• 2023 Outstanding Employee of the Year:
  Kim Phipps, Administrative Law Judge, IL Dept of Employment Security
• 2023 Illinois State Agency of the Year: 
  Illinois Tollway
• 2023 Outstanding Legislator of the Year: 
  State Representative Theresa Mah
• 2023 Outstanding Legislator of the Year: 
  State Representative Kelly M. Cassidy
• Keynote Speaker
  Ryan Croke, Senior Advisor for Special Projects, Governor JB Pritzker's Office
• Musical Presenter
  Cal Piland

Kim Phipps - Administrative Law Judge, IL Dept of Employment Security - attended and graduated from the Illinois School for the Visually Impaired in Jacksonville, IL where she earned many scholastic and athletic awards and competed in forensics. She attended the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, with a Spanish major and Latin-American studies concentration. She enjoyed studying abroad in both Barcelona, Spain and Recife, Brazil. She engaged in ad hoc public relations activities designed to promote disability awareness and university research projects on adaptive technology and

software beta testing. Kim was selected as a law student intern at a public interest law clinic and earned her Juris Doctorate in 2000. She was admitted to the Illinois State Bar and was licensed to practice law in 2001.

Kim served for over eight years at IDHS in several capacities, including Labor Relations Liaison, Special Projects Counsel, Acting Ethics Officer, and Asst. General Counsel in the Division of Human Capital Development. Kim currently serves as a Hearings Referee in the IDES Benefit Appeals Division by preparing and conducting quasi-judicial hearings and making decisions on appeals regarding Unemployment Insurance benefit eligibility claims.

In addition to being an ALJ for IDES, Kim also serves on the agency’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility Employee Forum. In the Forum, Kim has been an integral part of moving IDES forward with its DEIA mission and goals. Her feedback about DEIA, specifically, accessibility, has been immeasurable. Additionally, Kim leads IDES in ensuring greater accessibility for documents on the web and communication with claimants. Kim’s work has a profound effect on IDES’ ability to follow Federal and State disability laws.

Kim is a Member at Large on the Board of Directors of the Illinois School for the Visually Impaired Alumni Association. She also enjoys serving as a church soloist, worship leader, and keyboardist. The school that bred and trained Kim’s guide dog gives each puppy in a litter a name starting with the same letter of the alphabet. When Kim arrived at the school to train with a dog, they happened to assign her a dog named Duet. Unbeknownst to them, she is a musician. So, she is now part of a duet with Duet!

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Lead by Executive Director Cassaundra Rouse, the Illinois Tollway is committed to removing barriers for people with disabilities – whether employees, job applicants, or customers – so they can lead independent, productive lives and fully participate in all agency operations or services provided. Although it’s one of the larger agencies in the state, the Illinois Tollway consistently ranks among the leading agencies in employing people with disabilities. In the past three years, more than 6.3 percent of the Tollway’s workforce of nearly 1,200 employees has been comprised of people with disabilities – higher than the current state average of 5.96 percent.

The Tollway is a model agency in its approach to implementing the Americans with Disabilities Act, ensuring all facilities are wheelchair accessible for customers, employees and job applicants. The Tollway is also a leader in the disability community, working closely with disability advocates to stay current on issues affecting people with disabilities, share best practices and spread the world about ‘tollway job opportunities.

In addition, the Tollway works frequently through the Illinois State Use Program to provide job opportunities for people with disabilities while improving business efficiencies and delivering exceptional service for Tollway Customer Service Call Center, Bridgeway for license plate review services, The Printer’s Mark for print and mail services and Ada S. McKinley for I-PASS transponder fulfillment services. These partnerships have not only allowed the Tollway to support a greater number of people with disabilities and veterans, but they also have enabled the agency to improve business efficiencies and operations to meet increasing demands for customer services.

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Representative Theresa Mah made history in 2006 when she became the first Asian American elected to serve in the Illinois General Assembly. Representative Mah is a former college professor with a Ph.D. in modern American history and teaching experience in history, ethnic studies, and Asian American studies.

As a senior advisor in former Governor Pat Quinn’s administration, she worked with legislators, Cabinet members, and co-workers at state agencies on efforts to improve diversity and minority representation in state government. Rep. Mah also serves as an elected Community Representative on the Local School Council at Thomas Kelly High School, where she has been a strong proponent of bilingual education, civic engagement, and the pursuit of higher education.

