December 04, 2023
Join the Chicago area’s top business, civic and government leaders this Friday, Dec. 8!
The Civic Federation is pleased to congratulate the 32nd Annual Motorola Solutions Foundation Excellence in Public Service honoree: Lanetta Haynes Turner, chief of staff to Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle.
The Excellence in Public Service Award recognizes a non-elected government official who has had an extraordinary impact on the quality of state and local government services in Illinois. Following a call for nominations earlier this year, an advisory committee comprised of business and civic leaders and past honorees unanimously chose Haynes Turner from an impressive slate of state and local government nominees. The award, which is administered by the Civic Federation, will be presented during a ceremony and breakfast on Friday, Dec. 8, 2023, at the Hilton Chicago, located at 720 S. Michigan Ave.
Haynes Turner assumed the role of chief of staff for Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle in October 2018. Beyond her day-to-day work, she is responsible for creating and spearheading the County’s historic Equity Fund and Taskforce, a unique initiative in the world of government that boldly addresses historic and continued disinvestment and inequities that negatively affect Black, Latino and other marginalized residents. She also led the establishment of the Intergovernmental Partnership (IGP), a collaboration between the City, County and State in 2021 that, among other items, represents an unprecedented effort between local governments to work with each other to strategically allocate hundreds of millions in federal funding to reduce gun violence and increase community safety in communities and municipalities hardest hit by violence.
Prior to this role, Haynes Turner served as deputy chief of staff, focusing on building the president’s policy agenda and leading the development of the office’s first comprehensive strategic plan. She also served as the executive director of the Cook County Justice Advisory Council, an office charged with advancing the president’s criminal and juvenile justice reform agenda.
Haynes Turner is a graduate of Northwestern University and Loyola University School of Law. A longtime advocate for youth due to her own childhood experiences growing up in foster care, she is committed to public service and working to improve the lives of those most marginalized. She began her career as an attorney with the City of Chicago and then as an attorney with Life Span Center for Legal Services and Advocacy, going on to serve as executive director of Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) of Cook County, which advocates on behalf of abused and neglected children in the foster care system. She later served as the inaugural executive director for Cook County Justice for Children. Haynes Turner is a 2016 Civic Leadership Academy Fellow through the University of Chicago, a 2012 Leadership Greater Chicago Alumna, recipient of the Athena International Young Professional Award and was named one of 100 Women to Watch by Today’s Chicago Woman magazine in 2012. Haynes Turner holds memberships with the Black Women Lawyers’ Association, Chicago Bar Association and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.
To RSVP to the award breakfast or request more information, please contact Molly McDonald of PJH & Associates at 312-553-2000 or visit civicfed.org/32ndAnnualPublicServiceAward.
About the Civic Federation
The Civic Federation is an independent, non-partisan government research organization that promotes efficient delivery of public services and sustainable tax policies in the Chicago region and State of Illinois. For more information, please visit the Federation’s website at civicfed.org.
About the Motorola Solutions Foundation
As the charitable and philanthropic arm of Motorola Solutions, the Motorola Solutions Foundation partners with organizations around the globe to create safer cities and equitable, thriving communities. We focus on giving back through strategic grants, employee volunteerism and other community investment initiatives. Our strategic grants program supports organizations that offer first responder programming and technology and engineering education, and align to our values of accountability, innovation, impact, diversity and inclusion. The Foundation is one of the many ways in which the company is solving for safer communities. For more information on Motorola Solutions corporate and foundation giving, visit: www.motorolasolutions.com/foundation.