll hear from leaders, designers, and team members who helped shape each decade, and today we're stepping back into the 1970s, a gritty, transformative time when Schmidt Associates was just beginning and servant leadership was taking shape in real time.

So to set the scene, it was 1976 and the country was celebrating its bicentennial. Wayne Schmidt made a bold move of his own starting an architectural firm in downtown Indianapolis. As he always told the story. On July 4th, his Independence Day [00:01:00] with just one chair, two employees, and a deep belief in architecture as a service.

Wayne wasn't just opening a business, he was building a legacy rooted in people place and purpose. It was long before AutoCAD and Revit. Everything was hands-on, typewriters tracing paper, hand drafted documents, and leadership met, being present even with limited resources. The goal was clear design should put people first.

To help us bring the story to life, we're joined by somebody who experienced it firsthand. My friend Dean Ellingworth Dean worked at Schmidt Associates for many years and played a key role in some of our earliest, most transformative projects, including the restoration of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument downtown.

Thanks for coming in, Dean. 

Dean Illingworth: Well, thank you. I'm really pleased and happy to be here to celebrate this 50th year. I do remember a couple early ones. 

Sarah Hempstead: All right. Tell me. 

Dean Illingworth: Yeah, no, I can't. It's a mixed audience. Anyhow, 

Sarah Hempstead: start with the early days First, can you tell me, is the story about one chair [00:02:00] and two employees true?

Dean Illingworth: Yes, it is true. We were lucky to have two doors and four sawhorses as well. 

Sarah Hempstead: What do you use the doors for? 

Dean Illingworth: That's what we drew on. That was our drafting table back then. 

Sarah Hempstead: Excellent. 

Dean Illingworth: Yeah, we didn't have drafting tables. We had doors, so, 

Sarah Hempstead: so what was the culture of the firm at that time? 

Dean Illingworth: Well, I'm glad you asked that 'cause I wanted to tell you about my early job at the office.

It was my job to take out the ashes every morning to bring in the coal. And then to fill the ink wells so that we'd have enough ink to draw with during the death. 

Sarah Hempstead: That's this. This sounds very, uh, Bob ett. 

Dean Illingworth: Yes. I thought of that somewhere in the last week. I said, I gotta say that. What was it like in the early days?

My own experiences? We lived in Charleston, South Carolina. I'd come back to Indiana 'cause we were gonna move back here and interviewed several firms. Interviewed with Schmidt Claffey at the [00:03:00] time. And unbeknownst to me, they had had an interview with First Church of Nazarene, and so I came into the office down at 3 33 North Penn, and we had the interview in the, in the first 30 by 30 space.

They had expanded a little bit beyond that at that point, I think they had six employees and they said, okay, interview's over. Great. We'll hire you if we get the next job. Well that, that, that'd sound good, but we'd like you to sit at this desk. Draw something for the next hour and a half. Okay. What? It doesn't matter.

Just draw. Act like you're busy. First Church of the Nazarene Selection Committee was coming into the office at 10 30 that morning to walk through the office. They wanted to show that they had more people than what they had. 

Sarah Hempstead: You're bolstering staff. I was, 

Dean Illingworth: I was gonna be the one that was gonna do most of the project when they got it.

So, so I stood there and I, I met the, the church group. In fact, I'm still friends with some of them. [00:04:00] And they did get the job, and therefore I did end up coming to Schmidt Associates, went back back. My family moved here, and then started. My first day was my first, and going back to what the philosophy of Schmid was, walked in the office.

Wayne Don, Don Abel, chip Caling were there and they said, there's your desk. Go on, sit down, make yourself at home. Do whatever you want to. We're leaving. We'll see you after lunch. They were giving animal safaris to the National Association of Planners who happened to be having a meeting in town that day.

So going back to giving back to community servant leadership, all those things, they practice it. My first day coming in the office, it was fantastic. 

Sarah Hempstead: Okay, so you're gonna have to explain animal safaris for people who don't dunno that that story. 

Dean Illingworth: Well, buildings have the opportunity to have various elements put on them.

