Profiles

This month we highlight the distinguished career of a bright young man from our community, Michael E. Matarazzo, a dynamic professional in the financial field. Michael has a wealth of educational and professional experience, presently serving as a Regional Vice President of Nationwide Financial. No small feat for such a young person. In this capacity, he manages the distribution of Nationwide Mutual Funds to all the major investment banks and broker dealers in Chicago. He consults and partners with financial advisors on asset allocation, security selection and financial planning concerns. Michael has been recognized in his field, an example of …

This month we highlight the distinguished career of highly respected academic leader, John P. Pelissero. John P. Pelissero, Ph.D., became interim president at Loyola University Chicago on July 1, having previously served as provost. He is also a political science professor at Loyola, where he has been a member of the faculty for 30 years. He joined Loyola’s Department of Political Science as an assistant professor in 1985, was promoted to associate professor in 1988, and then to professor in 1993. He served as chairperson of the Department of Political Science from 1999 to 2002. Dr. Pelissero’s university leadership roles …

At a time when too many comics try to wow an audience through rapid-fire delivery, Chicago comic Jimmy Carrane has honed the slow burn, winning audiences with sly subtlety, and leaving them in stitches. Then again, Carrane had to figure something out as a kid. The son of a Calabrese father and a half-Calabrese, half-Irish mother, Carrane was one of five siblings vying to take center stage. “It was a very boisterous loud Italian family, and the thing is we loved to laugh,” he recalls. “They had so many kids we were kind of neglected, but making them laugh was …

This month we highlight the distinguished career of prominent lawyer, litigator and government leader James P. Montana. Montana’s father, James Sr., was also a lawyer, highly respected attorney and community leader, truly beloved and well known and a moving force for decades in the successful growth of the 97-year-old Justinian Society of Lawyers. Of his dad, Jim says, “He had a neighborhood office and one downtown. He mostly represented individual clients. He did a good job for them. That influenced me the most about becoming a lawyer.” One of the things that makes him most proud is when he walks …

If you think it’s a long way from the Chicago to the South Pacific, then you haven’t watched Lawrence E. DiStasi making magic on stage. And magic isn’t too strong a word: As a founding member of Lookingglass Theatre, DiStasi helped conjure from thin air a theater company that has become a Chicago gem. And it’s with that troupe that he took to the stage as Long John Silver. To pirate from Shakespeare, it was a question of to argh, or not to argh. Here’s why: For the production, which ran through Jan. 31, DiStasi did his digging to find out whether …

            Umberto Davi of Willowbrook, a principal in the Western Springs Law Firm of Umberto S. Davi P.C., was installed as president of the Illinois State Bar Association at the organization’s 139th Annual Meeting on June 19 at the Grand Geneva Resort in Lake Geneva, Wis. “Umberto is not only a lawyer’s lawyer, he is a gentleman’s gentleman,” Illinois Supreme Court Justice Thomas Kilbride stated as he swore Davi in as president. “He brings to the presidency a classic combination of leadership, professionalism, humor, compassion, and the heart and soul of a hardworking small law …

Dr. Victoria Ursitti of Arlington Heights was recently elected to the Board of Trustees of the Illinois State Dental Society, a professional association of over 7,000 members. She was installed into office at the Society’s Annual Session at the Westin Chicago North Shore in Wheeling. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Dr. Ursitti received her Bachelor’s Degree from Cornell University in Nutritional Sciences and then earned her Doctorate of Dental Medicine from Tufts University in Boston. She spent two years in New York City practicing General Dentistry at Cornell University-New York Hospital before completing her advanced specialty training in Pediatric Dentistry …

This month we highlight the distinguished career of Raymond E. Rossi, highly respected judge of the Twelfth Circuit Court (Subcircuit Number 5) in Joliet. He was elected in 2010 and his current term expires in 2016. Judge Rossi has had a distinguished career as a Village President (1993-2005), Chairperson of the South Suburban Tollway Authority (1995-2003, and Executive Committee member of the Chicago Area Transportation Council (2001-2005) and a plethora of other appointed and elected prominent positions in the community and local government. He is a dedicated community leader, someone who wears his Italian ethnicity on his sleeve, and a …

This month we highlight the career of David T. Arena, one of the brighter lights in the Illinois legal community, a respected and highly successful litigator, and a partner in the influential and impacting firm of DiMonte & Lizak. Jesuit educated, David T. Arena received his undergraduate degree from Loyola University Chicago, concentrating in political science and graduated with honors in 1993. While in college, an obvious precursor to his accomplishments as a lawyer, he was involved in the Lakeshore Student Government Association, was a member of Phi Sigma Alpha National Honor Society, a recipient of a Presidential Scholarship, and …

  Italian Americans have many reasons to celebrate the enclaves that nurtured immigrants and changed families: Taylor Street, 24th & Oakley, Little Sicily on the Near North Side and Melrose Park are just a few that come to mind. On the Far South Side, Roseland became a bustling center for Italian life and culture. One man has taken on the laudable task of keeping Roseland’s memories and magnificence alive: C.J. Martello. Arguably, Martello knows Roseland and the adjoining Pullman and Kensington neighborhoods better than anyone. He was married at St. Anthony Italian Catholic Church in 1972, and has steeped himself …