Leader Council; Chairman

Born: Chicago

College and major: Mundelein College, finance and economics, accounting, spanish, minor in english.

Position: CFO at Corboy & Demetrio, P.C.

“I do all the administration, I do all the accounting, I do all the human resources. I’m an officer of the corporation; I make all the decisions on all purchasing.”

Favorite activities during high school:

“I was involved in a lot of sports teams. I was a volleyball player and on the 16-inch softball team; softball was probably my favorite sport. And I was very involved in student government – I was the student class president my senior year.”

Favorite travel destination:

“My favorite trips of all time have been going to Ireland – I’ve been to Ireland four times. It’s hard not to love going to Ireland, especially when my ancestors were there. My grandparents on my mother’s side were both born there and my grandfather on my father’s side was born there. One of my trips there I actually went to see where my grandparents on my mother’s side were born and raised and met all my cousins that are still there and got to know them pretty well.”

Most influential person growing up:

“That would be my mother. My mom always encouraged us to work hard and she always wanted to make sure I didn’t take myself too seriously. I always had a tendency to want to do everything, and I was always a perfectionist. She would find me at two in the morning with the light on reading or studying – I always had to go the extra mile, everything always had to be perfect. My mom was concerned, she’d say, ‘you take everything too seriously, you don’t always have to be perfect in every way. You don’t have to be involved in everything.’”

Finding Mercy Home:

“Fr. Scott Donahue was one of the associate priests at St. Juliana before he came to Mercy Home, and our family had an affinity for him. And then when he became more involved at Mercy Home and became Fr. Close’s replacement, we became involved with Mercy Home. When Mary Dempsey started the Leader Council, she asked me if I would like to join the Leader Council during that first year, and of course I jumped on board, not only because of her, but because of Fr. Scott.”

Favorite part about Mercy Home’s mission:

“I had a really good life growing up. I was one of six kids and my dad was a gas man for People’s Gas company, my mom didn’t work, and we didn’t have a lot, but we didn’t know we didn’t have a lot because we just had a real happy house – we just had lots of happy days… And I just think that what is so normal to us is so not normal to the youth that I see at Mercy Home and I want to be able to help them experience some of the things that I experienced that are so normal to the rest of us.”