Board of Directors Gains Valuable Assets with Additions of Karen Baumann and Elizabeth Richman
ITA is excited to announce that Karen Baumann and Elizabeth Richman have officially joined our Board of Directors. Please accompany us in welcoming our two newest members by reading about what each of their histories will contribute to our organization in the featured profiles below. Welcome, Karen and Elizabeth!
Karen Baumann
Karen Baumann is married to Marc Baumann, President and CEO of SP Plus Corporation. Together they have 4 daughters who are now adults and the oldest has special needs with Autism and other mental health challenges. This daughter, Laura, receives excellent services from ITA in music therapy.
Prior to motherhood, Karen earned her BBA from Loyola University of Chicago in 1981 in Business with a major in Marketing. Upon graduation, Karen worked as a Buyer for Spiegel Catalog from 1981-1987. From 1987-1989, Karen was the Director of Merchandising of the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog and retail stores. In both positions, Spiegel and Hammacher Schlemmer, Karen travelled all over the world developing and sourcing products for the catalogs, negotiating prices and delivery schedules, maintaining inventory at profitable levels, forecasting sales, producing page layouts, generating and editing copy, and she was directly responsible for bottom line profitability. In 1989 Karen and Marc were married, and a brief year (1989-1990) was spent volunteering as the Business Manager for Old St. Patrick’s church in Chicago until the birth of her first daughter.
From 1992-2000, Karen, Marc and Laura moved to England for Marc’s job, and 3 more daughters were born there. They moved to Northbrook in the fall of 2000. From 2000-present, Karen has filled various volunteer roles while raising her family. These activities in include, Member of School Board of St. Norbert School, girl scout leader for many years, member of various Parent Teacher Organizations at the schools where the girls attended, Eucharistic Minister and Bereavement Minister at St. Norbert Church, caregiver to her Father-In-Law and later her mother in their final years. Currently, Karen is Laura’s case manager and directs all activities and therapies would be best suited for Laura’s disability as well as medication management and health care management.
Elizabeth Richman
Elizabeth Richman’s unusual background — a degree in psychology from Washington University and an interior design degree from Harrington Institute — led to an unexpected, creative, and challenging career. For over 20 years, Elizabeth represented a commercial carpet manufacturer for Chicago and the outlying territory. Responsible for multi-million dollar quotas, she called on architects and designers, corporate end-users and facility managers. The scope of work ranged from developing custom carpets, to pricing negotiations, to reviewing construction documents. Since retirement, Elizabeth has consulted on commercial interior design project s and business development, coordinated events for Chabad at the University of Illinois, and blended a family of 5 children. The payoff for planning six weddings in six years: Elizabeth boasts 7.75+ grandchildren. Elizabeth has enjoyed taking many art classes at the Botanic Gardens and Evanston Art Center, including watercolor painting, watercolor pencils, drawing (pencil, charcoal, oil pastels), Japanese ink, and batik and mosaics, and also continues her lifelong study of ballet.
Elizabeth is the proud daughter of ITA’s Founding Director, Marilyn “Toddy” Richman.
Are you interested in serving on ITA’s board of directors? Contact ITA Executive Director Jenni Rook for information about available opportunities – jrook@itachicago.org.