Investing in Future Generations as a Result of Past Benefit
Jo Nogee and Gilbert Hoffman
Why I Give Back
written by
Pam Wigley
Jo Nogee and Gilbert Hoffman don’t know each other, but they share a common outlook: caring for the next generation of Carnegie Mellon University students within the College of Fine Arts. Both Houston residents have different reasons for giving back, the benefits of which help current and future students complete their degrees at CMU.
Jo Nogee: In Tribute to Her Son
Jo Nabors Nogee lived an academic life for many years, sharing in and supporting her husband, Joseph, as he taught at various colleges and universities. They welcomed daughter, Leah, and then a son, Jyle, to complete their family. The family valued their friends, humor, music and learning. With the children only 15 months apart, Jo focused on caring for her family and volunteer work in public schools, except for a brief time in the 1970s when the feminist movement questioned this as being a sufficient life work, she said.
Always an observant person, son Jyle found solace as a child when watching the countryside during car rides, peacefully “taking it all in,” Jo said. “He absorbed his surroundings.”
Jyle Nogee
Jyle discovered his interest in the production aspects of drama at the College of Wooster in Ohio, then earned his bachelor’s in drama from the University of Houston. Stage lighting work intensely interested him, and knowing he would be walking above stages on catwalks to secure proper lighting required him to overcome his fear of heights. He worked on lighting local productions at Miller Outdoor Theater and Jones Hall. His work was satisfying, but he longed to learn more. Unbeknownst to his family, Jyle applied for the master’s in fine arts program from the School of Drama at Carnegie Mellon, focusing on lighting design.
“I got a call one day from a CMU professor telling me that Jyle was accepted. I cannot tell you how thrilled and excited my husband and I were. And Jyle, of course, was elated,” Jo recalled.
“Jyle was hard-working, curious and charismatic, intensely private and gifted with a whimsical sense of humor, but school had never been easy for him, as it had been for his sister,” Jo said. His family valued education. His father taught at the University of Houston, and most of his family’s friends were academics, she went on to explain.
“That call from Carnegie Mellon, that acceptance to study at the university of his choice and the financial aid he was awarded was validation for Jyle, his talent ... his worthiness.”
After completing his master’s degree in lighting design in 1998, Jyle went on to work on several major projects, among them “Blue Suede Shoes” ballet; productions at Universal Studios, Orlando; New York City theatre design; and at a San Francisco theatre design firm as a project manager. In late 2008 amid the U.S. economic crisis, Jyle lost his job. He traveled to Cairo, Egypt, for work at one point and in 2010 returned to Houston. He passed away unexpectedly in December 2014.
The Nogee family wanted to remember Jyle in a meaningful and lasting way, one that would highlight his work as a lighting designer and, at the same time, benefitted other students pursuing that area of study. They established The Jyle Nogee Endowed Fellowship in the School of Drama, which benefits students in the lighting design master’s degree program. To his family, the fellowship allows Jyle’s memory to live on.
“My daughter Leah and I are so grateful to CMU for the training he received there and the confidence the faculty showed in him,” she said. “He took so much pleasure in the work that training enabled him to do.”
The family also was grateful to CMU donors who provided the means for his studies.
"We believe donors’ money provides not only financial support for students,” Jo said. “It signals confidence in their abilities. It encourages them to strive to be their best. That is why we are particularly happy to provide funds to establish an endowed fellowship in Jyle’s memory for students in the master’s degree program in lighting design. We want to show our gratitude and make sure others know they are worthy of being at Carnegie.”
Gilbert Hoffman: A Family Legacy Lives on to Benefit Others
Born in Stillwater, Okla., and growing up in New Castle, Pa., Gilbert Hoffman envisioned his future early on. The 1962 bachelor’s degree recipient from the School of Architecture learned from his father, an architecture professor who earned his bachelor’s degree at Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) and then taught at what is now Oklahoma State University. Hoffman and his younger brother, also a CMU School of Architecture alumnus, spent a great amount of time at their father’s architecture studios, both in Oklahoma and, later, at Clemson University and back in New Castle.
He said his future as an architect was cemented when he heard Philadelphia architect Louis Kahn speak at Carnegie Mellon. Hoffman enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, earning his master’s degree in architecture in 1963. His fondness for CMU and all he learned there, however, remained a guiding influence throughout his career.
“I loved that the College of Fine Arts had all the different disciplines in the same building,” Hoffman said. “My undergraduate education, combined with what I learned as an apprentice at my father’s firm, served me well as I planned my future.”
Married while an undergraduate, Hoffman became a father with a daughter, Susan, during his first year. One of his fondest memories is her running the length of the architecture studio as a toddler, ducking under all the drafting tables. He witnessed the construction of the former GSIA Building (now Hall of the Arts) and Hunt Library while he was a student, and he relished seeing the campus grow.
VA Hospital in Houston, Texas: sketch left/top, photograph right/bottom.
“I watched the progress, and I absorbed as much as I could,” Hoffman said. “I learned to be open to many different styles and expressions of creativity through architecture.”
He passes along that advice and more to current students and recent alumni.
“Express yourself in your work,” Hoffman said. “Read journals and explore materials related to the industry. Be open to as many influencers as you can.”
Certainly, he found influence in Kahn, who advised him to work with the firm led by Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen, who designed The Gateway Arch in St. Louis from 1963–1966. He eventually taught at Yale for three years before heading back to Pennsylvania and, ultimately, to Houston. There he began a role as design studio head at 3D/International, a firm that specializes in office building and institutional design.
Texas Health & Human Resources headquarters building: render left/top, photograph right/bottom.
There, he met his second and current wife, Mei-ing, with whom he built a firm of their own: Hoffman-Liu Design Associates. Their projects in corporate practice include the Houston VA Medical Center, the Art Museum of Southeast Texas in Beaumont, Texas, the Emir’s Palace expansion in Qatar, and the Yanbu Industrial City in Saudi Arabia. They also collaborated on one of Hoffman’s true loves: publishing. Together, they publish four community newspapers in Houston’s suburbs.
Regardless of the vast experience throughout the United States and around the world, Hoffman circles back to his CMU School of Architecture education and training. That time, he said, prepared him for everything that fell after.
“Those were the formative years of my life,” he said. “I appreciated that time very much, and I appreciated the support I received from Carnegie Mellon donors to make it possible for me to earn my degree. Now, I want to give back to help ensure that others have the opportunities that I had in building my future.”
To that end, Hoffman and his family created the $50,000 Hoffman Family Endowed Merit Scholarship for School of Architecture undergraduates to enable others to pursue their dreams and fulfill their career goals.
“I had a wonderful experience at Carnegie Mellon and, especially, in the School of Architecture,” Hoffman said. “I want to give back to the next generation so they might continue the work of all those who have gone before.”