New Northbrook President Kathryn Ciesla's focus is on giving back

Kathryn Ciesla's sense of charity runs deep and long.

One holiday season when she was a kid, her father, Jim, then a teacher in Northbrook School District 28 like his wife, drove Kathryn and her brother, Andrew, to the home of a family who could use a little help.

He quietly dropped them off carrying a sleigh's worth of Christmas gifts. Jim Kucienski drove around the corner and parked.

The two kids executed a benevolent ding-dong ditch. They left the gifts on the stoop, rang the doorbell and dashed off to their father's waiting car.

That merry Christmas was part of a larger imprint.

"I see a large, large value in our family has been on giving back," Kathryn Ciesla said.

She reflects it professionally in her family law practice, and in three terms as a Village of Northbrook trustee, recently capped with her April 6 election as incoming board president.

"In my mind is always, 'How can I serve?' In addition to my job, I want to be of service to people. I enjoy that," said the 20-year Northbrook resident.

"And, I've got to say, learning about fire trucks and storm sewers is the coolest, right? It's pretty neat."

Also neat, at least important to her and likely to Northbrook residents, are several items she'll prioritize in her first 90 days as president, a 4-year term that'll start with outgoing President Sandy Frum swearing in Ciesla on May 11.

Hiring a worthy successor to retiring Village Manager Rich Nahrstadt is among those priorities. Some 40 people applied by the April 16 deadline, Ciesla said, and the goal is to have a person in place by mid-July or August.

Deciding on a suitable use for the Grainger property, 1657 Shermer Road, is way up there. So are enhanced communication efforts with businesses and an evermore engaged populace.

Ciesla said about $175,000 has been earmarked for downtown streetscape improvements, one of the "lessons learned from COVID, especially relative to outdoor dining," she said.

These lessons obviously still reveal themselves.

"One of the question marks is, should Northbrook join with some other municipalities in creating its own health department?" she said.

"We rely on Cook County right now, but towns like Skokie and Evanston and Chicago have their own health departments, so they're sort of in charge of their own destiny with respect to vaccinations and such."

Ciesla's destiny has been shaped by her parents, Jim and Nancy Kucienski, now of Lincolnwood; and her daughters, Kylie, 18, a freshman at the University of Alabama, and Jenna, 16, a junior at Glenbrook North.

All the women in Ciesla's circle are givers, including her partner, Heidi Lapin, and Frum, a friend and mentor.

None of them are shrinking violets.

Ciesla's mother is a life member of the board of trustees of Marmion Academy in Aurora, where Jim Kucienski attended. Nancy Kucienski was the first woman on the board, Ciesla said.

Her grandmother was "a dynamo," Ciesla said. Earning a scholarship to the University of Chicago at 16, she was told it was unfashionable for young ladies of that era to attend college. She instead attended a secretarial college - and then bought it.

Daughter Kylie joined the University of Alabama College Democrats. Another dynamo, Jenna greeted voters at the village hall on April 6, is involved in Glenbrook North student government and also participates in the Village of Northbrook Youth Commission.

"The best job I have is being a mom. I love being a mom. It is the greatest thing in the world," Kathryn Ciesla said.

"Just like my parents were with me and my brother, I really think about how I'm raising them, and so much of parenting is not even what you teach them but what you model to them, right?"

A practicing attorney for 24 years and a founding partner of Ciesla Beeler LLC, with offices in Northfield and Gurnee, Ciesla was drawn to family law. Further, since earning certification in divorce mediation skills in 2012, she's been approved by Cook and Lake counties to represent children and to serve as guardian ad litem, a court-appointed investigator on behalf of children of divorce.

"Those are the cases that I take. All my clients are under the age of 18. It is great work, giving a voice to children," she said.

"I just go in and kind of roll up my sleeves and try to put calm to the situation and then move forward in the best way, help these parents and their children transition to their new normal."

It's not that much different from representing a community, whose leadership also is finding a new normal. Long ago, in that secret Santa adventure, Ciesla learned the key.

"Let's just give back, and let's give back without credit," she said. "It's not about us, it's about other people."