Sarah Ghorbanian
I was going down the road to become a medical doctor and took a hard left. I couldn’t get into the idea of better living through pharmaceuticals. I graduated chiropractic school in 2005 and bought a tiny private practice. I continued working in restaurants while I grew the business so I ended up having a lot of bartenders and restaurant kids as my first patients. After two years I sold that business, quit restaurants, and started another office with partners. The sale of the first business allowed me to buy into the second business. After seven years, I started feeling like I had outgrown my partners. I wanted to ride my bike to work and support my Andersonville community. Read more>>
Ari and Peter Krzyzek
My fiancé at the time shared this “freelance” concept to me when I was still living in Bali. I was working at a major hospitality & entertainment company as a graphic designer assistant. I was paid $250 per month. When my fiancé–now husband, found out about this, he suggested that I should freelance for design projects. Fantasized with this idea of being a freelance designer, I quit my day job a few weeks after. My parents were furious as they are a traditional minded and thought it was the “safe” job for me. After a month or two, they finally let it go and try their best to support me. Read more>>
Ilene Collins
I came to work here over 30 years ago, when the company had about 5 staff members and was only 2 years old. I came to work in a temporary capacity part time. The job was at first completely undefined. The owner needed assistance, but didn’t know what he wanted. I wasn’t trying for a big career here, (I was an actress doing improv at the time) and easily became the one employee who would honestly tell the owner he had spinach on his teeth. (not really, but definitely didn’t tell him just what he wanted to hear.) We became a great team, through over 30 years. He is my children’s godfather and I am best friends with his daughter, Mindee who I now share my work with. Read more>>
Jeni Bates and Angelica Barraza
One of my sons was born with hemiplegia, a disability that affects half his body. His right side is weaker and doesn’t function as well as the left side. He has been in therapy (OT & PT) since he was a baby. When he was about 6 years old he attended a specialized therapy camp for kids with hemiplegia. The camp was run by Angelica, an amazing OT who has now been practicing for 20+ years. Camp was amazing for my son and I stayed in touch with Angelica even after the program. Fast forward to the following summer…Angelica was no longer at the clinic she had previously been at and was practicing and seeing patients on her own. Read more>>
Glenn Sieverson
I started my cryotherapy business after the profound effect whole body cryotherapy has had in my own personal life. For me, it started after a foot surgery. I was looking for a more effective method to relive the persistent pain and inflammation around my incision site. I had the foot surgery done in mid-December and was able to snowboard in early March. I was thrilled not to miss that snowboarding season thanks to utilizing both whole body cryotherapy and localized cryotherapy sessions. I am a Chicago native and long-term resident of Andersonville. I could not think of a better neighborhood to open up a new business. Locally owned, specialty shops are encouraged in this area. Read more>>
Allen Levit
Wheels of Chicago is a family owned and operated business serving the Chicago-land community since 1984. My parents, Oleg and Svetlana Levit founded the company in 1984. In 1976, my parents had immigrated from the CCCP (Soviet Union) looking for a better life-style. My father (Oleg) is originally from Moscow, Russia – and my mom (Svetlana) is originally from Kiev, Ukraine. Shortly after arriving in the U.S.A. my father’s passion for vehicles grew greater and greater. He couldn’t speak much English and realized that school just wasn’t for him, so he dropped out of high school to pursue his love for cars and opened up Wheels of Chicago. At first, we started out as a Body Shop – repaired everything and anything we could get our hands on to make a buck. Read more>>
Pamela King
Inspired by the beautiful stained glass in churches, my husband became a glazier right out of high school. He created many custom pieces and taught classes. The business eventually expanded to a full-service glass company. We specialize in foggy window repair, glass replacement and frameless shower door installations. The biggest adjustment was going from a retail location to a service business. We service all of Chicagoland so it was challenging in the beginning. We had to figure out how to be in Elgin and Naperville one day and the North side of Chicago the next. It took a while, but we’re used to it now. Read more>>
Wendy Serrino
