The Leo Advisory Board consists of Leo Men, Partners, Friends and Community Members who support Leo’s 100 year mission to educate young men to be leaders in their communities and around the world.
Advisory Board Members
Rich Carrigan, CEO One Source, Founding Partner REDSTITCH, past President United Technologies
Bill Conlon, Retired Partner Sidley Austin
John Linehan, Senior Director of Investments Oppenheimer and Company
Travis Mandrell, Senior Director of User Experience at TAG – The Aspen Group
Matt McGrath, Chief External Affairs Officer for Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke
Lisa Parker, Partner Husch Blackwell
Patrick Phillips, Chief Executive Officer of the R.I.S.E. Opportunity Foundation
Rebecca Ryan, Chief Schools Officer Big Shoulders Fund
Bob Sheehy, Former President of Robert Sheehy & Sons Funeral Home
Dan Stecich, Retired Partner Athena Advisor Services
Stephanie Stecz, Loyola University School of Education, Grant Writer Leo High School
Heidi Stevens, Director of External Affairs at the University of Chicago’s TMW Center for Early Learning + Public Health and Syndicated Columnist
Bobby Sullivan, Insurance Professional and Casualty Facultative Underwriter at General Re Corporation
Michael Tate, Commander 006th District, Chicago Police Department
Dan McGrath, President Leo High School
Shaka Rawls, Principal Leo High School
Jim Earner, Business Manager Leo High School
Leo Advisory Board Bios
Rich Carrigan
Rich Carrigan is an accomplished executive with over 25 years of experience in quick-turn custom manufacturing. He led United Displaycraft for 18 years. He recently started a non-profit consulting business (One Team, LLC) to help existing non-profit organizations develop their leadership skills, streamline their processes and accomplish their missions. He also serves as the part-time CFO of a start-up design agency (Red Stitch, LLC). Rich has served on numerous boards, including the Board of Directors of the Big Shoulders Fund. In his spare time, Rich enjoys riding with his cycling group and is the lead singer and rhythm guitarist in a local “dad band”. Rich met his wife Julie in Santiago, Chile and they have been married for 25 years with three adult children.
Bill Conlon ‘63
Bill Conlon ‘63 graduated from Indiana University before receiving his J.D. from the University of Illinois in 1970. After law school Bill served in the U.S Army, was an Assistant U.S Attorney and was engaged in the private practice of law at Sidley Austin. Over the years he has served in a number of public and charitable organizations. Bill currently serves as Chair of the City of Chicago Board of Ethics. Bill is married to Patsy Habicht and has two adult children.
John Linehan ‘77
John Linehan ‘77 grew up in the West Englewood neighborhood on Chicago’s south side, attending Saint Justin Martyr grammar school and Leo High School. He graduated with a B.S. from Western Illinois University. He has been in the Financial Service Industry since 1981 starting in the operations department of Merrill Lynch. He joined Oppenheimer and Company in 2017 and is currently the Senior Director of Investments. John has been active in the Leo High School Alumni Association since 1989 and is a past President of the Alumni Association and served on the school Alumni Advisory Board since1995. John lives in Western Springs with his wife Ann. They have been married 42 years and have four children and seven grandchildren.
Travis Mandrell
Travis Mandrell is an accomplished User Experience (UX) and Design leader with over 15 years of experience driving innovative and user-centric solutions across diverse industries. Currently serving as the Senior Director of User Experience at TAG – The Aspen Group, Travis leverages his extensive background in design leadership to oversee impactful user experience strategies for a hybrid team in Chicago. Before joining TAG, Travis held several senior roles at Jellyvision, where he contributed significantly to the company’s growth. As SVP of Design, he led design teams for over two years, following a successful six-year tenure as Vice President of Design. His leadership at Jellyvision was marked by his ability to blend creative design thinking with user-driven innovation, crafting experiences that resonated deeply with audiences. Travis holds an M.S. in Human-Computer Interaction from DePaul University and a B.A. in Piano Performance from Northern Arizona University. His unique combination of technical proficiency and creative design sensibility makes him a dynamic leader in the design community.
Matt McGrath
Matt McGrath is a seasoned communications and public affairs professional with 25 years of experience providing strategic counsel and navigating complicated and often controversial public policy matters in high-profile and pressure-filled settings. McGrath currently serves as the Chief External Affairs Officer for Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke. Previously, he served as the First Deputy City Treasurer and chief of staff in the Chicago Treasurer’s Office. McGrath joined CTO from the private sector, where he provided high-level strategic counsel to a range of corporate, nonprofit and government clients as a Vice President at Edelman. McGrath also served as Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s press secretary, Tammy Duckworth’s deputy campaign manager in her 2016 Senate run, and has held senior leadership positions on political and advocacy campaigns from coast to coast, including serving as Michigan communications director for Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. McGrath is a California native with deep Chicago roots. He is a product of Catholic elementary and secondary schools. McGrath lives in the Sauganash neighborhood on the City’s Northwest Side with his wife and young daughter.
Lisa Parker
Lisa Parker is a law partner at Husch Blackwell, LLP where she specializes in representing educational institutions. She represents the full range of education institutions, including private non-profit, public, healthcare-affiliated, religious, small privately-owned institutions and large publicly-traded school groups. From serving as an administrator at a small private college to her role as vice president for a large publicly-traded school system, Lisa’s comprehensive background directly correlates to her passion and dedication to furthering the business and educational goals of clients. Lisa enjoys helping education clients focus on their future through mergers and acquisitions, development of unique initiatives and support for legal and regulatory compliance. Lisa broadens and shares her knowledge through volunteer involvement in education-related causes.
