Charlie Musser, Jr, RLA, ASLA passed away on Thursday, May 28, 2020 at the home he shared with his beloved wife Wendy Musser. Charlie as a landscape architect and ASLA member had provided professional design services and contributions to the North Carolina community for over 30 years.
I first heard about Charlie Musser very early in my career when he led Wake County’s Sedimentation & Erosion Control Department. In the 80’s, Wake County was the regulatory agency that reviewed the bulk of projects since most municipalities were still very small. Charlie was the “go-to” authority not only erosion control, but also stormwater management at a time when water quality was just becoming a subject of environmental and economic concern. He garnered the respect of landscape architects and civil engineers alike by helping to elevate Wake County’s standards to protect water resources.
In order to practice what he preached, he helped found Sungate Design Group in 1991 as a firm specializing in protecting water resources through sustainable design practices. Once again, establishing himself as an innovator in a sustainable movement that was just getting its feet off the ground.
Combining his extensive knowledge of soil science, stormwater quality measures and erosion control, Charlie was a constant influencer on our profession in how to approach site design, garnering the respect not only from his landscape architecture peers, but engineers and architects as well. Charlie excelled at building quality relationships through his work with clients and partners. Those relationships extended to contractors in the field, especially when explaining how an innovative design element should function and look.
To say Charlie was detail oriented would be an understatement, as he noted everything. Whether at a project site or in the office, Charlie would observed something that needed to be addressed and then work with others on how best to resolved it. This attention to detail, combined with his understated intelligence, was reflected throughout his work.
Charlie’s propensity for field data gathering was legendary and was instrumental in his site design. This approach and his fusion of the natural environment, stormwater management and sustainable design help to continuously push his professional peers in the way they thought and practice.
Many of the projects that Charlie had been involved with over years demonstrated his ability to blend this push for new ways to address water quality and sustainable site design. The stormwater “treatment train” at NC Wildlife Resources Commission Headquarters on Centennial Campus along with the site’s educational aspect continues to serve as a benchmark for urban design.