Some of those buildings have. Lions. Some of 'em have wolves, some of 'em have cats, [00:05:00] some have dragons. The monument has sea serpents, dragons, buffaloes, bears, people dying of course, and people celebrating. But all the buildings downtown or a lot of the buildings downtown have that. And so Wayne had put together maybe before you actually started the firm, this animal safari, and we would offer the animal safari to third and fourth graders because that's when they study Indiana history.

They would come down here, they'd pay us a dollar each, and we'd get that to the architectural foundation for scholarships. But we'd take the kids on animal safaris pointing out this and that. The other thing, you know, some, some buildings have little things that stick out at the top. You know, that's their cap.

And so that was the animal safari. And if you want to go on one, I'll be glad to give one again, but it, it was around the circle and up Meridian Street. 

Sarah Hempstead: I think we're definitely gonna 

Dean Illingworth: go on an animal sari. 

Sarah Hempstead: So as a firm kind of found its footing, it quickly picked up momentum. And I [00:06:00] know one of the first big wins was with the city of Indianapolis.

That single commission really doubled the firm's workload and, and its staff. And then pretty quickly after that, the office started to change, to grow, to meet the potential. Can you talk about what that looked like? How did that kind of project start to change the office? 

Dean Illingworth: You are right. The first project was a city, was a parks project and it was two parks, so we needed to get more people and I think that was about the time we hired, maybe Ron Fisher came in.

At that time we started to grow. There was six, seven of us. Ron was the eighth person in the same space, and our space was, our lease was, we had a small room, then there was a larger room beyond that, so we could. Lease that much this month and we had more people, we could do that much the next month. And so however much more space we needed, we could lease that much is, it was a pretty nice thing, but it continued to grow and change.

And we talked a lot about [00:07:00] how many people we are and how we're growing and what do we want next or what's important to us. And we tried to envision projects, uh, go back to the hammer block. Mm-hmm. Because that was a project when, when you started. That was a project he wanted to do. He wanted to restore the old Budnick fishing Mar building, and it's a triangle shade building.

He had a model built on this desk and it was there, and every so often we'd pull it out and look at it and somebody'd come through the door, Hey, thinking about buying that, you know, we talk about it. Well, that we went through six or eight or 10 people, and finally Lorraine Price came in one day and said, I just bought the hammer block.

I understand you're gonna restore it for us. And so then that was a need and a reason to grow more people. And we did hire more people. 'cause that was a pretty big project back then. Pretty expansive. 

Sarah Hempstead: So the Hammond Block became a project too, because we moved to the Hammond block, right? 

Dean Illingworth: That is where we did, we ended up leasing the, uh, top floor and we put a [00:08:00] mezzanine in so we'd have more room to grow when we needed that room to grow.

Sarah Hempstead: Foresight there. Yeah. So was the Hammond Block really the beginning of the firm's relationship with Mass Ave and the redevelopment there? 

Dean Illingworth: Yes, it was. I mean, we were just a block away, and I know we'd spent time on the avenue, but right there I hadn't started yet. Mm-hmm. It started after we moved into the hamma block.

And so Wayne was one of the founders there and that really helped develop it. Steal Shoes was another one of our clients. We, we've worked on a number of buildings up the avenue here over the years, but that's what really got us into that. The other thing Hammond Block did, it was a first tax credit project in the city, really was the time when Reagan was president and as they had started construction, something happened in DC like it does sometimes.

There was a chance that they might lose their tax credits and so Amy Price and Thera are going, you know what happens? We do. You know, [00:09:00] it'll work out. It'll work out. Then it did work out, but it was a great opportunity and great impetus to that, that what the other historic homes we did in Lockerby really kind of helped grow our expertise and knowledge and historic preservation gave us kind of a leadership role in preservation.

Throughout the city. 

Sarah Hempstead: Well, in the old North Side preservation plan came kind of with that group of projects too. Yeah, 

Dean Illingworth: it did. It did. And that, in fact, that was one of the first projects I had the opportunity to work on. It was my first client meeting. Wayne took me to a client meeting up in the church up there, and the situation was they had a nice first floor area where people were, and people were upset.

