Meet TSG Governing Board Member, Mike Healy
The Simple Good would like to introduce Mike Healy, our newest TSG Governing Board Member. Join us in welcoming him to The Simple Good Family! Get to know him below!
Where are you from originally and where are you located now? I’m originally from Oak Park. Though I moved around a bit in my 20s I never really entertained living elsewhere — the lifelong (in some cases generations-long) relationships with friends and family were too important.
What is your professional background and what do you currently do for a living? My formal training is in urban planning, but I’ve been fortunate to work on a number interesting projects throughout my career, including overseeing public transportation projects for two Illinois Governors, managing the Chicago River’s most prestigious tour boat company, and coaching high school football (Go Firecats!). For the past several years, I’ve been intensely focused on working my partners Elyse Agnello and Jim Lasko to build Guild Row. a social club in Avondale meant to serve as a nexus for the creative and civically inclined.
How do you connect to the arts? I maintain a side writing project (The ‘Well St. Journal — https://thewellstreetjournal.substack.com/) that is ostensibly a hyper-niche neighborhood blog but in reality is a vehicle for me to write as expansively (or, more often, goofily) about whatever I want, so long as it connects in some way (directly in some cases, very tenuously in others) to the 3 block micro-neighborhood anchored by Rockwell (‘Well) St that gives the blog it’s name.
How did you get connected to The Simple Good and what has it meant to you to be a member of the Board? I was connected to The Simple Good when Jessica Gillespie, our Director of Communtiy Engagement at Guild Row, recruited Priya Shah to be one of the club’s Founding Members. To me, finding out not only that The Simple Good existed but that it was in the hands of someone so talented, dynamic and wise was incredibly exciting. It has been tremendously grating to me how much of the dialogue around how we are to help each otherand move forward as a civilization is expressed through a lens of deficit-thinking. Assets are all around us! They’re why all of us wake up in the morning! It’s a tremendously important mission and I’m thrilled to be part of helping move it forward.
How have you seen The Simple Good make an impact since joining the organization? I only officially joined the board about 30 minutes ago as I’m writing this, but in that time I will say I’ve quite enjoyed filling out this questionnaire.
What does The Simple Good mean to you? That we should try to live as though the person standing in front of us is the most important person in the world; not only in a “Golden Rule” sense, but also because, if the most important person in the world is standing right in front of you, you must have a lot to offer.
What do you want to see in the future for The Simple Good? To see more proof put to the idea that there is real power in helping people to see the goodness and strengths in their lives that is so often crowded out by deficit-thinking
Is there anything else you want our TSG community to know about you? At one point I held the record for worst punt return in Chicago Catholic League history. It was like -26 yards or something.
You can connect with Mike on LinkedIn and congratulate him on joining the TSG family!
Find more on our mission, support our programs and get your TSG Gear by visiting our website: http://www.thesimplegood.org/
