Chris has been executive director of Inspiration Corporation for six years and in that time has led its growth from a community-based agency with a $400,000 budget serving a small clientele in Uptown to a $2.8 million city-wide agency serving over a thousand individuals annually. Under Chris’ leadership Inspiration Corporation has added housing, counseling, culinary training and soft-skills training to its program mix. Chris has negotiated two mergers with colleague agencies to expand services and create efficiencies using practiced business models. He has overseen the opening of a restaurant that serves as an employment and training center for our most vulnerable neighbors. Chris has positioned Inspiration Corporation as leader in Chicago’s effort to end homelessness by 2012.

Chris’ leadership does not stop at the doors of Inspiration Corporation. Chris is the secretary of the board of the Partnership to End Homelessness and is a mayoral appointee to the Community Development Advisory Council. Chris has recently served on the boards of the Chicago Continuum of Care and Organization of the Northeast and has recently been asked to serve as a member of the leadership of the Uptown Chamber of Commerce. Chris has a history of board involvement and community leadership and has also been active in organizations like Kiwanis and Rotary.

Prior to working at Inspiration Corporation, Chris was employed at the Jane Addams Resource Corporation where he taught science in the alternative high school and later became their director of operations. Chris also spent 3 years as the executive director of Streetwise Newspaper and 3 years as the director of an alternative dispute resolution center in Grand Rapids, Michigan before moving to Chicago.

Chris is regularly asked to speak publicly on issues of homelessness and nonprofit management particularly as it pertains to social enterprise activities.

Chris moved to Chicago in 1991 and has lived in the Edgewater Community for about 9 years renting on Winona and then Elmdale until purchasing a home on Winthrop in January of 2004 with his wife, Jennifer Pritchard. Jennifer has been active in the Cedar Park play lot advisory council and they have a two year old son named Alexander who has also been very active in the play lot.