How the Illinois International Port District can make a SPLASH: Jobs, development, and innovation!

This talk will focus on the five-year strategic plan for the Illinois International Port District and how the plan is designed to bring viability back to the Port with a focus on E.R.I.C. strategies (economic and environmental, recreational, industrial, and conservation).

Clayton Harris III and the Illinois International Port District are committed to developing and maintaining a world-class port that operates as a modern, strategically driven facility and is focused on generating and expanding economic activity and employment for the benefit of the City of Chicago and State of Illinois. Clayton was formerly the Director of Government Affairs for the Midwest United States with CH2M HILL, a global engineering design/build consulting firm with over 26,000 employees and on every continent.

After earning his Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Technology and while working at the Pentagon in Combat Systems Engineering in the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization Clayton decided to attend law school full time while continuing to work full time. Once he graduated from Howard University’s School of Law he moved to Chicago to become a Cook County Assistant States’ Attorney.  Subsequent to ascending from Appeals, through traffic and narcotics to Special Prosecutions, Clayton was tapped by Mayor Richard M. Daley to help work his legislative agenda in Springfield.  There, aptly so, he focused on crime, environment and labor.

In 2006 the State of Illinois asked Clayton to be the chief of staff for the Illinois Department of Transportation. Clayton’s previous experience at the Chicago Department of Transportation and in aerospace at ARPA was the right combination for IDOT, which was in need of a visionary leader who understood Earthly transportation issues yet had the stellar ideas to manage the complexities of this particular state agency.

Based on this success Clayton was once again wooed to come work in a larger capacity, this time the Governor’s office called and placed him over all state infrastructure as the Deputy Chief of Staff where he oversaw and managed every capital agency in the state. In addition to the work that Clayton engages in professionally, academically he enjoys lecturing at the University of Chicago which he has done for the past seven years, where he teaches Process and Policy in State and local government specifically focusing on Illinois and Chicago in the school of Public Policy.

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For disability accommodations please contact Christiana Kinder, (312) 996-8700 or christia@uic.edu.

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