Someone You Should Know

Joanne McC. Schwartz,
Traumatic Brain Injury Project Manager

When Equip for Equality was seeking a talented, committed and informed person to manage its new federal project to support individuals with Traumatic Brain Injury (See "P&A Program for People with Traumatic Brain Injury, p. 9), it did not have to look far.

Joanne McC. Schwartz, EFE's Traumatic Brain Injury Project Manager

Joanne McC. Schwartz, a 15-year veteran of Equip for Equality - and a treasure-trove of knowledge about the rights of individuals with disabilities and the available resources for helping them - was ready and willing to take on the new challenge. As EFE's Traumatic Brain Injury Project Manager, the new leadership role presents another kind of challenge, involving a new eye toward delegating responsibilities.

"I am pleased Joanne has agreed to move into a new and challenging leadership role with EFE as our TBI P&A Project Manager," says President and CEO Zena Naiditch. "Her in-depth knowledge and hands-on experience with self-advocacy, along with her management skills and personal dedication to our mission, will prove invaluable to this new initiative to break down barriers faced by people with TBI in Illinois."

The roots of that commitment, however, as well her other core values - integrity, hard work, perseverance and compassion - took hold a long way from Illinois. Joanne McConnell was born in Albuquerque, N.M., the second of four children. Her father, who grew up on a farm in South Dakota, was with the Soil Conservation Service; her mom, originally from Denver, was a homemaker who had taught school for a time. When Joanne was 3, her dad was transferred to Idaho Falls, the heart of potato country, where her life was shaped from then through high school.

"My work ethic comes from the high expectations of my parents, who demanded my best efforts in everything I did, and from picking potatoes in Idaho from the time I was in fifth grade," says Schwartz. "School closed for six weeks from mid-September through October for the harvest, and we all worked from sunrise to sunset. A gunnysack of potatoes went for 7 cents. I split my sacks with a friend, and all my proceeds went into my college fund, as well as money I earned lifeguarding, teaching swimming and babysitting."

Schwartz earned a bachelor's degree in history on academic scholarship and work grant financial assistance from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash., as well as a secondary education teacher's certificate in history and English. During a summer at home, she met her lifetime partner, Alec Schwartz, whom she married two years later and followed to Williamstown, Mass., for his final year at Williams College, where she worked as a secretary for the Assistant Director of Admissions and did substitute teaching.

It was the mid-1960s during the Vietnam War, she recalls. So the newlyweds joined the Peace Corps. After three months of intense training, including a crash course in Spanish in Puerto Rico, they set out for 2 1/2 years of adventure in the Dominican Republic. This became the second pivotal experience to shape Schwartz's future.

"Problem solving was the essence of survival and getting anything done," says Schwartz. "Nobody spoon-fed anything. There was no instruction manual about what you needed to do to get from point A to point B or what to do once you got there."

While her husband worked as a surveyor, Joanne taught elementary teachers how to improve their teaching skills. When their 2 1/2-year stint was completed, Alec was asked to remain another year by the Agency for International Development, and she volunteered as a staff assistant with the Evaluation Division of the Dominican Office of Community Development, which was preparing an overall assessment of the effectiveness of the agency's projects.

After the Peace Corps, the couple moved to Denver for four years, where Alec was with the Legal Aid Office of Metropolitan Denver. Joanne worked as a bilingual admissions interviewer at the University of Colorado Medical Center and assisted medical personnel in communicating with patients to determine diagnosis.

Her husband's next position took him to Lansing, Mich., for three years, where Joanne became a research assistant for the Michigan Education Association, the Michigan State Bar Association and the Colorado-based Group Fifty Corp. She also initiated, developed and taught adult education courses in conversational Spanish and macramé under the aegis of Michigan State University.

Next stop on the cross-country excursion was Washington, D.C., another new avenue for Schwartz, this time as a legal secretary for a major law firm while her husband pursued his career at an agency for the elderly. Her responsibilities eventually expanded into areas generally reserved for paralegal personnel, including investigative research of pending cases and preparation of basic pleading and correspondence. She even assisted in the firm's recruitment process for selection of future associates.

