Little City Leadership

Greg Burns is the President of the Board of Directors and has been an ally and advocate of Little City since 2016.

Greg joined Countryside’s Board of Directors in 2013 and, due to his passion for this community, he was happy to be an integral part of the merger between Countryside and Little City in 2016.

Greg retired from Allstate Insurance Company after 36 years. He was in a variety of roles at Allstate during his long career with 20 of those years spent in the HR area.

Timothy Desmond is an accomplished senior executive with over 35 years of experience in real estate development, with proven expertise in all aspects of the development process including acquisition, planning, zoning, financing, legal, budgeting, design, construction, contract & lease negotiations, public relations, sales and marketing, and asset management. As an experienced team leader, he is skilled at collaborating with stakeholders and building strong working relationships with diverse professionals in the achievement of business objectives. His portfolio of first class assets includes commercial office, hospitality, convention, land development, and high rise luxury condominium residential development ranging from $70M to more than $1.5B, including over 30 high rise office buildings, 7,000 units of high-rise condominium/apartment buildings, 5M square feet of corporate office development, retail properties, and over 3M square feet of convention and hotel developments. Tim has served on the board of Little City since 2011.

Jennifer Gavelek joined the board in 2014 and has a passion for working with nonprofits and those that serve the special needs community. She participates in the Little City programs and services committee which aligns with her professional experience in operational risk management.

Jennifer is a senior vice president at Alliant Insurance Services (formerly part of Mesirow Financial), with over 25 years working as an insurance and risk advisor in property and casualty. She founded a nonprofit practice group to provide services and consulting specialized for charitable organizations.

Jeff Julian is the chief of staff at Harper College, also manages legislative affairs and government relations. He previously served as the executive director of communications at Harper, overseeing media relations, legislative affairs, internal and external communications, community relations and crisis communications. He has also served as the director of public awareness at the American Library Association, the executive director of communications at Elgin (Ill.) Community College, and the director of communications and external relations at Joliet (Ill.) Junior College.

Jeff has a Masters Degree in English Studies from Elmhurst (Ill.) College and a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism/Communications from the University of St. Francis, Joliet, Ill. He is a member of the National Council of Marketing and Public Relations (NCMPR) and AGB’s Prime Chief of Staff and holds a certification from the Crisis Leadership in Higher Education Program at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Jeff serves as the Secretary-Treasurer on the Executive Committee of the NCMPR Board of Directors. He also hosts NCMPR’s podcast Peer and Simple. He previously served as the District 3 Director from 2018-2021.

Nick Helmer is a 28-year commercial real estate law veteran currently practicing at DLA Piper LLP in Chicago.  This is Nick’s second tenure at DLA where he originally practiced as an associate from 1996 to 2002.  Nick’s career includes positions as General Counsel for one of the largest private real estate companies in Chicago as well as Chief Real Estate Counsel for a publicly traded Manhattan based FinTech Fund.

Nick joined the Board of Directors for Little City Foundation in 2023 when his daughter become a resident of a Little City CILA.  Nick is passionate about improving the health and wellness of all Little City’s residents concentrating on nutrition, diet and lifestyle.  He looks forward to lending his expertise with the Campus Planning Sub-Committee which is advising on proposals for major development, building projects and proposals for repairs, maintenance and reallocations of existing facilities and housing.

Bill Chepulis is the Head of Underwriting for the U.S. National Accounts business in North America and is responsible for the underwriting performance of the $9.5 billion National Accounts portfolio. Responsibilities and oversight include the development and execution of portfolio insights and underwriting actions, prioritization and development of new products, capabilities and training needs, underwriting quality, transactional pricing and the overall portfolio management of the National Accounts portfolio.

Before being named Head of Underwriting, Bill’s previous role was Head of Finance for U.S. Commercial Insurance where his focus was ensuring that the business had the appropriate support in terms of analytics, expense management, strategy, financial planning and forecasting. He has over 22 years of experience in the financial services industry with 20 years specific to insurance. Bill has held a number of management and leadership positions within the Zurich organization across Finance, Operations and Underwriting.

James Testa joined Little City as an advisor in 1997 and moved to the Board of Directors to Little City shortly thereafter. He became involved with Little City through a work colleague that had a connection to the organization. Having a cousin with Down syndrome helped James to understand the need for advocacy of children and adults with developmental disabilities. James is the owner and president of Show Sage, LLC, a leading provider of multi-channel audio-visual technology solutions. Prior to acquiring Show Sage in 2010, James spent over 20 years as a management and information technology consultant. Besides being on Little City Board of Directors, and being a businessman, he is also involved in the O’Hare Chamber, the O’Hare Rotary Club of Chicago, and with Boy Scouts.

