Charles Pounian ran the city of Chicago’s Personnel Department under Mayor Richard J. Daley, where he stood out in an era when patronage jobs dominated the City Hall payroll.
“He was one of the unique people in the office in that he wasn’t a member of a ward organization,” said U.S. District Judge Marvin Aspen, a former city assistant corporation counsel who worked alongside Pounian. “He was there for his ability. Mayor Daley was impressed with his Ph.D., and of all the people in his administration, I think (he) was more often asked for his opinion than he was told to do something.”
Pounian, 97, died of natural causes on May 12 at the Admiral at the Lake senior living community in the Uptown neighborhood, said his son, Steven. He had lived in Uptown since 1950.
Charles Pounian was the commissioner of personnel at Chicago’s City Hall for 25 years, serving four mayoral administrations. (Steven Pounian)
Born Charles Arshen Pounian in Chicago, Pounian was the son of Armenian immigrants who ran a tailor shop at the base of the now-demolished Spanish Manor apartment complex in the 1000 block of Sheridan Road in the Rogers Park neighborhood. Nicknamed “Arch” after his middle name, Pounian grew up in the Edgewater neighborhood, and after graduating from Senn High School in 1944, he served for two years in the U.S. Army, his son said.
Pounian received a bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate in psychology from the Illinois Institute of Technology.
In 1953, Pounian took a job with the city of Chicago as a personnel examiner. He worked his way up in the department, soon overseeing employment test construction. In 1960, Mayor Richard J. Daley, who called him “Doc,” named him head of the department, which at that time was titled the Civil Service Commission. In 1976, the department’s name was changed to the Personnel Department, and Pounian’s title was changed to commissioner.
Pounian’s daughter, Lynn, called her father “aggressively apolitical” and said he created programs to address the development of opportunities for those previously shut out of municipal jobs due to the patronage system, among them courses in executive and supervisory development that were made widely available. He also instituted a tuition reimbursement program for all city employees to give them opportunities to improve their skills and get promotions based on merit, not patronage, she said.
“He created classes out there for people to pass tests, and the only way to pass the exams was to learn how to get the job done,” she said. “He promoted women into top positions, along with Blacks and Hispanics, and he had to fight a lot of people to do that. I think what you saw was what you got with him — there was no underlying agenda other than to do the right thing.”
“He was a man without guile,” Aspen said. “He was a person of great integrity, and had he not been there at the time he was, things would have gone a lot slower and it would have been a lot more difficult to get where we are today.”
NPR journalist Scott Simon, a Chicago native, was a friend of the Pounian family since his teens and recalled Pounian as “funny, wry and wise,” as well as a valuable source when he began his career.
“When I became a reporter, he was very open about who might know what at (City) Hall, and I never, and I mean never, heard him speak ill of anyone,” Simon said. “This is, as I don’t have to tell you, so rare in any workplace, much less a rough-and-tumble City Hall.”
Simon said he was inspired and touched by Pounian’s “clear and strong idea of public service.”
“He felt that being of service to others was a life worth living — it didn’t have to ‘lead’ anywhere,” Simon said. “It was a noble life to be of service to others in the everyday ways that city employees could help.”
Pounian steered the city’s Personnel Department through changing circumstances, including the Shakman decrees of the 1970s and early ‘80s that barred political patronage and prevented City Hall employees from being fired for not supporting a specific political candidate or party.
Pounian remained commissioner of personnel under three other mayors: Michael Bilandic, Jane Byrne and Harold Washington. After Washington hired a new chief of staff, Pounian left City Hall in 1985, taking a position as a senior consultant at The Hay Group, a human resources firm.
Pounian oversaw all public sector management consulting in the company’s Chicago office. In his work there, he improved personnel systems and policies for a variety of government clients, including Cook County, states, cities, counties and various school districts around the Midwest.
“He was very passionate about making civil service equitable — really cleaning it up,” his daughter said. “He wanted to make it something that was reflective of the late 20th century onward, as opposed to something entrenched in strange old Byzantine rules. He was very passionate about making that his second act, after the city.”
Tom McMullen, a Hay Group senior client partner, called Pounian a “trusted adviser” for his clients.
“Arch was a joy to work with, having great empathy and a genuine interest in how others were doing personally and professionally,” McMullen said. “To a large degree, he was the glue that held the Chicago Hay Group office together.”
Pounian retired in 2008 at age 81.
From 1968 until 2008, Pounian taught a government personnel course at IIT as an adjunct professor. In 2005, his son created an endowed psychology fellowship at IIT in Pounian’s name.
Pounian served on the boards of the Uptown Chicago Commission and the Pedersen-McCormick Boys & Girls Club. He also chaired a committee for the U.S. Civil Service Commission, which wrote a model law to develop more equitable personnel standards.
Pounian’s wife of 52 years, Beatrice, died in 2002. In addition to his son and daughter, Pounian is survived by a companion, Marda Gross.
Services are private.
Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
