ONCE UPON A TIME

When Anna Chadwick Gardner was a young professional living in New York in the late 1990s, she knew she had a story to tell. “I graduated from Tulane with a degree in finance, and the job market was booming,” says Gardner, who now lives in Winnetka with her husband and three children. “There were so many job opportunities that I decided to move to New York City and see what I could do.”

Gardner then spent several years working in management consulting. Yet, even as her star was clearly on the rise, Gardner felt adrift. “I had always thought that writing and journalism would be part of my career path in some way—but as I moved forward in consulting, I moved further away from this idea,” she says. “Crunching numbers and creating spreadsheets wasn’t what I wanted to be doing. I couldn’t let go of the thought that there was something more for me.”

So, she made the decision to pivot professions and moved to Chicago to get her master’s degree at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism.

When Gardner graduated from Medill, she accepted an associate producer role with Kurtis Productions, a Chicago-based production company founded in 1987 by award-winning journalist and Chicago legend, Bill Kurtis. Kurtis, along with his partner Donna LaPietra, created the company as a way to tell riveting, inspiring, informative, and provocative stories.

“It was a great job, but I had to pay my dues and work my way up,” Gardner remembers. And she did so quickly.

It was at Kurtis Productions where Gardner began to hone her craft as a documentarian working on the Emmy-nominated series Cold Case Files.

“Talk about an amazing training ground,” she says. “Cold Case Files was the first of its kind—not like today where there are tons of true crime shows. We were producing 30 episodes a year—30 hours of programming per year. I was traveling out of town on shoots two weeks a month. That’s insane when I think about it today. But we had an incredible team, and we were so proud of the work we were doing.”

Gardner went on to produce more than 30 documentaries in her nearly 20 years with Kurtis Productions. They have aired on networks including CNBC, A&E, Discovery, and Investigation Discovery. Show credits also include CNBC’s American Greed, a documentary series Gardner helped launch back in 2007, which is now in its 15th season. She was the producer and writer for the widely popular documentary Fyre Festival about Billy McFarland, who fraudulently launched a luxury music festival in the Bahamas, as well as story producer for The Decline of a Dynasty, a docuseries about the Murdaughs, a prominent South Carolina family that was brought down by murder and greed. “Frauds, schemes, and con stories are certainly having a moment,” Gardner says. “Viewers can’t seem to get enough.”

Gardner approaches all her projects with skill, curiosity, and authenticity. She navigates complex subject matters ranging from serial fraudsters and FBI agents to families of murder victims and survivors of heinous sexual assault to politicians and CEOs.

“To say working in television production can be intense would be understating it,” says Gardner in her gentle, but authoritative way. When you hear her speak, it’s easy to imagine that she astutely manages tight budgets—and even tighter deadlines—while still being a joy to work with.

After the birth of Gardner’s first daughter, she took on more of a freelance role with Kurtis. “Bill and Donna have always been so good to me,” she says. “Kurtis has been like a second home. I was fortunate to be able to raise my kids, but also have rewarding work that I could continue to return to.”

With the arrival of her third child, Gardner knew it was time to take a little break. She and her husband moved to Winnetka and became immersed in the North Shore community that has been home to her extended family for years.

“When I was ready to go back after a four-year hiatus, I decided to start my own venture,” Gardner says. “I kind of had to reinvent myself and put myself out there in a new way.”

Gardner launched her production company—Gardner Productions. “Having my own company gave me the freedom to take on new projects,” she says. Under her eponymous shingle, she created productions for streaming, corporate, and nonprofit clients including Hulu, Kohl Children’s Museum of Greater Chicago, and the Chicago Cubs.

“I was doing all of this great work when I got a referral from a colleague that PBS/WTTW needed an executive producer for the Emmy Award-winning documentary series Chicago Stories,” Gardner explains. “The timing was all wrong, but I was offered the job and decided to take a risk. It was supposed to be an eightmonth gig, but that was 17 months ago and we were just renewed for another season.”

As the Executive Producer, Gardner oversees the entirety of the series’ creation—from research and development to story pitching, budgeting, field producing, scripting, managing deadlines, interfacing with legal and promotional teams, and managing the post-production process.

“Chicago Stories has been a lot,” she explains. “The role is challenging, and it was hard not to get in my head about the responsibilities and expectations. But it’s been some of the most satisfying production work of my career.”

The latest season of Chicago Stories premiered this fall to rave reviews. The eight episodes range from a heartbreaking profile of the 1958 Our Lady of the Angels School fire where 92 children perished to Candy Capital, a fun and sweet look through the candy companies that began in Chicago (think Mars, Wrigley, Brach’s), to a look at Mayor Richard J. Daley’s ambitious urban renewal plan that reshaped and modernized downtown, but also displaced poor communities and perpetuated racial segregation. If you missed them, the films are streaming on the PBS app and at wttw.com/chicagostories.

Gardner credits part of the success of working on this series to the fact that PBS/WTTW is a publicly funded station. “At PBS/ WTTW, it’s truly about the content. It’s about finding and telling a really good story. The metrics and ad dollars don’t dictate the work we do. That’s an incredible gift.”

While Gardner continues to grapple with the push and pull of balancing motherhood with a successful career, she is grateful to have built a personal and professional life that allows her the flexibility to be fully engrossed in her family while producing television she’s immensely proud of.

“I don’t know what my career will look like in two years, or five years, or 10 years down the road,” she says. “But I could never have predicted that taking that chance on myself and switching careers would have brought me to where I am today. Life keeps me guessing and that’s a good thing.”

To learn more about Anna Chadwick Gardner, visit gardner-productions.com.