Chuck Silver is the founder of Hudson River Design. He began work in this field as a carpenter and then became a general contractor. While attending The State University of NY at Binghamton, he became interested in Buckminster Fuller and moved to Illinois to enter Fuller's design program at Southern Illinois University, receiving a degree in Environmental Systems Design.

After moving to NY's Hudson Valley in 1976, he began taking design work while teaching Energy-Efficient Building and Solar Design courses at State University of NY at New Paltz. He stopped teaching in 1983 to pursue consulting and design work full-time.

In addition to curriculum development, Chuck has authored dozens of articles on building and energy which have appeared in Solar Age, Fine Homebuilding, The Journal of Light Construction, and Northeast Sun. In 1997, he was a featured speaker at the United Nations Conference on Sustainability.