DAVID J. CHIZEWER is a Partner in Goldberg, Kohn, Bell, Black, Rosenbloom & Moritz's Litigation Group and is the chair of the firm's Education Industry Practice. He was recently featured in the National Law Journal's list of 10 of the nation's top litigators. In 2007, he was named Trial Lawyer of the Year by the Public Justice Foundation. He was runner-up for that same award in 2006.
Mr. Chizewer served as co lead trial counsel in two of the country's most prominent public interest cases to be tried in the past several years. In United States of America ex. rel. Cleveland A. Tyson, et al. v. Amerigroup Corporation, et al., he obtained for the government and his client the largest verdict in the history of the federal false claims act; in Memisovski, et al. v. Patla, he obtained a declaratory judgment against the State of Illinois, resulting in hundreds of millions of additional dollars worth of health care to Illinois children. Mr. Chizewer has more than 15 years of experience litigating complex commercial cases in courts throughout the country. He has been an expert witness, frequent speaker, and author on a variety of litigation topics.
In his civic work, Mr. Chizewer is a recognized expert on charter schools, having co-founded two charter school organizations: Chicago International Charter School and Illinois Network of Charter Schools (INCS). He is currently a member of the Education Policy Group for the Barack Obama Presidential Campaign. In May 2005, he argued a seminal charter school case before the Illinois Supreme Court. Mr. Chizewer has been a frequent speaker on education reform topics.
Mr. Chizewer received his law degree from the University of Chicago in 1991 and his B.A. in economics, magna cum laude, from Pomona College in 1988. He was elected a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Mr. Chizewer is vice president of the board for Chicago International Charter School.
JOHN S. GATES, JR is chairman and CEO of PortaeCo, a private investment company. Prior to founding PortaeCo, Mr. Gates co-founded CenterPoint Properties Trust and served as President and CEO for 22 years. During that period, CenterPoint became the largest private property owner/developer in the Metropolitan Chicago Region, as well as the nation's first publicly traded Industrial Real Estate Investment Trust (NYSE: CNT). Currently, CenterPoint has ownership interests in more than 50 million square feet of buildings and 3,000 acres of land. In March 2006, the company was acquired by the California Public Employees Retirement System (CALPERS) and Jones Lang LaSalle for approximately $3.5 billion.
Mr. Gates devotes more than half of his professional time to the boards of the following non-profit organizations: Children's Memorial Hospital; Metropolitan Planning Council (MPC); University of Chicago, Harris School of Public Policy; Chicago International Charter School; University of Wisconsin Center for Urban Land Economics; Salisbury School; and Eaglebrook School. He is also an active member of the following professional organizations:
- Commercial Club of Chicago
- Economics Club of Chicago
- World President's Organization (WPO)
- National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts
- Illinois Business Roundtable
- Real Estate Roundtable
- Urban Land Institute
DR. CATHERINE H. GOTTFRED is president of Gottfred Speech Associates, Ltd., a firm that provides language therapy to children and adults across Chicago. In 1988, she founded LEAP Learning Systems, a non-profit organization that oversees 11 different programs designed to improve the language skills of children and adults. She is an adjunct assistant professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
During her career, Dr. Gottfred has served in a variety of leadership roles with the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association and the Illinois Speech-Language-Hearing Association, including a term as president. She serves on the board of directors of High Jump Educational Program. In 1995, she received the Louis DeCarlo Clinical Achievement Award from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. She has a Ph.D. in speech pathology from Northwestern University.
TOM HAYDEN joined Medill School of Journalism as Chief Marketing Officer in November of 2006. Prior to this, he was president of GreenHouse Communications, Inc., an advertising and marketing firm founded in 1990, and executive vice-president of MediaMixNet.Inc., sister company to GreenHouse. Previously, Mr. Hayden was executive vice-president and general manager of the Chicago office of Campbell Mithun, formerly Bozell Worldwide. Prior to Bozell, Mr. Hayden spent eight years at DDB Needham. He began his career in the 1970s at Leo Burnett. Mr. Hayden has taught courses in advertising and integrated marketing communications at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.
Mr. Hayden has served on the board of directors of Bozell Worldwide and the board of Trustees of the Oakmark family of mutual funds, currently serving on the Audit Committee and as chair of the Management Contracts Committee. He previously chaired the Committee on Governance. Mr. Hayden has served on the board of directors of Junior Achievement, the Juvenile Protective Association, and as Administrative Vice Chair of Illinois Swimming, Inc. Mr. Hayden received his B.A. and law degrees from St. Louis University.
