Meet Our Board Members: Fran O’Malley

Board of Regents

Born: Chicago

College and major: Notre Dame, accounting. Law school at DePaul University

Position: Partner at Worsek & Vihon LLP

“We focus all of our efforts on property tax appeals and incentives in Illinois. We represent the owners of commercial, industrial, not-for-profit and multi residential properties. Our goal is to minimize our clients’ property taxes so that their taxes are fair and reasonable.”

Passions outside of work:

“My family, I try to play a lot of golf, and I’m very big into basketball – I loved playing when I was younger. I coached all my kids and I can watch any college or high school basketball game anywhere, and hopefully I’ll back get into coaching again.”

Favorite travel destination:

“Any place that I travel to with my family is great – we try to get down to Florida once a year. But I would say probably the best place that we went to was Hawaii –my kids loved it and I absolutely love it there. It’s just paradise.”

Most influential person growing up:

“That would be my dad. My dad was a Chicago policeman, and just his work ethic – in years and years he never took a sick day. So very strong work ethic; he worked his way up the ranks to become a commander. Very positive attitude, very humble, but a really hard worker – so that’s where I got my work ethic from. And then he loves sports, and I love sports, so it was a good match.”

Finding Mercy Home:

“I grew up in St. Juliana Parish, and when I was in high school Fr. Scott Donahue was the deacon at St. Juliana. That’s how I got to know Fr. Scott, and then later when he came back as a priest to St. Juliana as well – so that’s how we got to be really good friends. Over the years I volunteered at Mercy Home and went to the Ringside fundraiser, and from there it grew into being on the Ambassadors Board, and being the Chair of the Ambassadors Board, and then moving up to the Board of Regents. It was just kind of a progression of knowing Fr. Scott, and he was involved with Mercy Home, so I wanted to get involved with Mercy Home.”

Favorite part about Mercy Home’s mission:

“Anything Fr. Scott touches or is involved with is a great organization. I just see what Fr. Scott does there and it’s like he’s doing miracles every day, bringing joy to people’s lives – it’s amazing the work he does. It’s really easy to get sucked in there and it’s really the core of what I believe in – the compassion and just trying to pull other people up and make their lives a little bit better. Fr. Scott has allowed me to help do that in a very small way and I really enjoy it. You meet some of the people who work there – amazing employees who work there – and then the kids who are there, it just grabs you and touches you. It’s a great story and you just feel good about life and about the mission and the work that everyone there at Mercy Home is doing.”