Proposed Slate of Officers and Board Members
The Board members serving new terms will be elected at the Annual Meeting. Elected Board members will serve two-year terms (2022-2024). Each director will be responsible for the portfolio identified herein.
The proposed slate of board officers and directors appear below.
President
Jane Ruby
At six months of age, Jane Ruby shook James Brown's hand – a clear sign that her life was destined to be touched by both music and greatness. Jane grew up in New York City, always volunteering for community events and coordinating children's programs. After having her painting of Bob Dylan shown at the Museum of Modern Art, Jane retired from the art world and transitioned into digital design, communications, and business development.
Jane moved to Chicago right before the 2016 Presidential Election. She quickly found her niche in political and civic organizations such as the League of Women Voters of Chicago, eventually becoming a full-time freelancer for political campaigns, working in campaign strategy, design, and management. Across her various campaign roles, Jane has leveraged her passion for design to inspire political advocacy and promote accessibility. In addition to her work with LWV Chicago, Jane just recently joined NCJW Chicago North Shore. She has previously been a member of AIGA Chicago, the Polish Triangle Coalition and the IVI-IPO Northwest Chapter.
In addition to her ongoing work on political campaigns, Jane was Communications Director for a solar technology startup. While her role was currently focused principally on operations implementation, it also allowed her to channel her passion for transformational grassroots political change toward assisting our nation’s transition to a clean energy future.
Jane is currently the LWV Chicago’s Vice-President of Operations, as well as a member of its Board of Directors. In these roles, Jane continues to play a major role in organizing and leading a variety of critical LWV projects, including fundraising, voter registration, communications strategy development and outreach, and candidate forum moderation. She helped spearhead the efforts of the LWV committee that fought successfully to have Congress Parkway in downtown Chicago renamed Ida B. Wells Drive – an important achievement leading into the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage. Jane followed up this success in 2020 by taking on the important role of chair of the LWV’s Centennial State of the City event, our flagship event of the year. Most recently, Jane led the redesign project of the LWV Chicago website, and continues to play a leadership role in our State of the City event.
Vice President - Operations
Tracy Stanciel
Tracy Stanciel serves on the 2020/21 Budget Committee and is an active member of the South Side Unit. Tracy is a member of the League of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association. She is also a board member of the Gap Community Organization. Professionally, she is currently a Director of Special Projects with The BLOCK Movement NFP and has worked for various restaurant groups as an accountant over the years. She was a founding member of Alcott High School and served on various Local School Councils. She lives in The Gap neighborhood in Bronzeville with her husband and two daughters.
Treasurer
Hollis Burgess
Hollis Burgess has been a member of League since 1995, first in Glencoe, and then after moving back into the city. Currently she is treasurer, having served before on the Chicago board as Operations Chair. In addition, she has served on the Nominating Committee twice. She was on the board in Glencoe, and also served on the LWVIL board. Married with two adult daughters and 2 grandsons, her husband and she run a summer business in Wisconsin. An administration geek (as opposed to a political wonk), her focus tends to be on education and finances.
Director – Collaborations and Partnerships
Julia Kline
Julia Kline is a community organizer and voting rights activist. She's one of the many Americans who had been politically asleep until the events of 2016-2017 woke her out of her stupor - she's been mad as hell ever since! Since moving to Hyde Park in 2019, Julia has made it her business to get to know the people and organizations who have been organizing in the community for decades. This in turn inspired her to found Neighbors Who Vote in 2020, together with Woodlawn resident Morrow Cleveland. The group soon grew to a membership of 50+. Neighbors Who Vote has 3 pillars: 1. Voter registration and turnout; 2. Cross-neighborhood relational organizing; 3. Support and amplification of the work of other groups in the space. The most recent Neighbors Who Vote project has been to work in coalition with a dozen other organizations to host the largest candidates forum for the IL-01 race, and bring it to West Englewood. Julia has been an active member of the South Side Unit.
Director - Diversity and Inclusion
Wytress Richardson
Dr. Wytress Richardson chairs the Applied Behavioral Science program at National Louis University (NLU), where she leads a team of faculty in empowering undergraduate students and leads diversity and inclusion at NLU. Her 20 years of excellence in higher education is evidenced by numerous teaching and service awards. Her work is informed by her two decades’ experience in the Human Service field, where she served as a counselor, advocate, and supervisor. Dr. Richardson's interdisciplinary education in Organizational Leadership, Human Services Administration and Applied Behavioral Science equips her to create resilient settings where both individuals and organizations can thrive. Recently she joined the League of Women Voters Chicago as the Director of Diversity and Inclusion.
Director – Environmental Action
Deborah Halpern
Deborah Halpern's career in the areas of marketing and communications spanned over 40 years working with fortune 100 companies to small business owners. Prior to retirement she owned DGH Communications for over 10 years and provided communications consulting services exclusively to the nonprofit sector nationally as well as Chicago based organizations. Today she considers herself a full-time volunteer helping several nonprofit services in Chicago including the LWV of Chicago. Deborah joined the League the day after the 2016 election and immediately became involved with voter registration and environmental issues, specifically passage of CEJA in Illinois. Currently she is co-chair of the very active Environmental Action Committee, a frequent interviewer for the Zooming with the Alderman series, she closely followed and reported on the Chicago lead service line replacement effort (or non-effort) and is organizing and leading six Forest Preserve walks between now and October to encourage LWV members to Vote Yes for the Cook County Forest Preserve referendum coming up on the November ballot.
