Chuck Burger · 2010 Honoree

Charles “Chuck” Burger is what his friend Don Denton calls “a doer.” He gets involved in the nuts and bolts of community life; activities that others might find too tedious or too time consuming are just what he likes to do and is good at. If there is a committee somewhere on Capitol Hill that is doing something worthwhile, chances are Chuck is on it and making a major contribution, often quietly and without fanfare. A founding member of CHAMPS, Chuck has also served as vice chair of the Eastern Market Community Action Committee since its founding, is on the boards of Barracks Row Main Street and the Capitol Hill Restoration Society, chaired the Alcohol Beverage Control Board for six years and been important to innumerable local political campaigns. He currently chairs a committee appointed by City Council member Tommy Wells that is considering the future of  the Boys and Girls club building on Massachusetts Avenue, Southeast. He is part of a group studying the future of the Eastern Market Metro plaza and is a “Sign Tiger,” addressing the increased need for signage and information as the Hill becomes a tourist destination.  

All these activities, as well as his job as a real estate agent, are infused with his conviction that positive change is always possible and that the intersection among business, the public and government is an exciting place to be. It is an attitude Chuck developed during what he calls his “very diverse education.” Born in Bentleyville, a Pennsylvania coal mining town of 1,500 people, Chuck moved with his family to Pittsburgh in third grade, the beginning of his discovery of the wider world. Chuck entered Kent State University in Ohio the year after four students were killed there by the National Guard during an antiwar demonstration. The place was “pretty wound up” and Chuck plunged in, becoming a “peace marshal” helping to maintain communication between the police department and protesters. Chuck jumped at the opportunity to attend a short-lived experimental program, the Dag Hammarskjöld College based in Columbia Maryland. It drew a small number of students from all over the U.S. as well as from Sweden, Ethiopia, Japan and Estonia for courses in urban studies, for study at the U.N. in New York and for several months of courses and home stays in Japan. He graduated from George Washington University with a political science major and a specialization in Revolutionary Studies. Following friends, he later moved to Uppsala, Sweden where he worked as a day laborer, a writer and translator.  

When, finally, his travels brought him back to Washington, Chuck found that he liked the energy of the quirky yet competitive community on Capitol Hill. After a stint running Provisions, a fancy food store, he found his way to Pardoe Real Estate where, according to Don Denton, he is a valued agent because he will always go the extra mile to make even the most improbable deal work.

One of Chuck’s fondest Hill memories is of watching, from the companionable comfort of the bar at Tunnicliff’s, as the Hine Junior High School band marched in Bill Clinton’s first inaugural parade. As a “Friend of Hine” he had helped raise money for instruments and uniforms for the band. And it was while working with Hine that Chuck met Nancy Broers, the woman who would become his wife.  They share their Capitol Hill home with two dogs, Katie and Bandit.