Rep Map serves on the Advisory Boards of the Chinese American Museum of Chicago and the Global Asian Studies Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In the General Assembly Rep. Mah serves on the Committees on K-12 Education Appropriations, Environmental Justice, and Health Care Licenses, among others. During her first term, Rep. Mah successfully passed legislation in the areas of civil rights, consumer protection, language access, and immigrant rights.

Recently, Rep. Mah championed the Dignity in Pay Act for several successive sessions. While it has yet to pass, the awareness and discussion it generated has resulted in useful conversations around the Statehouse about why paying people with disabilities competitive wages for community integrated employment is essential. The bill has been proposed to abolish 14c/Subminimum wage to safeguard the rights and dignity of individuals with disabilities. The bill is an essential step in the right direction. This move would ensure that workers with disabilities are paid fairly and that their wages will not be based on their disability status. The elimination of 14c/Subminimum wage would open new opportunities for people with disabilities and help to create a workforce that is more reflective of our population.

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As an organizer, a legislative director and a mom, Rep. Kelly Cassidy has spent the past 20 years living her values. Whether fighting for the rights of women and the LGBT community as an activist, working for a smarter criminal justice system within the state’s attorney’s office, or ensuring that her three boys have safe spaces to play in our community, she has devoted the last two decades to making government more accessible, efficient, and effective. Those experiences, both inside and outside the system, have afforded her great insight into how to be a better, more responsive, and effective State Representative for the 14th district.

Representative Cassidy’s first job in Chicago was as legislative director for the Chicago office of the National Organization for Women, which was an outstanding introduction to the inner-workings of government. Individuals often found the legislative process too confusing and legislators inaccessible. It was Cassidy’s job to empower women to advocate on their own behalf with legislators.

Some of the highlights of her tenure included aiding in efforts to pass the Human Rights and Family and Medical Leave Acts, as well as defeating bill after bill attacking a woman;s right to choose.

Rep Cassidy has consistently stood with the disability community across a range of issues since the start of her time in the legislature in 2011. When disability services have been attacked through budget cuts, she has consistently fought against them. She was the chief House sponsor on the Community Emergency Services and Support Act (CESSA), whose primary goal was saving the lives of black and brown disabled people. She has cosponsored many other disability bills, such a bill to establish a new statewide home modifications program led by the disability community which passed this year that will allow disabled people to obtain funds needed to make their homes accessible, and a bill to finally end subminimum wage pay for people with disabilities statewide which came close to passing this spring.

Representative Cassidy was a chief sponsor of Illinois Civil Rights Restoration Act, a bill to restore the right to sue for damages under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and other federal anti-discrimination laws, which also passed this spring which was critical in restoring the original rights that the disability community had stripped away by the Supreme Court. This work is particularly significant and timely because in the month of September we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the signing of Section 504 – the first major piece of disability rights federal legislation protection in federally assisted programs.

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Ryan Croke, Senior Advisor for Special Projects, Governor JB Pritzker’s Office - During the Governor’s first term, Ryan was Chief of Staff to Grace Hou, Secretary of the Illinois Department of Human Services, an agency with six program divisions and more than 14,000 employees. Prior to that he was the Executive Director of the Illinois Network of Centers for Independent Living, a not-for-profit coalition of organizations run by and for people with disabilities. Previous experience includes serving as Associate Chancellor at the University of Illinois - Springfield. He worked for Illinois Governor Pat Quinn from 2006-2015, where he concluded his service as Chief of Staff to the Governor. He earned an M.A. in Communication from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he also completed undergraduate degrees in Political Science and Communication.

Ryan was born and raised in Wheeling (suburban Chicago), the younger of two hearing sons born to Deaf parents. After meeting his wife at U of I, they are now fourteen years into marriage, raising four children (ages 9, 7, 5, and two weeks!) together in Springfield. His mother has passed, and his father lives with him and his family. Ryan loves community theater, lap swimming, kid’s sports, family, and friends.

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Cal Piland (they/them) has been an employee of the Secretary of State for one and a half years. They currently work in Administrative Hearings Support. Cal graduated from Illinois State University in 2017 with a Bachelor’s in Flute Performance, studying under Illinois Symphony Orchestra’s principal flutist Kim Risinger. While at ISU they also directed the Clef Hangers mixed voice acapella group. Cal’s hobbies include crochet, trivia nights, and taking care of their three cats.

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