South East Chicago Commission

Shirley Newsome has been actively involved with the community since moving to North Kenwood-Oakland in 1979. Among other achievements, she helped to organize the Lake Park-Berkeley-Ellis-Drexel Block Club Association, which evolved into the North Kenwood-Oakland Conservation Community Council (NK-O CCC). In 1992 Mayor Richard M. Daley appointed her to chair the Conservation Council, a position she continues to hold today. Newsome also chairs the Quad Communities Development Corporation (QCDC), a community-based organization serving the North Kenwood, Oakland, Douglas, and Grand Boulevard communities.Newsome serves as vice-chair of the Governing Board of the University of Chicago Charter Schools Corporation. In addition, she serves on several local Chicago Park District (CPD) Advisory Councils, the 021st Chicago Police District Advisory Council (DAC), four Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) Plan for Transformation Working Groups, and a number of other civic and professional boards and committees.

Howard Males, Ph.D. is CEO of Research Pros, a company he established in 1985 to serve the research needs of major corporations, strategy consulting firms, and private equity groups. Prior to founding RP, Males directed Ernst & Whinney’s (now Ernst & Young), Organization Change Group and worked at Booz Allen & Hamilton as a management consultant. He is a member of the American Psychological Association.A contributor to the Executive Briefing, a partnership of The Economist Intelligence Unit (The Economist) and Harvard Business School Publishing, Males has served as chairman of a TIF Advisory Council in the 4th Ward, as an executive board member of the JCC Chicago City Central, as a vice president of Congregation Rodfei Zedek in Chicago, and as a board member for the Center for New Horizons in Chicago. In 2004, he received the community service award from the South East Chicago Commission.

Bernita Johnson-Gabriel, executive director of Quad Communities Development Corporation (QCDC), has served QCDC in various capacities since 2004. Among her achievements at the organization, Johnson-Gabriel led an 18-month community planning process to create a comprehensive Quad Communities Quality of Life Plan. In addition, she engineered partnerships with a variety of organizations to implement the plan’s projects and programs.Prior to joining QCDC, Ms. Johnson-Gabriel worked for Liberty Mutual Insurance Group, primarily in human resources and sales. She is a former board member of both the Hyde Park Chamber of Commerce and Neighborhood Housing Service (Auburn Gresham) and currently serves as secretary of the 43rd and Cottage Grove TIF (Tax Increment Finance) Advisory Council, Beat Co-Facilitator for CAPS (Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy), and community representative for the Local School Council for Dyett High School. She was a 2006 recipient of the South East Chicago Commission’s Don Randel Community Leadership Award.

James R. Poueymirou is a retail sales supervisor and home mortgage consultant for Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, where he assists people with their mortgage needs throughout Chicago and the nation. A resident of Hyde Park since 1979, he has served as a board member of and past president of the Hyde Park Chamber of Commerce, Hyde Park Cooperative Society, Inc., and the University Commons Condo Association. The SECC honored him with the Don Randel Community Service Award in 2008.

Maya Hodari is a resident of the Woodlawn community.  In the Spring of 2009, she noticed the increase in criminal activity occurring on her block and began her fight to improve safety in her neighborhood.  She banned together with 11 neighbors living on various blocks in Woodlawn to pioneer the Woodlawn Neighbors Association (WNA). Together they started off simply as 16 neighbors sharing information by email about criminal incidents on their specific blocks.  Today WNA has grown into 300 organized neighbors taking a positive stance to improve Woodlawn for all families.  In March 2010, the neighbors’ association hosted its first annual Woodlawn Summit and more than 150 neighbors attended at 9am on a rainy Saturday morning.Professionally, Ms. Hodari is a Development Manager with the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) serving as the project lead for three (3) CHA Plan for Transformation projects including the Pomeroy Apartments Rehabilitation Program which was included in the White House report “100 Recovery Act Projects that are Changing America.” She has worked for the CHA for the last 14 years. In 2001, she was selected as a HUD Public Housing Fellow, participating in a national fellowship program offered by the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) and the University of Maryland.

Robert (Rob) Jackson is a U.S. marketing director for McDonald’s, where he is responsible for leading strategies that generate system growth from the $800 billion African-American consumer market. Before taking on his current role, he served the company as regional marketing director for the Greater Chicago Region, which operated more than 700 restaurants and generated over $1.5 billion in annual system sales. Prior to joining the Golden Arches in 2002, Jackson worked in advertising, most recently as senior VP for client services at Burrell Communications Group.An active community leader, Jackson serves on the boards of Hyde Park AYSO soccer, Centers for New Horizons, Chicago Youth Programs, and the Southside Ronald McDonald House.

As the stimulus project manager for the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA), Danita Childers is responsible for managing, tracking, and reporting on the more than $200 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds that the CHA has received. Prior to joining the CHA, Childers worked for the City of Chicago’s Department of Planning and Development as deputy commissioner for the north planning region, where she was responsible for coordinating commercial, residential, and industrial development projects. She also has worked in real estate consulting, in asset management, and in the insurance industry.