The idea for North Shore Exchange (NSE) came about when the Woman’s Library Club decided to close it’s 80-year-old thrift shop due to many years of financial losses. The new concept for the old building was for a charitable resale shop that would sell luxury women’s fashion and high-end home furnishings via consignment and donation and would give all of its profits to Chicagoland charities. The shop would be run by a board of directors and a large group of volunteers. North Shore Exchange qualified as a 501 (c)(3) enterprise and opened for business in March of 2013 after completely renovating the old thrift shop building for the Woman’s Library Club. Read more>>
Charles Barker
Through an education program at my rabble rousing church in 1960s Detroit, I became aware at an early age that I had a vocation in conflict management. At the time, I didn’t know what “process” was. By my college years at the University of Michigan, I thought the answer was to enter the priesthood of democracy – a law school. So I attended New York University School of Law, clerked for U.S. District Judge Charles W. Joiner, and joined Jenner & Block in Chicago as a trial attorney. Along the way I married and became the delighted father of two daughters and a partner in the firm. Read more>>
Elliot Greenberg
Elliot Greenberg, President & CEO of the JC Licht company, truly was born with paint in his veins. He rules by the idea to “love thy customer”, and expects the same passion from every employee. Elliot worked for his family’s paint company straight out of college for 17 years. In 1994, he went to work at Rings End in Connecticut to build the paint side of the business. He was so successful on the paint side that he was promoted to VP of Sales and Operations for all of Rings End in 2000. In 2014 Elliot saw an opportunity to purchase Benjamin Moore’s Illinois based chain with 30 locations. Read more>>
Angela Valavanis
I opened the Downtown Evanston location of Creative Coworking six years ago, after working from home just long enough to realize I didn’t like working from home! There wasn’t a coworking business in Evanston at the time, so I decided to open one. Now, we have a steady membership of about 100 people, so I decided I was ready to open a second location. We are currently renovating the historic Colvin House mansion on Sheridan Road (at Thorndale) to be the second location of Creative Coworking. It’s a stunning building that had fallen into disrepair. I’m so happy to be able to repurpose it in such a way that the whole community can benefit from it. Read more>>
Matthew Sharpe, MD
I’m originally from Columbus, Ohio, and I came home to go to Med School there. I thought I’d go into family practice like my grandfather who practiced in small town Ohio and died in 1974. During my surgery rotation, I fell in love with surgery. Eye surgery was the perfect fit for me. I had very thick glasses, hard contact lenses, eye infections and never imagined being able to see without them. After a few years in private practice, I joined a corporate practice doing thousands of laser vision procedures and gained a ton of experience right from the beginning of its approval in the late 90’s. After 13 years with them I had the courage to start my own practice doing what I feel is a more personal, extremely high-quality laser vision correction. Read more>>
Barry Goldberg
I recently embarked upon my own self-healing journey after many years spent in retail management and sales positions. My purpose in life and goals hit a plateau, so I decided to pursue a career that not only helps and heals others, but that stimulates and nourishes my own spiritual journey. I chose to attend Pacific College of Oriental Medicine over a traditional Western massage school so that my education would be more well-rounded and holistic. The training and experience I have, not only in massage and bodywork, but also in Eastern modalities, has afforded me a unique opportunity to be able to help my clients and also help myself as I continue to learn and grow. Read more>>
Rob Mulsoff
The past 20 years, I’ve been fortunate to concept, art direct, copywrite, manage and execute campaigns and programs for a wide variety of clients from packaged goods to healthcare, dog food to cell phones, air fresheners to whiskey. Although I loved the work I was doing at some of the larger downtown agencies, I always felt an urge to discover more and push the limits of creative freedom. And to top it off, do it all in the suburbs. After years of careful consideration, at the end of 2014, I made the life-changing decision to create my own agency, partnering with two amazing creatives I had recently worked with in a past agency and an old colleague that I worked with at previous downtown agencies, to assist with new business and client relations. Read more>>
Todd Haley
