SPOTLIGHT: Heyworth native goes international

HEYWORTH, Ill. (AP) — When June Thomas Lavelle attended Heyworth Grade School, she never imagined she would sing opera in Chicago, foster business development around the world and receive international recognition for her work.

She pioneered a way of encouraging small businesses to grow, and she credits the foundation of her achievements to simple "necessity" and her education at University High School (class of 1969).

"The basis of my thinking was formed at U High," said Lavelle, where the "distinguished alumna" talked to current students in recent weeks.

Lavelle, who lives in Poland, is president and chief consultant of Lavelle and Associates Inc., which helps foster businesses in countries such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, Kosovo and Rwanda.

"She goes into post-conflict countries and beats swords into plowshares," said her sister, Linda Thomas, who lives on the family farm in Heyworth. "I'm her biggest fan."

Sometimes Lavelle finds herself in harm's way. In 2008 in Kabul, Afghanistan, people died when the Indian embassy was bombed but her group stayed safe.

Growing up on a farm prepared her for dangers and hardships, she said, and she knows about hard work.

At the same time, she works with world leaders. She has a photo of herself and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Poland.

Thomas recently joined her sister in Burundi, an east African nation where Lavelle set up a business incubator and is working on a second.

Thomas arrived with glass jars and a pressure cooker to teach residents how to preserve food by canning. It's trickier without electricity, one of the biggest challenges in development, Lavelle said.

The sisters hope to form an ecumenical group to help further development. Lavelle hopes to find support from McLean County residents, including church groups, who might be interested.

When the sisters were kids, Lavelle said, "it was Linda's dream to go to Kenya," but she never imagined they would be in Africa together cultivating business and volunteers.

But before there was work to do in Africa and Europe, there was work in Normal. Lavelle worked at Steak 'n Shake and sang in a trio with Ellen Crawford and Karen Smith.

Crawford eventually acted in the "ER" television series. Smith is a folk musician in Pennsylvania.

For a while, Lavelle was a professional opera singer in St. Louis, then at the Lyric Opera in Chicago, making $3,000 a season. "I obviously was a mediocre opera singer," quipped Lavelle, whose University of Illinois degree is in music, not business.

In 1976, she was offered $10,000 to join a Comprehensive Employment Training Act "war on poverty" crew picking up trash in a West Chicago industrial corridor.

From there, she became director of the Industrial Council of Northwest Chicago, buying a vacant, rat-infested, four-story one-square-block factory building that she transformed into the Fulton-Carroll Center.

"It was among the first of its kind and the premier business incubator in the country," Thomas said.

The business incubator, a development model that provides rental spaces for startup businesses and technical assistance and training, became the core of Lavelle's career.

In 1984, she moved to Poland, where a World Food Bank project followed the collapse of state-owned factories. She helped start 12 business incubators at once — bouncing among them like a pinball, she said, becoming an expert in micro-enterprise and business incubation.

An Inc. magazine article dubbed her the "Mother of Invention" and in 1992, she was named National Entrepreneur of the Year as a "supporter of entrepreneurship."