Chicago has been home base since 1979 when Alec was offered a position with the American Bar Association, with which he remains affiliated. For almost four years, Joanne continued on her most recent career path as a legal and executive secretary at Reuben & Proctor in the labor section of the firm. Then she worked as a legal assistant at O'Connor & Coens for a year, becoming involved with a variety of labor law matters and acting as translator in Spanish-related areas of the practice.

In the mid-'80s, Schwartz pursued freelance work for three years as a consultant and trainer specializing in law office organization, litigation support and client relations. She also conducted training sessions for the Michigan State Employees Association.

By September 1987, Schwartz determined that she wanted to do something different. All on one day she interviewed at Legal Aid, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Legal Assistance Foundation and a private law firm that wanted her to do research on Agent Orange. Because of a friend's suggestion, she also stopped by the state agency predecessor to Equip for Equality, known then as Protection and Advocacy Inc., which was located at 14 E. Jackson. Zena Naiditch hired her on the spot.

Schwartz began work immediately as an investigative and resource advocate, including duties as intake coordinator. The office was small, recalls Schwartz, only 10 people. Staff didn't even have typewriters in their offices, and the secretary/receptionist had the only computer. The only funding for the agency was the federal Protection and Advocacy System to advocate for people with developmental disabilities.

But the main attraction for Schwartz was the daily dose of problem solving that harkened back to the skills she learned in the Peace Corps. "There were no guidelines on how to do this job," says Schwartz. "But there was tremendous support and encouragement from Zena and Managing Attorney Carol Bell, who was my supervisor. They gave me my wings to fly wherever my imagination and creative resources took me."

Which is why Equip for Equality's Self-Advocacy Assistance Program is Schwartz's baby. She fashioned it, she nurtured it and she grew it. In 1994, she was named Manager, Self-Advocacy Assistance Program, which by then encompassed six advocates in statewide offices. In addition to carrying her own self-advocacy and brief assistance caseload, as well as hiring, training and supervising advocates, she was included in EFE's executive management team, with responsibilities for strategic planning. She also helped with the development and presentation of outreach and trainings for people with disabilities and their families.

By 1999, EFE'S advocates and attorneys numbered 17, and Schwartz, now in partnership with EFE's Managing Attorney, additionally was called upon to coordinate, integrate and oversee the overlapping functions of the legal and self-advocacy programs. In conjunction with this attorney/advocate collaboration, she has served as a member of the Advisory Council of Lawyers' Assistants Program of Roosevelt University since 1996.

Commenting on "her program," Schwartz says, "I think our goal should be to work ourselves out of a job. Optimally, it would be wonderful if we could form partnerships with former clients to help train others with disabilities to help themselves."

She concedes that the job is difficult emotionally and physically. "I can't say that I love it, but I'm always stimulated by it because of the constant problem solving - connecting the dots between the problems and the options.

"What I do love is that what we do here is very honest in terms of the respect we accord every person who seeks our help. The client ALWAYS comes first. I am driven by doing everything the right way to benefit the client, and my expectations of others are the same."

"What everyone who works with Joanne knows is that she views serving EFE clients as a sacred trust and a privilege," says EFE Senior Counsel Karen I. Ward, someone who knows her well.

About 15 years on the same job? "I'm still here because there are always new blooms on the same plant - helping people with disabilities to attain their rights," Schwartz says. "Also, I knew the moment I first walked in the door that this was a place with a heart, where integrity was valued and where I could make a contribution."

She went on to say that collaboration with EFE's outstanding staff has been a high point of her tenure, especially the pleasure and privilege of working with Barry Taylor, EFE's Legal Advocacy Director, for the past seven years.

Life outside of the office for Joanne is very family oriented and includes traveling, camping, skiing and swimming. She can get lost in her love of reading - especially historical biographies. The Schwartzes, who have lived in Oak Park ever since they moved to Illinois in 1979, have a married daughter, Kyra, who is an elementary school teacher and the mother of their 8-month-old grandson, Jacob, and a son, David, who has an MBA and works in business in Chicago. =

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Someone You Should Know

Joanne McC. Schwartz, Traumatic Brain Injury Project Manager

Joanne McC. Schwartz,
Traumatic Brain Injury Project Manager