People were excited. Just like any preservation, the older folks who have been there and you're gonna kick us out, you're gonna move us out. They were upset and angry. The newer, younger people were going, yeah, we need to do this. We need to do this same thing. You see it today? 

Sarah Hempstead: Yep. 

Dean Illingworth: And so Wayne said, okay, Dean, you put the [00:10:00] projector up on the balcony.

I'll be down here leading it and you know, you change the slides as I need to and so forth. If for some reason somebody gets really unruly and so forth, you just walk away from the jack to go down the back door and leaves the building. Don't worry about a thing. Because there were people that were really upset.

It was their homes, they, they'd lived there for years, but it was part of the transition the city was going through. It was shortly after the interstate had been put in and so forth. Mm-hmm. And they had had a lot of consternation about that as well. 

Sarah Hempstead: Did you have to use the escape route? 

Dean Illingworth: I didn't have to use the escape.

Sarah Hempstead: All right. That's good. 

Dean Illingworth: It was a great plan and it seems to have worked in their development. We did a number of projects up there with the church and, and some other housing projects and so forth up there as well. 

Sarah Hempstead: Yeah. 

Dean Illingworth: Yeah. 

Sarah Hempstead: So I would be remiss if I didn't ask you about K 12, which our, our presence in K 12 has been so important for 50 years and really started about the same time.

Yeah. 

Dean Illingworth: Yes, it did. Our first project was IPS. We did a couple elementary school studies. Mm-hmm. They weren't big [00:11:00] projects. We didn't really remodel things. It was more of a study, 82, 1 0 8. There was three or four of 'em. Then our next big project was with Brownsburg schools. The old Lincoln High School gymnasium was a big barrel vault gym.

The columns came down, sit on concrete, concrete structure, the bleachers go down to the floor and so forth. Well, the walls were scooting out. They were four or five or six inches off of that, and so our project was. Understand why the walls were moving out. Then understand how you stop the walls. 

Sarah Hempstead: Got it.

Dean Illingworth: From moving out. 

Sarah Hempstead: Got it. 

Dean Illingworth: It was a good structural problem and unique to our world, and they didn't have any expansion joints, which one thing. And so the bricks on the outside were cracking. So they're seeing the walls move out and brick's cracking. They're thinking the whole thing's falling down. No, it wasn't.

They were just doing what they did. We found a way to anchor them down so they didn't move. [00:12:00] Structurally fine to the concrete structure below. And then we went around and cut control joints around the building. And the story is that one of the workers from Linin was up on a ladder on the second floor with a saw cutting that, and the building released CLA shed on the saw and stopped it.

Needless to say, the worker was no longer on the ladder. Real quick, he got off that ladder real fast. 

Sarah Hempstead: That's good. Thinking 

Dean Illingworth: there was. No risk necessarily, it just the suddenness of it. Boom. Mm-hmm. But we were able to do that. The gymnasium's still standing. They still use it for functions of Brownsburg, but that was kind of the door for Brownsburg From there, we did Lincoln.

We did Harris. We did elementary school and elementary school. We did project at the high school and then a brand new elementary Eagle. And then we've done several since then since I left. But Eagle was one of my projects out there. And I was fortunate enough about eight years ago, my niece [00:13:00] Liz Brownsburg and was commenting on her first day of school and seeing the pencil in the lobby that we had put in there, this giant pencil with the the mark on the Gouss of Terraza.

She thought that was so cool. I said, well, you know who did that though? Yeah. So every once in a while, an architecture, you gonna say something to your kids or other people that. Hey. That was one of my projects. Yeah, it's kind of neat. Well, but that was kind of the impetus that led into other schools That, and the previous IPS schools then led to Manuel High School and various other elementary schools, and we, and we started expanding beyond just Indianapolis.

Going to other parts of the state. 

Sarah Hempstead: Well, and it, it is interesting too, 'cause preservation and working with communities, parks, work, K 12 education, and these, these remain just foundational to what we, what we do are critical parts of what we do every, every single day. So build building on that foundation.

Um. One of the most iconic projects from that time though, is the restoration of [00:14:00] the soldiers and sailors monument, which is a preservation and restoration project, but un unlike maybe, maybe any other, what, what was it like to work on that? 

