October 30, 2023
On Friday, Dec. 8, the Civic Federation will honor Lanetta Haynes Turner, chief of staff in the Office of Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, with the 32nd Annual Motorola Solutions Foundation Excellence in Public Service Award, presented and administered by the Civic Federation.
The award annually honors a non-elected government official who has had an extraordinary impact on the quality of state and local government services in Illinois. The award seeks to recognize individuals who show dedication to a vision of quality management, leadership and innovation that leads to lasting achievements and more effective government.
The 2023 celebration will be held at the Hilton Chicago, 720 S. Michigan Ave., in downtown Chicago. The in-person event will kick off at 8 a.m. with a networking reception, followed by the award program and breakfast at 8:30 a.m.
Following a call for nominations earlier this year, an Advisory Committee comprising business and civic leaders and past honorees unanimously chose Haynes Turner from this year’s slate of most impressive nominees of state and local government leaders.
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 Alumni, 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.
The Excellence in Public Service Award was originally established in 1990, when executives at Motorola recognized the need to identify and promote the exemplary work of public servants across the State of Illinois, whose hard work is so often under-acknowledged. The award, now in its 32nd year, has been entirely overseen, presented and administered by the Civic Federation, with the generous support of the Motorola Solutions Foundation, since 2008.
For more information on this year’s program or to register to participate, please visit civicfed.org/32ndAnnualPublicServiceAward.