CRAIG W. HENDERSON has specialized in the municipal bond markets throughout his 32-year professional investment career. Mr. Henderson is founder of C.W. Henderson & Associates, Inc., an investment-counseling firm that specializes in tax-exempt municipal securities and manages assets totaling approximately $2 billion. Prior to starting the firm in 1991, Mr. Henderson spent 15 years at the First Boston Corporation (now Credit Suisse First Boston), where he managed the Chicago municipal securities division for seven years. During his tenure with First Boston, he was chosen by management to be one of five registered principals in the Chicago office of 175 employees.
He is a founding member and has served as president of the board of directors of the Daniel Murphy Scholarship Foundation. He has served as president of the Municipal Bond Club of Chicago and as an arbitrator for both the N.A.S.D. and the M.S.R.B. Mr. Henderson received his B.S. in accounting from Western Michigan University and passed the CPA Exam in 1975. Mr. Henderson is the president of the board of the Chicago International Charter School.
GERALD L. JENKINS is a principal at Goldberg, Kohn, Bell, Black, Rosenbloom & Moritz where he specializes in tax planning and corporate creation. Since receiving his Juris Doctorate from Harvard Law School in 1975, Mr. Jenkins has become an accomplished attorney, author, and lecturer. He is an adjunct professor in the Center for Information Technology and Privacy Law at the John Marshall Law School. Prior to joining Goldberg, Kohn, he was a partner with McDermott, Will & Emory.
He has served both as president and as a board member of Highland Park School District #108. He is a board member of The Mundanus Foundation and the Green Street Project, and is a member of the Information Technology Committee for the Illinois Coalition. Mr. Jenkins is past president of the board of Chicago International. He received his B.A. from Eastern Illinois University and his law degree from Harvard University.
JOHN LOCK, CEO and President of the Charter School Growth Fund, is a highly successful operational manager, hands-on private equity investor, and investment banker. Mr. Lock has extensive experience managing start-up companies and has served as CEO, CFO, COO, and board member of numerous organizations. He has strong negotiation skills and is intimately familiar with the rigorous analysis necessary in making investment decisions. Prior to joining CSGF, Mr. Lock served as the Executive Director and teacher at a charter high school located in Southern California. Mr. Lock is a graduate of the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
JORDAN MERANUS is a Partner in the Newschools Venture Fund East Coast office, where he focuses on investment strategy and management assistance for the firm's portfolio ventures. Mr. Meranus brings a wealth of experience in the education, nonprofit, and private sectors. Prior to joining NewSchools, Mr. Meranus was a Managing Director at Imagitas, a company that partners with government agencies to demonstrate how entrepreneurial business ideas can help the public sector better serve citizens. At Imagitas, he helped launch and lead MoversGuide Online, a collaborative, e-government business with the U.S. Postal Service that offers citizens the official Internet change-of-address application.
Mr. Meranus is also a co-founder of Jumpstart, a nonprofit organization built on a simple idea: that providing intensive early literacy services to low-income children is a great investment in ensuring that children in underserved communities enter school prepared to succeed. He serves on the boards of several charter schools and schools of choice across the country. Mr. Meranus is also an advisor to EdVestors, a philanthropic organization that funds academic-focused initiatives in public schools. He received his bachelor's degree in history from Duke University and earned a master's degree in both education and public administration from Harvard.
THOMAS J. NIEMAN is the owner and president of Nieman Inc., a privately held company that specializes in developing curriculum materials for educational publishers. His company specializes in writing and designing curriculum in reading, language arts, literature, ESL, and social studies for students in grades K-12. A graduate of Northwestern University, he is a former elementary teacher and was for 18 years a marketing director and the vice-president of Reading, Language Arts, and Literature at Scott Foresman and Company.
Tom also has co-authored a number of textbook series, such as the Daybooks of Reading and Writing, The Reading and Writing Sourcebooks, The Reader's Handbooks, and Academic Workout. In addition, he has created ACCESS, a middle school series for English language learners, as well as, among others the American Documents series and World Histories series for National Geographic. Mr. Nieman is currently the secretary of the board for Chicago International.
LAURA THONN is a manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in their business assurance practice. She is a licensed certified public accountant in the state of Illinois. She earned her B.S. from Boston College and also has a master's degree in social service administration from the University of Chicago. Ms. Thonn has previously served on the board of directors for Onward Neighborhood House, as a social worker for high school students, and as a program assistant for Voices for Illinois Children, the leading advocacy organization serving children and families in Illinois. Ms. Thonn is the treasurer of the board for Chicago International.
