Mike joined Little Friends, Inc in January 2016 as a Board member and in March 2017, was asked to come out of retirement and serve as the President/CEO. He has been doing this for nearly the past six years.
Prior to joining Little Friends, Mike spent his career in the for-profit sector. Graduating from Millikin University in 1979, Mike started his career with IBM Data Processing in sales. He left IBM to join a family business in 1984 and within 3 months was running a $40 MM company. Over the next 30 years, Mike ran four different manufacturing businesses as President/COO, three privately owned companies and one owned by private equity. Two of the four businesses grew to be in excess of $100MM in revenues, and one just shy of $90MM.
Throughout his career, he has been involved with multiple boards of organizations, including being an Emeritus Trustee of Millikin University that includes having served two years as Chairman of their Board. Currently, besides being CEO of Little Friends, he serves as Chairman of the Board for a global company headquartered in Australia, President of his Country Club, and Chairs the City of Naperville Advisory Commission on Disabilities. In total, he is active with nine organizations as a board member today. Mike’s background until joining Little Friends has not been in social service. Rather, his story today comes from his experiences running different organizations and how these lessons apply to social service.