FEATURE STORY — Sept./Oct. 2006

2006 Lou Liay Spirit Award Recipient

First Responder

Deborah Venable

When UIC needs a helping hand, it can count on alumna Deborah Venable

by Elyse Umlauf-Garneau

When the University calls, I respond,” says Deborah Venable ’93 BFA, MBA’97. That mindset helps explain why Venable is this year’s Lou Liay Spirit Award recipient.

Venable credits UIC with helping her mature quickly, develop marketable skills, strengthen her work ethic and build lifelong friendships. UIC also enabled Venable to meet her future husband, Scott mba ’98, when the two were pursuing their MBAs.

As an undergraduate, “I was surrounded by students juggling 8 million things, and most were dead serious about getting an education,” recalls Venable. “It was hugely important to me to be among such good influences.”

Another good influence was a two-year internship Venable served during her junior and senior years at Herbst LaZar Bell Inc., a Chicago-based product design firm. Venable credits that internship experience with giving her some of the confidence and skills she needed to acquire her own business, ExSel Exhibits Inc. (which does business as Nimlok Chicago), a Niles-based company that specializes in design, construction and management of trade show exhibits.

“Deb epitomizes what this award is about,” says Sheryl Coon, former UIAA associate director and Venable’s friend during her undergraduate years. “She has a love and passion for UIC and wants to make it a better place.”

Venable is a believer of “pay it forward”—the notion inspired by the movie and book of the same name in which an individual does a good deed and is repaid by the recipient when he or she does good deeds for others. “I get a high off giving back,” she says of her UIC commitment. It’s rude not to give back to those who helped me get where I am today.”

This summer, for instance, Venable received a mailer calling for alumni volunteers on UIC’s student move-in day. Despite having three kids (including a newborn) and a hectic career, Venable marked the day on her calendar. Her plan is to schlep boxes, soothe nervous parents and tell arriving students, “You have the world at your fingertips if you’re willing to take advantage of it,” she says.

Since graduation, Venable has worked to expand that world for UIC students. As president of the College of Business Administration’s Business Administration Alumni, she helped persuade more alumni to commit their time, money and knowledge to UIC. Rather than using a direct-mail campaign, Venable and committee members reached out to alumni personally through phone calls. Their aim was to expand BAA, increase mentoring and internship opportunities, and diversify membership to include alumni from a greater variety of businesses.

Venable’s other accomplishments include her induction into the Chicago Area Entrepreneurship Hall of Fame, and membership in the Young Presidents Organization and the National Association of Women Business Owners.

Her commitment to UIC isn’t all business, however. She cheers on the UIC Flames at basketball games, and she and her husband served as torchbearers for the Lighting of the Flame ceremony in 2003. (Torchbearers—distinguished members of the UIC community who exemplify extraordinary interest in and loyalty to UIC—carry a symbolic torch onto the UIC Pavilion floor and light a cauldron while the school song is sung.)

Thanks to Venable, the UIC Pavilion features a plaque, designed and donated by her company, which names and honors all torchbearers. Each year, her company updates the plaque with names of the latest torchbearers. “It’s a neat experience for people,” she says. UIC

Lou Liay Spirit
Established in 1997, this award is named after Lou Liay, executive director of the University of Illinois Alumni Association from 1983 to 1998. It is bestowed upon University of Illinois alumni who have consistently demonstrated extraordinary loyalty, commitment, dedication and service to UIAA and/or its constituent and affiliated groups, and whose name and achievements have become synonymous with their alma mater.