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Illinois REALTORS® continued its quest to provide better service to its members when it announced the addition of four new staff members this week: Nora Gruenberg, Katherine Bezares, Samantha Click and Michael Hoerner.
The hires strengthen the depth of the Marketing and Communications and the Governmental Affairs departments and build on the reorganization of those areas that began more than a year ago.
Gruenberg, Governmental Affairs Director, has a career path including communications, higher education, nonprofits, government and electoral politics. As a political consultant, she has worked on municipal, countywide and state legislative campaigns, developing fundraising, communications and field operations strategies. Also, she has served as staff for state House and Senate members and has sat on various boards of directors. She graduated from DePaul University and received her Master’s in Education from St. Xavier University.
Bezares, Governmental Affairs Director, previously served as a political consultant at Leadership for Educational Equity, recruiting candidates to run for office and providing campaign support to multiple campaigns across the country. Her former roles include project manager for a nationally recognized political and strategic messaging consultancy, community outreach director for multiple Chicago-based organizations, campaign manager, field director and LatinX political organizing director for local, state and federal political campaigns.
Click, Graphics & Design Specialist, previously worked at Northern Illinois University’s Digital Convergency Lab as a graphic designer and illustrator. She provided instruction for video game development workshops, Esports bootcamps, STEM workshops and STEM festivals. During her time as a packaging designer at CIULLA ASSOC in Chicago, she helped develop brand manifestos for major clients, including Colgate, Nonni’s, Persil and PetAg. Click graduated from Northern Illinois University.
Hoerner, Website Manager, previously served as the Digital Media Production and Web Design Specialist for the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois, managing nearly 50 websites for the diocese and multiple parishes and schools. He also served as their in-house video producer and editor/producer of their bi-weekly podcast. In his spare time, he and his wife, Jennifer, are very active in their son Nathan’s high school football program and, starting in the spring of 2022, can be found attempting to break into the competitive barbecue scene.
In June 2020, Illinois REALTORS® announced the first step in the restructure of the Marketing and Communications Department, hiring Anthony Hebron as Vice President of Marketing and Communications, then following that up in November 2020 by promoting several experienced staff members into leadership positions. and soon after adding Jeremy Goeckner as Video Content Specialist.
Also in November, the Governmental Affairs Department announced several noteworthy promotions, and followed that up in September with the promotion of Gideon Blustein to Senior Director of Local Government and External Affairs.