After college, I worked in visual merchandising doing fashion windows, then model rooms and lastly event design – all of which afforded me to learn scale, use of color, creating “tension” among others things the “old school” way. After working for some top Chicago interior design and architecture firms, I opened my practice in 1993. I have always maintained that a Designer have their own point of view and stick with it – at the same time reflecting the client – which is essentially a balancing act. Most of all, a space needs to work for the Client and exceed their needs and expectations… As a Designer, you create spaces for your Client that they would not have thought of e.g. dining in the Library. Read more>>
Stephanie Sullivan
Right out of grad school I was looking for a job with flexible hours that didn’t involve waiting tables (since I’d done that for several years already.) I came across an ad for a leasing consultant job and despite it being 100% commission based with no benefits, I thought, “what the heck? Let’s try it!” I quickly discovered that I was really good at the job because I thrive on meeting new people, solving problems, and making people happy. I also happen to be very organized and detail oriented. All of these things combined proved to be extremely beneficial in the world of Real Estate and I was quickly promoted to manager of the office – a job that involved training new agents, coaching them, and overseeing day to day tasks. Read more>>
Glenn de Falkenberg
Back in 2012, I was day trading equities and my business was starting to falter. At the same time, my then girlfriend and I were looking at buying a house out in the suburbs. It was extremely aggravating as we ended up going through 12 different brokers. No one would really listen to our needs or provide the quality of service we felt we should get for such a big financial decision. At that moment, I decided that I could make a difference. I felt I had a decent eye for interior design, but where I felt I really had an edge over other brokers was my customer service and ability to breakdown the numbers. I proactively research the market to ensure that my customers are receiving the fairest price for the home they are purchasing as well as the most advantageous price point for the home they are selling. Read more>>
Adam Vida
I was hired as the Studio Manager at ESS in 2008. My role at the studio quickly expanded as I began to take on more event coordinating and live programming responsibilities in addition to running the day-to-day activities. Last year I moved into the Managing Director position as part of a collective leadership model when ESS co-founder and longtime Executive Director, Lou Mallozzi, retired from his role at the studio. Today ESS is run by a team of four Directors that oversee all areas of this multifaceted, non-profit arts organization. Read more>>
John Croghan, MD
Understanding that Chicago has some of the best and most advanced healthcare in the country, Dedication Health recognizes the challenges of patient care facing most healthcare practitioners today—quality of patient/doctor relationship, time constraints, insurance obstacles, limited or restricted access to specialized medical care. A recent shift in the healthcare industry, including the transition to a single-payer universal model, allowed the team of John E. Croghan, MD and Philip H. Sheridan Jr., MD to realize their collective vision and open an innovative patient-first healthcare facility. Read more>>
Joseph Lublink
I started Lu Design Studio officially in 2016 and I started simply because I love designing! I have always loved exploring the message behind a logo or brand and getting to know graphic design tools was my way to bring my own visions to life. I started by doing logos for bands and t-shirt designs and that gradually flowed into posters, wedding invitations and now branding. Which I love! I’d say yes and no. I tend to find a lot of fulfillment in any work I am doing and that always smooth things out a bit. Maybe no in the sense that there are always challenges to meet and new techniques to digest and always room for failed experiments to learn from. Read more>>
Edward Wanland
Wanland And Associates Inc. is a third-generation family owned business located in Sauganash Park. In fact, the subdivision directly behind the office is a subdivision named after my grandfather who purchased land back in the great recession to develop a large track of land to build a number homes and two flats what is known today as Edward R Wanland subdivision in Sauganash Park. His son, my father continued on with the family business as a home builder and then a General Contractor developing nursing facilities during the prime of his work life. As the third generation started out it was Richard and Edward who continued the family business to this day starting back in the mid-80s. Read more>>
Keith Gerth
Keith Gerth (Artistic Director and Executive Director) founded Oil Lamp Theater in 2005. Prior to establishing the Theater, which was located in his home in the Lakeview Neighborhood of Chicago, Keith held a number of positions with wide-ranging skills. After high school, Keith was a carpenter for eight years with Murray Countertops in Streator, Illinois. Keith left that position in 1989 to obtain a degree in Financial Accounting from Illinois State University. Keith graduated with honors and began working for the global professional services firm of Deloitte in 1991 and became a Certified Public Accountant. Read more>>
