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Mike Fortner Associate Professor of Physics at Northern Illinois University and Illinois State Representative Workshop Title: From Researcher to Representative, Learning to Listen to the Community

Biographical Sketch

Mike Fortner is happily married to Becky Hall and has two children, Liz 14 and Charles 11. Mike has a diverse background of public service, professional work, and community service.

Prior to his election as a Representative, Mike served as Mayor of West Chicago. During his five and a half years in that office he improved city services while cutting the city portion of the property tax bill. The improved services included more police on the street, new commercial development, and a state-of-the-art water treatment facility providing high quality drinking water. He served on the DuPage Mayors and Managers board, and helped form the Metro West Council of Governments. He served as cochair of the STAR line commuter rail study, chaired implementation of the DuPage Area Transit Plan, and worked on the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus task force for education reform, and the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning Council of Mayors. For his work with other communities on transportation and public transit, Mike was awarded the 2006 Intergovernmental Cooperation award by the DuPage Mayors and Managers. Before mayor, Mike served as an alderman, school board member, plan commissioner, and he started his public service as a historic preservation commissioner.

In addition to his public service, Mike Fortner is an accomplished teacher and researcher. Mike is an Associate Professor of physics at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb and has worked on research experiments at Fermilab for almost 20 years.

From www.mikefortner.org , used with permission.