Hyde Park native Susan Freehling has operated a kitchenware store in Hyde Park for 30 years. She also manages a number of apartments in the neighborhood.

A partner with the national law firm Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell LLP, Roger Fross has extensive experience with mergers and acquisitions, financings, business successions, and general corporate matters for privately held firms, not-for-profits, and high net-worth individuals. His clients cut across many segments of American industry and are dispersed throughout the United States. Much of his work has addressed the day to day concerns of corporate ownership, such as customer, supplier, and distributor arrangements; key employee contractual and compensation matter; licensing of property rights; and ownership succession and wealth transfer strategies for privately owed businesses.Fross has served as an officer and/or member of a number of boards of directors and committees, including The Joyce Foundation, the Chicago Metro History Fair, the Chicago Bar Association Juvenile Delinquency and Adolescent Offenders Committee, Hyde Park Neighborhood Club, Hyde Park-Kenwood Development Corporation, and the Hyde Park Community Conservation Council.

Richard Gill recently retired from a career in transportation and transportation planning and engineering and currently contributes articles to several railroad-interest periodicals. A resident of the SECC’s service area since 1973, Gill has served on the SECC Board for about 30 years.

No Bio Available.

Brandon Johnson serves as executive director of the Washington Park Consortium, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the development and service of the Washington Park community. In that role, he works with the Washington Park community to contextualize the issues, develop programming, and facilitate planning processes. A specialist in public policy and urban development in a global context, Johnson works to translate policy decisions in terms of mutual benefit to groups at odds or in need.Previously, Mr. Johnson was a principal with Catalyst Global Strategies, a project manager for “Reconnecting Neighborhoods” with the Metropolitan Planning Council, and served as a legislative analyst for the Illinois General Assembly under the leadership of Senate President Emil Jones, Jr. He serves as a board member of the KLEO Community Center, a member of the Illinois Food Farms and Jobs Council, and a former two-time member of the Kenwood Academy LSC.

JoAnn Newsome is director of human rights compliance/fair housing for the Chicago Commission on Human Relations, where she supervises the investigation of discrimination complaints in housing, public accommodations, employment, and credit. She is a member of the Black Women Lawyers’ Association, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and the Chicago Bar Association.

A project engineer for II in One Contractors, David Nuckolls retired from Illinois Bell Tele/Ameritech/SBC/AT&T in 1999 after 30 years as a communications systems technician. A lifelong resident of Chicago’s South Side, he is a member of the Apostolic Church of God, where his grandfather was the founding pastor.Throughout his career, Nuckolls has demonstrated a deep commitment to serving the needs of young people-coaching T-ball and baseball at Jackson Park for 26 years, as well as coaching soccer and football. For 12 years he taught Sunday School at the Apostolic Church of God and led church-sponsored field trips. During the past 14 years he has led high school groups on college tours of selected HBCU’s and other schools.

A Hyde Park resident since 1979, Marcy Schlessinger is the sole proprietor of Marcy’s Gardens flower bed design and consulting firm. She is also a certified Pilates instructor and teaches a variety of Pilates classes at Chaturanga Holistic Fitness in Hyde Park. Previously, she served as a Ray School PTA Board member and LSC Parent and Community representative. She is also a former University of Illinois Extension service Master Gardner. Since joining the SECC Board several years ago, Schlessinger has served as Park Committee Chair, Neighborhood Enhancement Grant Chair, Annual Awards Dinner Chair, and Secretary of the Board.

An ordained Episcopal priest since December 1971, Richard Tolliver has served as rector of St. Edmund’s Episcopal Church in Chicago since June 1989. At St. Edmund’s, he founded and serves as president and CEO of St. Edmund’s Redevelopment Corporation, an not-for-profit community development corporation that has spent $66,000,000 on housing rehab and new construction in Washington Park since November 1990.Before joining St. Edmund’s, Tolliver worked at churches in New York City, Boston, and Washington, D.C. He also served as associate country director of the United States Peace Corps in Kenya and country director in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania.

Wendy Walker Williams is the executive director of the South East Chicago Commission (SECC), a not for profit 501(c)3 organization located on the south side of Chicago, Illinois.  Wendy is responsible for leading the organization in a new direction that will focus specifically on economic and community development in the surrounding neighborhoods of the University of Chicago, specifically the Woodlawn, Washington Park, Hyde Park, Kenwood, and Oakland communities.Prior to this position, Wendy served as Assistant Commissioner for the City of Chicago’s Department of Community Development Neighborhoods South Division responsible for redevelopment initiatives and overseeing the implementation of redevelopment projects; Deputy Director of Finance and Administration for Gallery 37, an arts youth employment and training organization; and various positions at the Chicago Housing Authority.

Raymonde Vance has been an employee of the South East Chicago Commission for 16 years. She is responsible for the administrative duties of the office and maintaining the website.