Jim Lederer
Jim Lederer has been involved in restaurants since 1984. He set a fast pace the first few years of his career with the Stouffers Restaurant Corporation, moving his way up and working in 5 different restaurants in two years. He then got involved with a rush street tavern, back when Rush Street was the entertainment destination in Chicago for late night activity. During his stay on Rush Street he watched the closing of Faces, Sweet Water and other well-known establishments on Division Street shut down. Once he was introduced to Don Roth there was a short courting period. The relationship grew quickly and Jim had taken over Don Roth’s in Wheeling less than a year after he started. He was 24 at the time and recently engaged. Things could not have looked any better. Read more>>
Dr. Tom and Lauren Williams
Roots Family Chiropractic opened in August 2016. My wife, Lauren, and I are excited to be celebrating our practice’s 1st birthday this year! I graduated from chiropractic school, Palmer College of Chiropractic in October 2015 with plans of opening my own practice after graduation. I am originally from the south suburbs, and always knew I wanted to be back in this amazing city. Therefore, opening the practice in Chicago was the ultimate vision. More specifically, due to being primarily a pediatric and prenatal chiropractic office, we knew that the beautiful neighborhood of Lincoln Park was the perfect fit. Read more>>
Jennifer Estlin
I started with The Annoyance as an actor – I auditioned and was cast in Splatter Theater. After several years of doing shows with The Annoyance I moved to NY and was away for several years. I decided to return to help launch a film production arm of the theatre. Unfortunately, at the same time, our landlord sold the building and we lost the space. At that point, the person who’d been managing the company stepped away, and I took over as owner/ executive producer. Since then we’ve build 2 theatres, one that we were in for seven years, and the one we’re in now, in our third year. Read more>>
Dana Hoffman
I’m a Chicago native and have always loved problem solving which is what Acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine do for the body. My path to practicing acupuncture was anything but intentional. My story started with a successful but uninspiring corporate career, then an aesthetically pleasing, disciplined, but dangerous stint as a commercial pilot – which led to my first time on an acupuncture table. Then I found the success and happiness through practicing acupuncture and TCM. I took the fun and challenging parts of my past and poured it into this practice. I love what I do! Read more>>
Angel Li
How does a Taiwanese Buddhist woman married to a Jewish man walk into a Catholic school and come out with a contract to teach Spanish? Perseverance and hard work! After finishing college in Taiwan, I came to the United States in September 1991, and I have been here ever since! I received my master’s degree in Information Resources Management and started my career as an IT Project Manager. With the love and passion of my own language and culture, I was determined to teach my children Chinese. After an extensive search, I realized that there was no school that teaches young children the way I wanted. That led to the birth of Little Linguists Academy. Within one year, we expanded from my living room to more than 20 schools and from Chinese to Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Hindi, Urdu and Arabic. Read more>>
John Vlahakis
Over seven years ago, the former gallery owner (at that time it was called Sunday Afternoon Gallery) approached me about buying the gallery. She was retiring, and I had just had my own one man exhibition at that gallery. We struck a deal and I became the proud owner of a gallery. Had no clue to what I was doing upon buying it. Fortunately, one of the employees of the previous gallery, an artist in her own right, joined up with me and became the gallery manager. We did a name change and evolved the gallery into a fine art one representing artists from around the U.S. and Canada. Read more>>
Julia Thiel
I started Yoolia Design in early 2010, after moving to Chicago from Germany in 2004 and working as a Designer and Art Director at various places for a few years. As my own business, I served a variety of clients, freelanced for agencies around the country, and worked on my own creative projects. One of them was being the photographer for a book about “Chicago’s Fabulous Fountains”, that was published this year in June, and the other big project was launching NeighborHäuser™, a home decor and gift product collection, featuring illustrated, screen-printed Chicago homes. The collection currently consists of pillows and greeting cards, available at various boutiques in Chicago, and online, at neighborhauser.com. Read more>>
