Avis LaVelle
Commissioner
Avis LaVelle, President of A. LaVelle Consulting Services LLC., is widely recognized for her strategic expertise and skills as a coalition-builder. She has extensive crisis management, communications, government relations and community relations experience in the private and non-profit sectors.
Since founding A. LaVelle Consulting Services in 2003, Ms. LaVelle has provided clients with the benefit of her extensive experience. She has more than a dozen years' experience as a senior political reporter in Chicago, one of the nation's largest media markets. Ms. LaVelle also was the Press Secretary for Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and the 1992 Clinton-Gore Presidential Campaign as well as served as an Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under Secretary Donna E. Shalala.
As a senior level executive in the private sector, Ms. LaVelle was responsible for communications, community and media relations and advocacy for major marketing initiatives, health care funding advocacy, and community relations.
Ms. LaVelle is an active participant in various community and civic organizations. Currently she is the League President for Hyde Park-Kenwood Legends Baseball as well as serves on the board for After School Matters Foundation and the Resource Committee for the Metropolitan Planning Council. Ms. LaVelle served six years on the Chicago Cable Television Commission. She also served seven years on the Chicago Schools Reform Board of Trustees, five as Vice President, providing strategic communications consulting to guide CPS through major policy shifts on such potentially controversial issues as busing, school closings, and the end to social promotion.
Ms. LaVelle holds a master's degree in Business Administration from the Keller School of Management and bachelor's degree in Communications from the University of Illinois, Urbana. She and her husband, Osekre, reside in the Hyde Park neighborhood with their son Robert.