I’m Mark Steen and I’ve been an active member of Wilmette’s community for over 17 years.

I have three children who were educated in the District 39 schools, two of whom have graduated from New Trier and one of whom is currently a junior there. My wife has taught Wilmette’s german language learners at New Trier for well over a decade. And I’ve been working to strengthen Wilmette’s community in a variety of ways for nearly two decades.

I served on Wilmette’s District 39 school board for eight years. I was selected by my fellow Board members to serve as Vice President for a year and President for two years. I also served on the Finance Committee, was a Board representative for multiple union contract negotiations, helped to create and then served on the Strategy Committee, and was a Board representative on the COVID community advisory committee.

I’ve also worked for Wilmette in less formal ways, including as a member of the D39 Educational Foundation, on behalf of D39 and New Trier High School referenda, as of member of the New Trier Board of Education Caucus, and recruiting and supporting a number of candidates in local school board races.

My professional background is rooted in fact-based research, including extensive experience in finance and business. I hold a Ph.D. in physics and have been designated a Chartered Financial Analyst. I’ve spent my career at McKinsey & Company, Citadel Asset Management, as a standalone corporate strategy consultant, and as an executive for Corning Incorporated, a global, Fortune 500 manufacturer. I am currently the Vice President for Sustainability and Climate Initiatives for Corning.

Why I’m running: strengthening our community

Wilmette is a well-run Village and an attractive place to live. I am running to be able to better apply my experience and ability to ensuring Wilmette’s continuous improvement: maintaining our strong financial position; reinforcing and improving the infrastructure we all benefit from; and, especially, strengthening the sense of community that makes Wilmette distinctive.

My work on Wall Street as a financial analyst and my years advising Fortune 500 companies provide me with an ability to both distill critical details from dense financial reports and maintain a view of the overall financial health. Wilmette’s current financial position is good, but we have multiple, expensive infrastructure needs: a modernized police station, the replacement of lead water service lines, additional maintenance of our water treatment and delivery systems, and returning our streets and roads to their historical standard of quality. My financial expertise will help us chart a course to improve those assets while remaining within the bounds of a sensible budget.

But Wilmette is more than its infrastructure - it’s a distinctive sense of community. It’s a pack of 5th graders riding their bikes together to Highcrest; running into old friends at the coffee shops downtown; watching light-sabre “battles” at the Third of July; taking the family to Taste of Wilmette; strolling along tree-lined streets. The Village Board contributes to each of these common experiences that make living in Wilmette what it is. And Wilmette has created a strong comprehensive plan to further these experiences, with clear areas of focus from sustainability, to business & commerce, to community character to land use. My years of experience in corporate strategy and overseeing our public schools have trained me to dig into the details without losing track of the goals.

There are multiple good candidates for Village Board this year - and you can choose any three of them. I hope, whichever candidates you choose, that my distinctive experience, demonstrated public interest, track record of accomplishment, and dedication to strengthening our community will earn me, Mark Steen, your vote on April 1st.

A track record of positive impact for Wilmette

Together with my colleagues over eight years on D39 boards, we:

  • negotiated a fair and much more economically sustainable change in the way that union contracts worked; 

  • created the KEEP39 Kindergarten enrichment program; 

  • adopted new, growth-oriented metrics to track educational effectiveness; 

  • weathered the challenges of the COVID pandemic; 

  • when faced with intolerant behavior towards religious and other minorities, formally declared a policy of inclusion; 

  • upgraded each of the school buildings including a new science wing in the junior high, new library/multimedia learning centers in every school, and sufficient air conditioning in every school to end heat-related closures;

  • moved the district from requiring a tax-raising referendum to maintain its K-4 art and language programs to a financially sound organization that does not anticipate another referendum anytime in its future; and

  • performed one of the most consequential actions any Board can: searching for and hiring a new superintendent who has continued D39’s history of excellence and improvement for nearly six years.