Don Kalish, CPA
President
Don is a CPA and has 48 years of financial and accounting expertise in executive positions. He recently retired as the Assistant Vice President of Finance and Controller at Rush Copley Medical Center and is currently acting in a finance and healthcare consulting role with Rush Copley and Rush University. He has held Board positions at the Montgomery Economic Development Corporation and A Man in Recovery Foundation. He has also held key financial management positions at Norwegian American Hospital, Bank One and Montgomery Ward.
Don has four sons and was very actively involved in coaching and running youth sport organizations for more than 20 years and held positions on the boards of the Naperville Little League Baseball and Naperville Youth Basketball Association. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Award for Youth & Family by the Naperville Jaycees in 2001. Don became aware of Tim Ryan and his A Man in Recovery Foundation in early 2016 and then several months later tragically lost his youngest son, Randy, to an accidental fentanyl overdose. Inspired by Tim’s work, Don joined the AMIRF Board and worked with his son, Cliff, to obtain over $23,000 in donations for AMIRF at the 2017 Naperville Half Marathon and 5K Run. After working with Tim and his foundation for 10 months, Don joined the PATH Board and has worked to increase our community outreach by working closely with the DuPage, Kane and Kendall County Health Departments and acting as navigators in helping to educate and guide families and individuals in understanding all of the resources available to them during the recovery journey.
Leslie Kawar
Vice President
Leslie resides in Naperville, is married and has three children. She joined PATH when one of her sons showed evidence of opioid addiction. She has since become very active in the group, organizing fundraisers and building relationships with community treatment centers. She is focused on the need to support those affected by addiction through information sharing, education and recovery tools. Leslie has successfully completed the SMART Recovery Training Program and looks forward to facilitating meetings.
Shirley Klupchak, CPA
Treasurer
Shirley has extensive experience as a licensed CPA; her practice focuses on the preparation of federal and state tax returns for individuals, partnerships, and trusts. Prior to establishing her own accounting practice in 1986, Shirley was associated with the public accounting firm of Arthur Young & Company in Chicago and the corporate offices of Dart & Kraft, Inc. in Northbrook, IL.
Ms. Klupchak graduated with highest distinction and honors from the University of Iowa. She received an MBA in finance and accounting from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School in 1980 and a master’s in taxation from Northern Illinois University in 2007.
Shirley has served in a variety of volunteer roles at Naperville Central High School where her three sons were involved in football, basketball and lacrosse. She is also a past treasurer of the Wheaton Junior Woman’s Club.
Terri L. Albright, MS, LPC, NCC
Terri is a Corporal with the DuPage County Sheriff’s Office and is assigned to the Community Resource Unit. She has been with the Sheriff’s Office for 17 years. She developed the Post Crisis Response Team, (PCRT) at the Sheriff’s Office where she worked with individuals in the community who struggle with mental health and addiction issues. She has received many honors, including being named the DuPage County Sheriff’s Office Employee of the Month twice in 2016 and 2019. She is currently a member of the Northern Illinois Critical Incident Stress Management Team and is also on staff at the Elgin Community Crisis Center.
Terri’s responsibilities at the Sheriff’s Office include settling citizen disputes, taking police related calls, performing various community related functions, such as assisting with Meals on Wheels, Shop with the Sheriff and Special Olympics. Terri is also very committed to Veterans issues and assisting veterans in various ways. She has presented over 100 hours in Officer Wellness programs for Police Officers (County and Municipal) within DuPage County for the DuPage Sheriff’s Office Crisis Intervention Team Training.
Terri has seen the negative effects that addiction can manifest in the families who are struggling with a loved ones who suffer with abuse. She is very passionate about assisting both the addicts as well as loved ones to find effective ways in which to deal with substance use.
Eddie Bedford
Eddie is the Naperville Township Supervisor for Du Page County. His responsibilities include the director of Township General and Emergency Assistance Fund, Township Treasurer and director of all other programs that meets the mission of township governance which includes senior services and townships ordinances.
Eddie had a significant role in the development of No Other Way (NOW); a social and physical activity program developed through the Naperville Park District for junior high youth. Eddie was also a founding member of the Diversity Parents Association (DPA), a parenting group seeking a diversified staff and curriculum in District 203. He is Past President of the Midwest District for the American Alliance of Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance. Eddie also hosted two national conferences for the Negro Leagues Committee of the Society for American Baseball Research.
