'Networking with a power boost': Elgin Area Leadership Academy prepares for 20th class

The list of graduates from the Elgin Area Leadership Academy is a veritable who's who of Elgin movers and shakers.

There are current city council members and city administrators, innumerable education and business leaders and myriad board members who have attended the leadership program, which is preparing for its 20th class of students.

"For me, it was like networking with a power boost," said Traci Ellis, formerly a board member with Elgin Area School District U-46 and Advocate Sherman Hospital, and now chief human resources and equity officer and chief legal officer at Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in Aurora.

"We were getting access to the city's 'players,' if you will, in ways that normally you might not get as an early-career professional," she said. "Access to the entire city's power structure and learning how the city works and how it moves."

The 10-month program delivers a curriculum designed to assist individuals in becoming active and engaged leaders in their community.

As president of Elgin Community College, people might think David Sam already had all the leadership skills he needed, but he says the academy was an important introduction to the city after taking the job.

"It gave me a very good understanding of the community, the people, the key players and what made the community tick," Sam said. "The network that I was able to gain was invaluable in the years that have followed."

But it's the less-well-known people that excite the organizers of the program, which has more than 550 alumni and is gearing up for classes that begin in October.

"More gets accomplished in this community by volunteers than by any political official or council," said Dan Fox, one of the program's founders. "This community is run by volunteers and that's who we're trying to train."

Fox, one of two facilitators of the classes, said he started the program 30 years ago with Don Waters, who at the time was a vice president at ECC. Waters, who has since retired from the program, kept seeing the same faces in different places as a volunteer on several boards. They started the academy to "train the next group of volunteers and leaders," Fox said.

"We wanted something community-based," he said. "We wanted it to be for what we considered to be regular people and then put them in front of community leaders to pass along what they know."

Ruth Munson, the program's other facilitator, was a graduate of the first class of 1991-92.

"The people I met in that first class have been a part of my life ever since," said Munson, who later went on to serve on the Elgin City Council and in the Illinois State House of Representatives.

She began volunteering as a facilitator with the program in 2012.

"It was and is an invaluable experience," she said.

Classes include topics such as economic development, board governance and ethics, and are held Saturdays at various locations. After initially being an annual program, it is now offered every two years. It is organized by the Elgin Area Chamber.

Applications are available at www.elginchamber.com/leadership. Tuition is $525 for the nonprofit program, which is staffed entirely by volunteers. There may be a partial scholarship for those who show a need.

"So many people from the class go on to become leaders in their churches or their neighborhood or in the community," Fox said.

"We're still dumbfounded by how successful it's become. It's beyond our wildest expectations."