Dr. Sooniti J Weems
My parents always preached “don’t be like the Joneses: be a leader, not a follower and get an education”. It was those words, coupled with my desire to help others that has me where I am today. As a result, I did well in school, held leadership roles academically as well as professionally and began my career in healthcare over 20 years ago. After graduating with my Bachelors in Applied Psychology, I worked as an Assertive Outreach Worker, helping the mentally challenged live productive lives in their communities. However, my thirst for knowledge inspired a pursuit into a dual Masters Degree program, receiving a Masters Degree in Divinity and Social Work. Read more>>
Ryan Kimura
The story for Local Foods begins on the farm. Or, rather, on the highway between the farm and the city of Chicago. Working from his home base in Chicago, co-founder Andrew Lutsey, was working hard to secure purchasing commitments from the city’s best chefs for the high-quality beef, pork and poultry being produced at Waseda Farm, his family’s farm. Simultaneously, Dave Rand, a long-time sustainable food veteran, would drive from Quarter Seven (Q7) ranch to make deliveries of beef quarters in his truck to many of the best chefs in Chicago. Read more>>
Annie Coakley
Before joining Downtown Evanston, I worked in the Department of Planning and Development for the City of Chicago. My concentration was working on economic development programs and initiatives, mainly Special Service Area taxing districts. I saw the job posting for the director of Downtown Evanston and thought this was my chance to apply what I had learned about district management in a great downtown and community that is Evanston. I have been very lucky as the organization was performing well before I arrived so I have been able to take that and just move on with new ideas and programs. Read more>>
Marciano Eilender
Ever since I was a child I have always been fascinated with how things work and operate. In kindergarten, we had show and tell and I brought a toolbox – not a fake plastic one but a real tool box with metal screw drivers, a hammer, pliers and other tools a handyman might have. My parents then bought me a large red toolbox for my birthday that year which made me ecstatic, and I memorized the names of my tools and then worked with my dad to build my mom a bird feeder. I later built my own car and became very invested in the process from researching car parts to replacing parts on my car by hand, using internet videos and books to guide me. Read more>>
Evelyn Fred
I jumped into this business when many others were leaving the industry due to the economy. From 2007 – 2012 I did 100% short sales on both the list and sell side. My business today thrives on client referrals, repeat business and grass roots prospecting. I am active in volunteering for my local board as well as other organizations, i.e. Women’s Council of Realtors both on the national and local level. I was the 2015 President for the WCR, Chicago Chapter. Read more>>
Mohammad Ali
I am a public school teacher and the founder of Spice of Life Tours. I teach history full-time at a suburban high school and have been teaching for more than a decade. I am originally from Pakistan and came to U.S. at an early age and grew up on Devon Ave (Little India). Devon Ave is one of the most diverse neighborhoods in Chicago. There are over 40 languages spoken on Devon Ave and people from several nations (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Eastern European and African nations such as Nigeria, and Somalia) call this ethnic neighborhood home. Read more>>
Lev Elterman
After medical school and residency, I realized that I wanted to be in my own practice. No corporate barriers, no agenda. I can help any patient that needs help and I can use the best modern medicine has to offer. That’s how why I have decided to open my own clinic. I started by myself but now have several other specialties and an advanced laboratory as well. When you work for yourself, you are responsible for many other people. Mainly for the employees who depend on you to keep moving forward. Also, recent developments in medicine are not making the road any smoother. Read more>>
Aleksandra Andrejevas
Savocchi Glass, Windows & Doors Company has humble roots dating back to 1949 where it began with Charles and Josephine Savocchi (Dad and Mom). At that time, the company cut and fixed broken windows, operating out of a very small space in Winnetka, Illinois. In 1976, Dad Savocchi bought one of the last parcels of commercial property in Winnetka and built the home of Savocchi Glass Company. Services expanded and company became a full-service glass, window and door company selling and installing a complete line of windows, doors, storm windows, mirrors and more. Read more>>