Dean Illingworth: A blessing. 

Sarah Hempstead: Mm-hmm. First 

Dean Illingworth: of all, a, a joyous opportunity. We got, uh, a letter from the state architect saying we'd been selected for a study.

We didn't know there was gonna be a study. 

Sarah Hempstead: Man, I like it when that happens. That doesn't bet. That's 

Dean Illingworth: what we thought too, that, okay, we got a study, now we're gonna do a study. It's, you know, 300 feet tall and there's no drawings for it, and there's, there's metal, there's limestone, there's concrete, there's, you know, plumbing, there's old aid stuff falling apart, you know, pumps that aren't working, things like that.

How do we do this study? Well, coinciding with this was the. Rebirth at Liberty. Mm-hmm. And so we reached out to a number of the architects and designers and so forth in New York [00:15:00] City who were working on liberty. We made trips out there, a couple trips, in fact, to understand what they were doing because they had a statue that was 15 feet taller than the top of ours 

Sarah Hempstead: was.

Right? 

Dean Illingworth: Yeah. That was bronze metal. Ours was bronze metal. Ours had limestone base. Ours had limestone base. So similarities. We went out and spent a couple days with them understanding what they did, how they did it. We reached out to Arthur Beal with, uh, university in Boston about how to clean metal. We reached out to Washington University and how to clean metal.

We'd studied things. We reviewed things. I mentioned there were no drawings, and Mark Pra and one of the other architects went to the top of the monument from the window. They dropped a string out. Measured the string to understand how high that was above that. 

Sarah Hempstead: Well, it works. 

Dean Illingworth: Yeah, it works. And there was metal pieces missing.

We had to get old photographs 'cause there were [00:16:00] no drawings. Get the pictures and say this is what we need to do. It was a unique opportunity that impacted. The city and the state. Of course, it's in the middle of our city, but it's a state project. 

Sarah Hempstead: Sure. 

Dean Illingworth: And so we're working with the state. We're trying to work with the city that make sure they're aware of what's coming, going down and coming around and so forth.

Sure, 

Sarah Hempstead: sure. 

Dean Illingworth: So it was just an exciting blessing. One that I've cherished forever, and we did. Then they could do it all at one time, but a lot of projects can't. So the exterior was the first project and we had to have that completed. For the cental. Mm mm-hmm. And so we got that done and then we did the interior when it got no money.

Sarah Hempstead: Sure. 

Dean Illingworth: And we were able to keep the same budget. Unique thing about the exterior was how do you clean the bronze metal? A lot of expertise went into that. We actually sent some samples over to Washington University in St. Louis, and [00:17:00] Wayne and I went over there and were watching how they would use it. You know, they're all suited up in these big suits and pressures, things going, and they, they tried walnut shells, peach, peach shells, black beads, sand, glass beads, and we determined what we thought was best.

And we had the mermaids on the Navy to go, they have wings on their shoulder to about this long, three feet. And then we had them on over there and they did a sample of. Glass bes, a glass of walnut shovel and so forth, and we felt that they should use glass beads because it, it got it back to them since the beginning and then it would start to patina over again.

Mm-hmm. We then needed to meet with Landmarks, Indiana and, and so forth, the National Parks people, and say, this is what we're doing. And they go, well, we don't like glass beef. Okay. [00:18:00] Realized 300 feet up, we aren't gonna be back up there. So we ended up using walnut shells on everything. The asals and the lower metal.

We used glass beads on the lady and the torch and stuff up above, which was all work worked fine. And so there's a lot of things I learned about that. A lot of things I learned about limestone. Mm-hmm. The statues, you know, the bigger than life size of reaching out, people hands are here and so forth. One guy had a finger broken off.

Yeah, it had been missing for years and so I watched the stone Mason put a piece of stainless steel in there, put a stone block on and carve his finger with dental tools. 

Sarah Hempstead: Amazing. 

Dean Illingworth: It's 

Sarah Hempstead: amazing. 

Dean Illingworth: Amazing. It was very blessed that we got that and it impacted everybody in the firm because it was our firm, but it impact to a lot of people because.

