Illinois e-News Release

Beverly Potts will continue to serve as a Member of the Capital Development Board.* Potts is a third-generation licensed plumber who began her career as an apprentice and then worked as a journeyman and contractor. Potts has served as Executive Director of both the Illinois and Bloomington-Normal Plumbing Heating Cooling Contractors Association for well over 20 years. She is actively involved with many construction and plumbing industry organizations, as well as in her community. Potts currently serves as a member of the Illinois Plumbing Code Advisory Council, and previously served as a member of the Governor’s Small Business Council, the Illinois Lead Poisoning Elimination Board, and Statewide Building Code Task Force.

Shaneal Clayborne will serve as a Member of the Energy Workforce Advisory Council.* Clayborne currently serves as the Director of Economic and Community Development for the City of East St Louis. Within her role, she creates and manages a wide array of economic development initiatives while also coordinating grant and community programs and nurturing strong relationships across local levels of government. Prior to her work as Director, she served as the Community Development Block Grant Project and Program Manager. As Manager, she prepared and managed $16M in HUD contracts for 46 municipalities, including monitoring expenditures and payments, and ensuring federal procurement processes were followed. In working with the City of East St Louis, she has worked in close partnership with City Managers to set priorities as well as with the Council to ensure full understanding of the City’s comprehensive plan. Clayborne received a Bachelor of Science in Marketing and Communications from Milikin University, a Master of Arts in Education from Lindenwood University, a Master of Arts in Communications Management from Webster University, and an Executive Level Certification from Harvard University in the field of Public Policy.

Eric Echevarria will serve as a Member of the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority.* Echevarria has over thirty years of military and law enforcement experience, and he currently serves as the Chief of Police in Peoria. He is involved with the International Association of Chiefs of Police, the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police, and the Police Executive Research Forum. Echevarria served as a Corporal for the United States Marine Corps. He is a former Commander for the Elgin Police Department, and he has extensive experience as a Resident Officer, in addition to having extensive work experience with Major Investigations, Juvenile Investigations, Gang Unit, Drug Unit, Technical Investigations, Recruitment and more. Echevarria received an Associate of Arts from Benedictine University, a Bachelor of Arts from Northeastern Illinois University, and a Master of Public Administration from Northern Illinois University.

Stephani Becker will serve as a Member of the Illinois Health Benefits Exchange Advisory Committee.* Becker is the Associate Director of Healthcare Justice at the Shriver Center on Poverty Law, a racial and economic justice organization. There, she conducts policy research, advocacy, data analysis and trainings on a range of health care affordability and accessibility issues. Becker’s career has focused on health coverage access and health equity for consumers, particularly low-income populations, immigrants and communities of color. She began her health policy work in Illinois at Health & Disability Advocates where she researched coverage options for the uninsured and ran a digital information hub on health reform. Her work since then has focused on the successful implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In affiliation with the University of Illinois at Chicago, Becker helped develop the initial curriculum and conduct training for the first round of certified ACA navigators in Illinois; she currently manages an online technical assistance hub for enrollment assisters and a coalition of consumer health advocates. Throughout her career, Becker has provided testimony on the importance of strong consumer protections in state and federal insurance law. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Duke University and a Master of Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Lila Valinoti will serve as a Member of the Illinois Health Benefits Exchange Advisory Committee.* Valinoti has over thirty years of health care policy experience and has been recognized for her leadership in the field. She currently serves as the Assistant Vice President of Health Policy and Education for the Illinois State Medical Society. Within this role she has helped inform and shape organizational and advocacy strategies by analyzing state and federal health policies. Valinoti also has experience in socioeconomic policy development as a Senior Policy Analyst with the American Medical Association as she led consensus-based efforts to establish national policy positions on physician payment, health insurance benefit designs, and healthcare costs. Valinoti received a Bachelor of Arts from Kenyon College and a Master of Public Policy from the University of Michigan.

Raychel Wesley will serve as a Commissioner on the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission.* Wesley currently serves as an Arbitrator on the Commission having been originally appointed by the Governor in 2020. Prior to her appointment, she was a Staff Attorney at Prairie State Legal Services. Wesley also presented in racial awareness forums and co-chaired the Racial Justice Initiative at PSLS. Following her graduation from law school, she worked at various firms in Joliet and was a solo practitioner for a time. In those firms, she also functioned as an Arbitrator in the Will County Mandatory Arbitration Program, as a mediator in Will County and surrounding counties, and as a court appointed guardian ad litem. Wesley is a founding member of the Black Bar Association of Will County. She is a present or past member of the Will County Bar Association, an integrating member of the over 100-year-old LaSalle County Bar Association, Will County Women’s Bar Association, National Hook Up of Black Women, City of Joliet Community Relations Advisory Board, and the Workers’ Compensation Lawyers Association. Wesley received her Bachelor degree and Juris Doctor from DePaul University.

Esther Sciammarella will continue to serve as a Member of the State Board of Health.* Sciammarella has over thirty-five years of clinical health care in Argentina and the United States. She currently serves as the Executive Director of the Chicago Hispanic Health Coalition, where she leads the mission to improve the health and social well-being of Hispanics/Latinos and new immigrant populations immigrating/settling to/in Chicago. She also currently is a Research Education Community Affairs Specialist with Pilsen Family Health Center and a visiting research associate with the Institute for Minority Health Research with UIUC. Sciammarella is co-chair of the Hispanic Community Health Study (HCHS) of Study of Latinos (SOL) Community Advisory Committee (CAC) at Northwestern University and University of Illinois at Chicago. Sciammarella received a Bachelor of Science from the University of Buenos Aires, Master of Science from Illinois Institute of Technology, and was a Hispanic Health Fellow with the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.