The Obama Library and the Lucas Museum: the Inside Story
Cassandra Francis, Melissa Harris, Greg Hinz, Avis LaVelle, and Lynn Sweet
Thursday, Feb 26, 2015
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Speakers
Cassandra Francis
Cassandra Francis has over twenty years of diverse experience in providing real estate, urban planning, non-profit management, real estate advisory and construction project management services. Cassandra currently serves as President of Friends of the Parks, a 40-year old non-profit organization dedicated to preserving, protecting, and improving Chicago area parks, open spaces and natural areas. Friends of the Parks (FOTP) is currently working in partnership with the Chicago Park District, the community and governmental, environmental, cultural and educational organizations on transformational projects and programs including: the installation of 300 new neighborhood playgrounds, the completion of Chicago's 30-mile continuous lakefront parks system, the expansion of the Park Advisory Councils network, and leading youth, corporate and community environmental education and stewardship programs. FOTP further works to protect public parks and open spaces through its advocacy, policy development and local leadership-building efforts.
Melissa Harris
Melissa Harris is a business columnist at the Chicago Tribune, where she has worked since 2009. Her work has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in local reporting, and she is a two-time finalist for The Livingston Award, honoring outstanding reporting by journalists under the age of 35. Prior to joining the Tribune, she covered Baltimore’s criminal courts system for The Baltimore Sun, where she won awards for her coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings and other homicide cases. Before that, she worked as a political reporter at The Orlando Sentinel. She is currently enrolled in the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, where she is working toward an MBA, and has a master’s degree in government from Johns Hopkins. She serves on the board of Chicago Dramatists Theater, a training ground for the city’s top playwrights.
Greg Hinz
Greg Hinz is a Crain’s Chicago Business blogger and columnist on politics and government in Chicago, Illinois and the nation. A prize-winning reporter, Greg also writes frequently on such public policy issues as education, transportation and economic development. He joined Crain’s in 1996, after four years as political editor of Chicago magazine and nearly two decades as political editor and columnist with the Lerner Newspapers chain. His work has been honored by the Society of Business Editors and Writers and the Chicago Headline Club, among other professional organizations. Greg is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. He took a brief leave of absence from journalism to serve as press secretary for the Carter/Mondale campaign in Illinois in 1980.
Avis LaVelle
Avis LaVelle is the Vice-President of the Chicago Park District Board of Commissioners. As VP of Corporate Affairs for Northstar Lottery Group, LaVelle oversees external affairs activities for Northstar and on behalf of the Illinois Lottery which Northstar manages. Her staff is responsible for Media Relations, Corporate Social Responsibility, and Employee Volunteer Engagement. LaVelle founded her firm, A. LaVelle Consulting Services (ALCS) in 2003, and continues to provide a select number of clients with the benefit of her extensive experience in the public and private sectors with the strategies she recommends. Her company was been instrumental in market-entry efforts for international firms such as Bombardier, North America and Cintra-Macquarie, operators of the Chicago Skyway. LaVelle also served seven years on the Chicago Schools Reform Board of Trustees, five as Vice President, providing strategic communications consulting to guide CPS through major policy shifts on such potentially controversial issues as busing, school closings, and the end to social promotion.
Lynn Sweet
Lynn Sweet is the Chicago Sun-Times Washington Bureau Chief. She writes a column, a blog and files on Twitter. Sweet is a regular guest on television and radio news shows. A Chicago native, Sweet earned a master's from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and received her undergraduate degree from the University of California at Berkeley after attending the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. She was a fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics in the Kennedy School of Government in the spring of 2004. Sweet was inducted into Northwestern University’s Medill Hall of Achievement and the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame in 2007. Washingtonian Magazine named Sweet one of the capital’s “50 Top Journalists” in 2009. She was a columnist at AOL’s Politics Daily.
