Allan Barsema
Founder
Community Collaboration, Inc.

Allan Barsema has more than 28 years of leadership and management experience with for profit and non-profit organizations. Barsema is the Founder and Chairman of the Carpenter’s Place outreach center in Rockford, IL, and is directly responsible for bringing together the multiple entities and talents required to conceive, design, and develop the CCI case management methodologies and tools, including the CCI 14 Areas of Life, core CCI methodologies, and the CCI Collaborative Case Management software systems.

Barsema has served on numerous community task forces and committees including the Mayor’s Task Force on Homelessness, Rockford Healthy Community Task Forces on Substance Abuse and Mental Health, United Way, Mental Health Court, Missions Commission, First Evangelical Covenant Church and the Workforce Investment Board.

Paul Logli
Chief Executive Officer
United Way of Rock River Valley

In 2008 Paul Logli took on the position as CEO of the United Way of Rock River Valley after having been actively involved with many human service and professional organizations.  He has over 30 years of legal experience serving as an assistant state's attorney, state's attorney, judge and an attorney in private practice.  He is the longest serving State's Attorney in Winnebago County history, holding the position for five terms from 1986 to 2007.  Logli also held several judicial appointments.  First, in 1981, as Associate Judge of the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit serving Winnebago and Boone Counties, and later in 2007 by appointment of the Illinois Supreme Court to the 17th Judicial Court as Circuit Judge presiding over all civil cases in Boone County.  His appointment concluded in 2008.

Logli received his Bachelor's Degree in English in 1971 from Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, and his Juris Doctorate Degree in 1974 from the University of Illinois.  He has volunteered for the Boy Scouts, Rosecrance Treatment Center, Illinois Growth Enterprises and the United Way.  Logli has been nationally recognized as a prosecutor and served as President of the National District Attorneys Association in 2005 and 2006.  Logli also previously served as President of the Illinois State's Attorneys Association and is the Past President of the Winnebago County Bar Association.  He was an instructor for the Illinois State Bar Association and served on the faculty of the National College of District Attorneys for over 20 years.  

Dennis Barsema
Chairman
Blue Lane Technologies and Community Collaboration Inc.

Dennis Barsema is Chairman of Blue Lane Technology and CCI. He was previously the president and CEO of Redback Networks, where he led the company through rapid growth and one of the most successful IPO’s in Wall Street history.

Barsema has more than 20 years of executive experience in telecommunications, software, and optical networking, and he has held senior executive positions at Onetta (acquired by Bookham Technologies), Centigram Corporation (acquired by ADC), Softswitch (acquired by Lotus Development Corporation), Primary Access (acquired by 3Com), and Paradyne Corporation (acquired by Zhone).

Barsema serves on the board of directors of several venture capital-funded companies, including Blue Lane Technologies, Stoke, and Restaurant.com. He also serves as a director on several non-profit boards, including Community Collaboration Inc., Northern Illinois University Foundation, Carpenters Place of Rockford, Illinois, and Oportunidad Microfinanzas of Mexico. He is an advisor to the non-profit micro-finance organization, Opportunity International, as well as the Schools of Business at Northern Illinois University and Santa Clara University. Barsema also teaches entrepreneurship at Northern Illinois University in the College of Business.

Larry Morrissey
Mayor
City of Rockford

Larry Morrissey was elected Mayor of Rockford on April 5, 2005 at the age of 35 as an independent candidate. Prior to becoming Mayor, Morrissey’s professional career involved practicing law in the area of civil litigation and leading his family’s urban real estate development efforts. The Mayor currently serves as a Board Member for the Rockford Area Economic Development Council, the Rockford Chamber of Commerce, and he is a CEO Member of the Workforce Investment Board. He is a Municipal Member of the Regional Transit Authority’s "Moving Beyond Congestion Initiative", the United States Council of Mayors, the National League of Cities, the Metropolitan Mayor’s Caucus, the Northern Illinois Mayor’s Association, the Midwest High Speed Rail Association, the Congress of New Urbanism (CNU), and the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC).

He is the Directing Member of both the Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council and the Mayor’s Minority Advisory Council, a Policy Committee Member of the Rockford Area Transportation Study (RATS), and the Public Director for the American Institute of Architects’ Illinois Chapter.

Morrissey’s agenda for the City of Rockford includes a strong emphasis on job creation through improving Rockford’s education system, improving public safety, and making core investments in Rockford’s infrastructure; what he refers to as the four R’s: roads, rail, fiber optic ring and riverfront development. Born and raised on Rockford’s northeast side, Morrissey graduated from the University of Notre Dame, Magna Cum Laude, in 1991, and he received his law degree Cum Laude from the University of Illinois in 1995.

Scott Christiansen
Chairman
Winnebago County Board

Scott H. Christiansen, Chairman of the Winnebago County Board, has 12 years of experience in government and politics. As a board member, he served two terms as Majority Leader and Chairman of the Executive Committee. Additionally, he served as Chairman of the Forest Preserve Executive Committee, Chairman of the Legislative Committee, and member of the Zoning and Labor Relations Committees.

Throughout his life he has been active in the community as a volunteer and as a leader.
Christiansen is the owner of Christiansen, Inc. a roofing contractor based in Rockford. He has applied his experience as a businessman to his roles as Winnebago County Board member and various church and charitable activities.

His business has involved him in the Rockford Chamber of Commerce, the Northern Illinois Building Contractors, the Association of General Contractors and the National Roofing Contractors Association. He has also served on the Home Builders Association Board of Directors. Christiansen was born and raised in Winnebago County.

Robert E. Gleeson, Ph.D.
Director of Governmental Studies
Associate Director of Regional Development Institute
Northern Illinois University

Robert Gleeson joined Northern Illinois University (NIU) in July 2003. Before moving to Northern Illinois, he served for eight years as Associate Professor of Management and Public Policy and Faculty Director of the Institute for Economic Transformation at the Graduate School of Business and at the Graduate Center for Social and Public Policy, both at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. For two of those years he was also part-time Executive Director of the Pittsburgh Robotics Initiative.

Previously, Gleeson served for seven years as the founding Executive Director of Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Economic Development, which is part of the university’s Heinz School of Public Policy and Management, and he served for two of those years as Visiting Assistant Professor of Public Policy. His most recent publication is a chapter in a book about metropolitan economic development published by the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C. Gleeson also teaches graduate-level courses in public administration and regional economic development policy as an adjunct faculty member at both NIU and Northwestern University.

Steven Burchett
President and Chief Executive Officer
Community Collaboration, Inc.

Steven Burchett has more than 25 years of diversified international and domestic experience in the Information Services Industry. He has held senior corporate positions encompassing business strategy, operations, outsourcing and managed services, sales and practice management, and program and product management. At CCI, Burchett’s responsibilities include market strategy, corporate business development, and sales and marketing, as well as overseeing all CCI business operations.

Burchett comes to CCI from Siemens Business Services, a provider of global strategic outsourcing, where he was Vice President, Midwest Region. He has a solid track record in successful start up, restructuring, and turnaround situations, including BlueStar Solutions Inc., a privately held IT outsourcer of strategic hosted applications, where he was Vice President of Strategic Accounts. As General Manager for Unisys Corporation, Burchett led all management and operational functions for Unisys’ Financial Services market sector in Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Region.