Julie Bell is a proud Board Member of Little City. Supporting Little City and improving the lives of disabled residents with quality life stages is Julie’s lifelong passion. Her sister, Andy, is an original Resident of Little City and has lived there for over 60 years. Supporting Little City’s mission will always be a priority in Julie’s life, and she is honored to be on the Board of Directors.

When it comes to her professional life, Julie is an internationally recognized Beauty Industry strategist and innovator with 40 years of dynamic experience across sales, marketing and product development. Known for her skill in creating unique marketing positioning with a perfect storm of storytelling, DNA names and creative copy that produce sales results. Julie was the EVP of Global Marketing for Benefit Cosmetics for 20 years. Julie also served as the Benefit brand spokesperson and key product expert for global media and influencer events. Julie was also an executive at Estee Lauder Companies with multiple roles spanning 20 years in sales and marketing.

Originally from Chicago, Julie currently lives in San Francisco and spends the weekends enthusiastically exploring the local neighborhoods, beachs and Golden Gate Park.

Amar Kapadia is a Managing Director in the Healthcare Industry Group at Alvarez & Marsal (A&M). Amar joined Little City’s board because he is passionate about improving the health and wellness of communities around him and A&M is a strong supporter of community engagement and giving. He currently serves as the Chair of the Board Affairs committee and in this role, helps manage the board structure and governance.

In his day-to-day job, Amar helps corporate and private equity healthcare clients with difficult strategic topics, such as growth strategy, mergers and acquisitions, and performance improvement. Amar has a Bachelors in Electronics Engineering and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to Little City, he served on the board of Pressley Ridge, a leading human services not-for-profit. He is also an active supporter of Boy Scouts and serves on the Community Advisory Council for Edward-Elmhurst Health.

Charles “Gil” Fergus has been an integral part of Little for many years. Gil‘s son Marty is a participant, and has been for over twenty years, starting in the children’s program and then transitioning to the adult’s program. Through his time with Little City Gil served as the President for the Parent Family Guardian Group, a position he held for over 20 years. He is now currently the Secretary of the Board of Directors. Professionally Gil served as the special consumer counsel at the Office of the Attorney General and is currently enjoying retirement.

David Pfau has served on the board since 2014. Upon learning of the excellent work Little City does, he knew he had come to the right place to share his professional talent with the goal of building measurable incentives for corporate philanthropy that self-propel ongoing growth and giving.

Although David does not have any personal or family ties to the Little City client base, he immediately connected with the urgency and value embodied in the foundations mission.

David is the CEO of Hive10, LLC, a technology focused strategic business operations consultancy practice serving clients both domestic and internationally. Outside of work, David is a professionally licensed motorsport racing driver, holds a second-degree black belt in Hapkido, and studies business innovation and law at Harvard University.

John Duffey has a sister with developmental disabilities, which lead him to join the board at Little City in 2010. John is Managing Partner of LionFish Capital LLC and  Retired President & CEO of Six Flags Entertainment. John, his wife Becky, and their Family Foundation have been strong advocates of children and adults with developmental disabilities and the support of education for disadvantaged children.

Alex Gianaras is the President and CEO of Transformer Manufacturers Inc. in Norridge Illinois.  A 73 year old company focused on the manufacturing of Low Voltage Magnetics and Value Added Electronic Assemblies for the electrical and electronic industries. Alex has been committed to serve our community throughout the years.  He enjoys working with people in trying to advance causes in both the secular and non-secular worlds.  Here are some of the organizations Alex has been involved in.

St. Andrew Greek Orthodox Church:

Alex served on the Parish Council for over 3 decades, serving as President for three terms in addition he Chaired committees such as the Annual Festival, Capital Campaign, Finance during that tenure

National Hellenic Museum:

Alex has been serving on the board since 1984 and has been involved with the Capital Campaign, Fundraisers, Event management, and other projects.

Little City Foundation:

Alex has been serving on the board for over 30 years and has Chaired the Golf Committee and other fundraising projects.

Other Organizations:

Hellenic Foundation Board Member

Past President — Stick and Rudder Flying Club, Waukegan Illinois

Immediate Past President — The Transformer Association

Anshuman Vaidya joined the Little City Board in 2022 as a way to serve the special needs community and also to honor the memory of his younger brother, Devneil. For his day job, he is a supervisory attorney with the U.S. Department of the Treasury, serving as an Area Counsel (Criminal Tax) to the Internal Revenue Service. Anshuman manages IRS attorneys throughout the Midwest and acts as agency counsel to IRS Criminal Investigation on criminal enforcement matters in the midwest. Anshuman is also an adjunct professor at Northwestern Pritzker Law School.​