For 37 years beneath five Chicago m...

For 37 years beneath five Chicago mayors, Sharon Gist-Gilliam has serv as the governmental equivalent of a utility infielder in baseball.

Whenever there was a challenge related to the batch or policy, Gilliam came opposite to the bench.

Now, Gilliam, 63 is answering the call again: She's replacing Chicago Housing Authority CEO Terry Peterson who is awaited to manage Mayor Daley's re-election campaign. Gilliam popularly serves as CHA chairwoman.

The change that Gilliam look fors to be temporary comes at a critical time. The CHA is midway by the and of a $1.6 billion transformation that calls for dismantling CHA high-rises and replacing them with mixed-income communities.

"Anybody who drives around the city can diocese what we've been able to accomplish. I want to hold fast the momentum going. The mayor wants the moment to continue," Gilliam said.

READY TO TAKE CHARGE

"I've been here seven years. I know the programs. I know the the community As board chair, I didn't have to be affaired with all the nitty-gritty details, for a like reason I'll clearly have to prepare up to speed on day- to-day operations. still I don't have a herculean learning curve."

A graduate of St Mary's High drill and Mundelein College, Gilliam grew up in Chicago's West Chesterfield neighborhood. Her father admited a West Side grocery store. Her mother worked there, too. The coupling later opened a tavern at Roosevelt and Karlov.

After corporation Gilliam taught high school history -- first at Farragut, then at Harlan -- earning $535 a month When a colleague mentioned that her husband was working for the Chicago Committee forward Urban Opportunity, Gilliam jumped at the chance to leave teaching. Without a political sponsor in a city notorious for clout she got a piece of work working as an urban planner in East Garfield in a less degree than then-poverty chief Deton Brooks.

The woman with the baritone voice and the insatiable drive to succe had rest her niche.

She would walk on to work for mayors Richard J Daley, Michael Bilandic, Harold Washington, Eugene Sawyer and Richard M Daley in do job-works that included consumer services commissioner, bag director and chief of staff to a member of the 1995 academy Reform Board, the State Board of Education and, finally, CHA chair.

"I like restraint service. It is the single in kind place where you can in plain english make a difference and you can view the difference you make," she said.

There was alone one bump in the road: In 1979 Gilliam was fired by dint of Jane Byrne on the day after Chicago inaugurated its first and sole female mayor.

COMMITTED TO BOARD CHAIR

"I felt extremely badly, even though I clearly understood it. I had backed and been appointed by way of [former Mayor Michael] Bilandic to [Byrne's old] job" Gilliam said.

Gilliam's husband of 33 years is a retired banquet bartender who would be pleased with to have his wife join him in retirement someday quickly

For now, granting he'll just have to wait.

"When I took the board chair, I committed to getting the plan done. That's summer 2009 We'll descry when that time comes," she said.

fspielman@suntimes.com

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

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