Patrick Phillips
Patrick Phillips is Chief Executive Officer of the R.I.S.E. Opportunity Foundation whose goal is to increase the representation of underrepresented communities in risk management and insurance by providing career readiness training, financial literacy education, mentoring, and industry internships. Born in Detroit, Michigan, Patrick began his high school education at Cass Tech in Detroit and graduated from Cranbrook Kingswood High School thanks to the Horizons Upward Bound Program. Patrick is also a dual degree graduate of The University of Chicago (UChicago), where he earned a BA in Public Policy and a MA in Social Science. From there, Patrick spent more than 25 years as a financial adviser before returning to UChicago as a career advisor and program director in the university’s career advancement office. During this tenure, Patrick also helped design, launch and lead the Rogers Scholars Program, a co-curricular program endowed by UChicago Trustee John W. Rogers, Jr. with the goal of exposing underrepresented UChicago college students to careers in endowment management.
Rebecca Lindsay-Ryan
Rebecca Lindsay-Ryan joined Big Shoulders Fund in 2006 and currently serves as the Chief Schools Officer for its network of 92 Catholic schools educating more than 25,000 students in Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana. Ms. Lindsay-Ryan leads work related to talent development, academic programming, school marketing and operations, as well as the Plus program which is a unique shared management model to ensure access to 38 quality, values-based elementary and high schools in under resourced communities in Chicago. Ms. Lindsay-Ryan has been selected as a Barbara Bowman Early Childhood Leadership Fellow (2016), an Emerging Leader with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs (2019), and a Leadership Greater Chicago Signature Fellow (2025). She also has served as an adjunct professor at DePaul University for nine years. Ms. Lindsay-Ryan received a Bachelor’s of Arts in History and Master’s of Science in Public Service both from DePaul University with distinction.
Bob Sheehy
Bob Sheehy ‘71 if a proud graduate of Leo H.S. and the 2019 recipient of the Leo Lions Legacy Award. After graduating from Leo, Bob attended Purdue University’s Krannert School of Business. Now retired, he was the former President of Robert Sheehy & Sons Funeral Home. Bob is the Co-Founder of the Mulliganeers ‘Giving Kids a Second Chance’ non-profit. He is involved in numerous community organizations and is a past President of the Leo Alumni Association and the Alumni Advisory Board. He is an Employer Trustee for Teamsters Local 727 Pension Fund and a former Director at Countryside Bank. Bob and his wife Kathy have two children and five grand children.
Dan Stecich
Dan Stecich ‘75 is a 1975 graduate of Leo and is a four term and current president of the Leo High School Alumni Association. He graduated with a BBA in Finance from the University of Oklahoma and has an MBA from De Paul University. A retired partner at Athena Advisor Services, Dan was previously a Commodities Broker and member of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. He has been married for forty years to Patrica and they are the proud parents of three grown children and two grandchildren.
Stephanie Stecz
Stephanie Stecz began her career in education when she joined Teach for America as a Chicago core member in 2002, where she taught middle school at Libby Elementary in Englewood. She then worked at Boundless Readers, a literacy nonprofit that provides professional development and grants to Chicago Public School teachers. Currently, Stephanie is a part-time faculty member at Loyola University’s School of Education where she specializes in teacher preparation related to middle and secondary English, History, and Special Education. Stephanie has been working as a grant writer for Leo High School for the past ten years, helping to secure funding for scholarships and capital improvement projects. She is also the head girls cross country and track and field coach at DePaul College Prep. Stephanie and her husband Ryan, both Notre Dame ’99 grads, have four children.
Heidi Stevens
Heidi Stevens is the Director of External Affairs at the University of Chicago’s TMW Center for Early Learning + Public Health, a research institute that works to optimize brain development for all children. Prior to joining University of Chicago, Heidi worked at the Chicago Tribune for 23 years as a writer and editor. She maintains a nationally syndicated column once a week and serves on the Board of Directors for FAN, a North Shore speaker series, and works as a fellowship coach for The OpEd Project, which works to scout and train under-represented experts to take thought leadership positions in their fields through op-eds and more.
Bobby Sullivan
Bobby is an insurance professional and casualty facultative underwriter at General Re Corporation, providing sophisticated reinsurance solutions for excess and surplus carriers, mutual and stock companies, and captives. Prior to joining GenRe, he spent 7+ years as a casualty broker at Ryan Turner Specialty, where he specialized in commercial liability insurance for complex medical and life science companies, assisted in the due diligence and analysis of insurance programs for private equity mergers and acquisitions, and supported a partnership with McDonalds Corporation brokering general liability coverage for individual franchisees. Bobby holds a Bachelor of Arts in political science from the University of Notre Dame. He is a local Chicago comedian, performing at venues around the city like the Second City, iO, the Annoyance, and the Lincoln Lodge. Bobby’s grandfather was Leo class of ’47. He lives in Lincoln Park with his wife and two sons.
Michael Tate
Michael M. Tate is a twenty-nine-year veteran with the Chicago Police Department and is currently the Commander of the 006th District, located in the Auburn Gresham area on the south side of Chicago. Commander Tate manages 349 personnel and oversees the daily operations of the District. In addition, he meets with community partners, clergy, Aldermen and business owners to ensure and maintain the safety and security of this community. He also mentors and advises the younger officers in his command in order for them uphold the mission of the Chicago Police Department. Prior to this role, he served as a Lieutenant assigned to the Bureau of Counter-Terrorism, Narcotics Division. Other roles included Administrative Sergeant in the Area Two Deputy Chief’s Office, Administrative Sergeant of the 007th District and Bureau of Internal Affairs, Confidential Investigations Section.