Eddie’s early teaching career includes teaching K-5 Elementary Physical Education, middle and high school coaching for Naperville District 203 for 13 years. In 1989 Eddie accepted a teaching position at Eastern Michigan University and retired 23 years later from his weekly commute to Eastern Michigan. While teaching and supervising student teachers, he developed the only accredited course in the nation devoted solely to Negro League Baseball History. He is also an adjunct lecturer at North Central College.
Christopher W. Crank, PharmD, MS, BCPS
Chris Crank is the Executive Vice President of the Illinois Council of Health-System Pharmacists (ICHP), the Illinois affiliate of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. Prior to joining ICHP in August 2020, Chris held roles in clinical practice and leadership within the Rush University System for Health. He received his Doctor of Pharmacy degree at the University of Iowa and a master’s degree in Health-System Management at Rush University. In addition, he completed an Internal Medicine residency with the St. Louis College of Pharmacy, and he is a Board Certified Pharmacotherapy Specialist. Throughout Chris’ career he has worked to balance his efforts on clinical practice, pharmacy administration and operations, research, organizational involvement, and education. He has published more than 20 peer reviewed articles in the medical literature, received Preceptor of the Year awards from Purdue University and Midwestern University, and is a past recipient of the ICHP President’s Award. Chris is an advocate for the optimal use of prescription medications, increasing access to medication-assisted treatment, and overdose reversal medications.
Cheryl Ipema
Cheryl has 40 plus years of healthcare experience in both the clinical and management arenas. She currently is the Director of Clinical Integration and Quality at Rush Copley Medical Center and is an active member of the Kane County Opioid Task Force and the Kane County Behavioral Health Council. Cheryl has a vast knowledge of community and healthcare resources, which along with her team, are used to connect patients and family to post-acute services with the hopes of improving the quality of life for the individual and the health of the community.
Cliff Kalish
Cliff Kalish has over 23 years of experience in the asset management industry. He currently works for William Blair Investment Management where he joined in 2011 as Senior Client Relationship Manager. Prior to that, Cliff was a client relationship manager at Calamos Investments for six years and a research analyst at Ellwood Associates for five years. Cliff is a member of the CFA Institute and the CFA Society Chicago. He received a B.S. in consumer economics with an option in finance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Cliff resides in Naperville with his wife and four children. After losing his brother Randy, to an accidental fentanyl overdose in 2016, Cliff started fundraising in 2017 at the Naperville Half Marathon and 5K Run. Cliff did this in 2017 and 2018 for A Man in Recovery Foundation and has been fundraising for PATH since 2019.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
John Keyes
John retired after working many years in the plastics industry in 2019 after founding a manufacturing facility and spending his later years consulting in computer aided engineering and rapid product development techniques. He has also served as an operations director for a recovery facility which broadened his knowledge of the opioid crisis.
John has been a member of the recovery community in Naperville since the early 1990’s and currently serves on the executive board of Connect for Life.
Civically, John is a member of the Naperville Exchange Club and headed the logistics effort with Naperville Ribfest. He later served on Ribfest’s entertainment committee and executive committee till my retirement from the club in 2018.
Melinda (Mindy) Malecki
Melinda Malecki is a Health Law attorney with 30 years of corporate, regulatory, and risk management experience. She provides legal counsel, corporate compliance, and risk management services to physicians, safety net hospitals and nonprofit and healthcare organizations, including federally qualified health centers. She frequently functions as outsourced general counsel to nonprofit organizations.
Ms. Malecki began her career as a risk manager at Rush University Medical Center, Chicago. She became the Director of Risk Management and Legal Services at West Suburban Medical Center, Oak Park, and later became the Medical Center’s General Counsel. While working for West Suburban, Ms. Malecki managed all legal services for the Medical Center’s administration and staff. She directed all insurance purchasing and significantly reduced the Medical Center’s financial exposure due to insurance expenses. She began the private practice of law in 2000 and continues to consult in all of the foregoing areas.
Ms. Malecki has extensive experience in the area of physician representation, including sales and purchases of practices, contract negotiations and corporate disputes. Her work as a hospital attorney benefits her physician clients in dealing with such matters as medical staff issues and contractual negotiations. One of Ms. Malecki’s greatest skills is handling risk management issues for healthcare organizations. She is frequently retained to create or redesign a risk management function / program for facilities that need to pass an accreditation or are at risk of losing insurance coverage.