Deborah grew up in Glencoe, IL and graduated from the University of Wisconsin - Madison with a BA in Journalism. After living in many of the country's coldest cities including Minneapolis, Rochester, NY, Burlington, VT and Green Bay, WI she finally settled back in Chicago over 20 years ago and currently lives in Streeterville.
Director – Event Coordinator
Sharon Welch
Sharon D. Welch has held faculty and administrative positions at Harvard Divinity School, the University of Missouri-Columbia and Meadville Lombard Theological School (Unitarian Universalist, Chicago). She is the author of six books, the most recent being After the Protests Are Heard: Enacting Civic Engagement and Social Transformation (NYU Press, 2019). Welch joined the League of Women Voters in 2017 and works on criminal justice reform with the Illinois and Cook County Leagues. She served on the Cook County Board from 2018-2020 and on the Chicago Board as Events Coordinator from 2020 to the present. During the past year she worked with other members of the League to present Chicago in Focus programs on filibuster reform, clean energy, jobs and the Illinois environment, the city's climate action plan, and police reform.
Director – Fund Development
Molly Bartlett
After working for many years in external relations at a series of nonprofit advocacy organizations as well as the UChicago Divinity School, Molly Bartlett became a residential real estate broker eight years ago – a change of pace in some ways. A few years ago, she attended a reception at Cathy Mardikes’ home to recruit people for a new South Side LWV Chicago unit. She joined immediately and has attended South Side Unit meetings since then. She has enjoyed working on voter registration at a few City Colleges and before Covid affected our lives, was beginning to work with DCFS and other League members on strategies to increase voter registration among DCFS wards who are approaching or have reached 18 years of age. She has served as lead in fund development for the last year or so, taking a very active role in the State of the City Centennial celebration in 2020 as well as the 2022 State of the City.
Director – Unit Coordinator
Diane Atkinson
Diane developed and maintained financial systems for the U of I; set up and maintained computer labs and networks for two CPS schools; and taught mostly Jr. High students to use technology. She wrote grants for the school to get technology funding. She started attending some LWV meetings in 2011 and then joined the LWV in 2012. In 2017 Diane became co-leader of the Far SW Side Unit. She has been a member of the GFWC Beverly Hills Junior Woman's Club since 1991, serving as president from 1996-2000, currently Corresponding Secretary. She also has been a member of the Garden Club of Morgan Park--Beverly since 2012, currently Vice President - director of special programs. Education: Taft H.S. (part of CPS), 1975 (class salutatorian); B.S. in Mathematics and Computer Science, UIC, 1978, (Phi Beta Kappa); M.S. in Mathematics Education, UIC, 1992.
Officers and Directors continuing through June 2023
Executive Vice President: Catherine Mardikes
Vice President – Citizen Engagement: Betty Magness
Secretary: Shirley Michaelson
Director – Communications: Vanessa Bush Ford
Director - Issues & Advocacy: LeTina (Tina) Brady Pettis
Director - Membership: Elona Vaisnys
Director - Voter Service: Helene Gabelnick
Nominating Committee 2022-2023
Melanie Nostrom, Chair
Melanie Norstrom has been a member of the LWV Chicago since late 2016 and is a co-leader of the South Side Unit and a member of evening Education Committee and Voter Service Committee. She has served on the Board as Unit Coordinator. Melanie received her PhD in biochemistry from the University of Chicago and is currently employed at the university as a regulatory affairs manager. She lives in Hyde Park with her husband and son.
Patti Paone
Patti Paone is a retired nurse practitioner who practiced in a variety of clinical areas over a forty-four-year nursing career. In April 1975, Patti’s childhood dream to become a nurse came true when she graduated with an RN Diploma from The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) School of Nursing. Just a few months after her HUP graduation, Patti had the rare opportunity to transfer from a surgical unit to the emergency department. Emergency Nursing was her professional “Baptism by Fire.” Patti loved every minute of it!
Throughout her career, she worked tirelessly to be the most caring and competent nurse possible for her patients and their loved ones. Patti also thoroughly enjoyed teaching future nurses in both undergraduate and graduate nursing programs. Beyond her basic RN Diploma education, Patti earned the following degrees and certificates: BSN, Villanova University (12/78); MSN, Widener University (8/81); Emergency Nurse Practitioner Certificate, University of Virginia (4/82); Women’s’ Health Care Nurse Practitioner Certificate, Harbor UCLA Medical Center (1/86) and Clinical Trials Management Certificate, University of Chicago (5/2005). She retired from active practice in 2019 and has been actively engaged in volunteer activities ever since.
Nedra Summerrise
Nedra Summerrise is an active member of the South Side Unit.
This report is submitted by 2021-22 Nominating Committee members Melanie Norstrom (Chair), Pat Graunke, Catherine Mardikes, Elesha Nightingale, and Jayde Winters.