We were spending time going over there. It's close by. People could see it, understand it, learn from it, grow with it, and so forth. And they think Steve Osborn and, [00:19:00] and some of the other folks that are still here, you know, they realized that they recognized it an impact. 

Sarah Hempstead: Well, and it probably gave the firm up prominence that it hadn't had before.

Right. Everybody knew that project was up. 

Dean Illingworth: Oh yeah. Yeah, definitely. 

Sarah Hempstead: So as the firm started to change for the first decade, what was it like at the end of the decade rather than at the beginning? How had, how had we changed as an institution and maybe how we said the same? 

Dean Illingworth: Well, I wasn't bringing coal in anymore.

Sarah Hempstead: Well, that's good. This good that other, you had interns to fill inquests. Yes. Yeah. 

Dean Illingworth: Well, and, and in fact, your poster over there was 1986. Mm-hmm. And we had a birthday party celebrating that with our clients and friends. And I see Maryella and Kevin and Steve were all here. Mike and various people, you weren't 

Sarah Hempstead: some people who are still here today.

Yeah, 

Dean Illingworth: and the impact that I think our friends gave us a impetus within the community, within the neighborhood, within the state [00:20:00] because of their knowledge and their expertise and their networks. You know, we were serving them and they recognized that servant leadership in us and they felt good saying.

Call Schmidt. Mm-hmm. They'll take care of you, call Schmid, they'll take care of you. And I saw that in the growth of other school corporations, other churches, other historic pres. In 1988, I think it was, we got our first courthouse project. 

Sarah Hempstead: Mm-hmm. 

Dean Illingworth: Tip New county, my hometown, not Lafayette, and, and then we just kind of grew that expertise again, preservation.

Limestone metals, those kinds of things. The IPS schools then started to grow in the, in the next decades, and I'm sure you'll be talking with us about that. The growth we had there, the growth of others, corporations around the state, the growth within other communities around the state, Connorsville or other places where we had projects.

[00:21:00] You could just see that movement. 

Sarah Hempstead: So the seventies were about conviction. They were about a sense of purpose. And from that decade, really it's the DNA, the foundation of what we are today, prioritizing relationships over recognition, all recognition's, always nice. And caring about the community leading with empathy.

That's what I'm hearing you say. We came with this always with purpose. 

Dean Illingworth: Yes, we did. 

Sarah Hempstead: And the purpose is bigger than getting an award to put on a shelf. 

Dean Illingworth: That is correct. 

Sarah Hempstead: Yeah. So as you look at the firm now, now we get to work with you as a, as a client now and again, can you still see some of those remnants of foundational work in what we do?

Dean Illingworth: Yes. I do two projects recently. The shooting range up at Jasper Pulaski and the Camry, McComas Creek. And. When we were talking in the office about who to pick and so forth from Carmex Creek, I kept emphasizing the fact that it was a complicated project that included site, included [00:22:00] mechanical, included dumpsters and, and water fill stations and trash and you know, camp sites and things like that.

Nobody had done a project like that in the state. Mm-hmm. But I felt that we needed one that was a holistic supporter. For servant leadership, they would listen to us and all the way through the process. And everybody I think agrees with me at the state. They've been listening to us. Good. Schmidt's been listening to the state, so I, can I switch hands here?

I stopped saying we, and now I'm, I'm saying DNR, and so I see that in Schmidt. And I'm aware of other projects you would do to, so I'm aware of other projects, other architects be sure say. I see that in what you do with your clients. 

Sarah Hempstead: Good. So what we try to do is respond with the right answer to the right question.

Dean Illingworth: That's in first just servant leadership. Exactly right. Exactly right. 

Sarah Hempstead: Well, so that was the [00:23:00] seventies. A decade of growth and believing in something bigger than ourselves, believing in the be something bigger than ourselves. Thank you for sharing stories and the perspective. It's excellent. And in the next episode we're gonna talk about the eighties where we had bold design moves, expanded influence, and growing presence across Indiana.

But for now, 10 toes down on our foundational values. 

Dean Illingworth: Good. All right. Thank you. 

Sarah Hempstead: Thank you. 

Dean Illingworth: Appreciate being there.