Led Economic Club of Chicago to greater reach and influence
For 25 years, Grace Barry led the Economic Club of Chicago’s day-to-day leadership as the president and executive director of the influential, invite-only private business and public policy club.
Barry oversaw the staff of the club, which long has brought a variety of speakers — including eight U.S. presidents — to Chicago. During her tenure, Barry increased the reach and influence of the club, colleagues said.
“She did a spectacular job,” said Madison Dearborn Partners founder and chairman emeritus John Canning Jr., a former chairman of the Economic Club of Chicago. “She did such a fabulous job of really establishing it as ‘the’ business club in the city — the place where, (for) people who wanted to address the city — whether they were political people or corporate heads — the first place to call was the Economic Club. And she did it almost single-handedly, because she had a small office, with just three or four or five people.”
Barry, 82, died of natural causes on May 6 at her Lakeview home, said her daughter, Catherine Barry Binney. She had been battling Alzheimer’s disease for the past 12 years.
Born Grace Ann Carroll in the South Side Beverly neighborhood, Barry grew up in Beverly and was the daughter of a precinct captain. She graduated from Mother McAuley High School and earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Barat College in 1963.
After college, Barry helped form the Chicago Area Lay Movement, which was a nonprofit, nonsectarian educational assistance program formed by high school and college students desiring to volunteer their time to help underprivileged children. Barry also helped handle the media for the delegation from Chicago to Rome for the Second Vatican Council.
Barry worked on Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign until his assassination in 1968, and shortly afterward moved with her then-husband to Buffalo, where she remained active in politics and worked on George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign.
While in Buffalo, Barry began working for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and after a divorce, she returned to her native Chicago in 1980 and continued working for HUD. Barry then shifted gears and began working in Chicago as the project director for the cable TV company Cablevision Systems as it submitted a bid to provide cable TV service in Chicago. Cablevision initially was awarded the lakefront franchise, but ultimately could not finalize terms with the city.
In 1985, Barry joined City Hall as Chicago’s assistant cable commissioner. In 1986, Barry shifted gears again, signing on as the Economic Club of Chicago’s executive director. She was promoted to be the group’s president in 1998.
“She liked bringing people together for the better good of the city,” her daughter said. “The Economic Club was like a mission for my mother. It wasn’t about rubbing elbows with people or about her promoting herself, but it was about keeping the standards of the Economic Club while also growing it. She would bring together people who she felt needed to know each other to make the city a better place. She was so good at getting speakers.”
During Barry’s time running the Economic Club of Chicago, it hosted a large number of speakers whose remarks often would make the news.
A sampling of the speakers included former Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Jimmy Carter, then-President George W. Bush, thenU.S. Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, then-Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, General Motors Corp. Chairman Roger Smith, World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn, former FCC Chairman Newton Minow, Ted Turner, then-NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair, then-Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan and then-Mexican President Vicente Fox.
Barry was close friends with Mayor Richard M. Daley and his wife, Maggie. However, her reach extended far beyond Chicago’s City Hall.
“She had a vast network of connections, so she was able to bring prominent world leaders and influential CEOs to speak at the club,” said retired Jenner & Block partner Joan Hall. “Grace served as president of the Economic Club … at a time when not many Chicago institutions were led by women.”
Canning called Barry “a very gentle woman — not what you’d expect from someone in such a high-powered position.”
“She was very understated and just had a nice way about her that people wanted to be involved with her and wanted to please her, and she did it without being overbearing,” he said. “She was just the person you’d like to be around. She built a great, great club.”
Michael Krauss, co-founder of Market Strategy Group, recalled Barry’s “great concern for Chicago and Chicagoans.”
“She cared about individuals and she gave me a chance to participate as a young member of the Economic Club,” Krauss said. “I admired Grace for her strength of character, her commitment to Chicago, her caring nature and her willingness to get behind a cause.”
Barry retired from the Economic Club of Chicago in 2011.
Outside of work, Barry owned a coffee shop for two years inside a Waterstone’s bookstore at 840 N. Michigan Ave. She then teamed up with public relations executive Barbara Burrell to form a partnership, Grabur International, which from 1996 until 2003 owned 30% of a company operating 31 newsstands and gift shops at O’Hare International Airport while Waterstone’s parent, W.H. Smith, owned the other 70%. Barry sold her stake in their partnership to Burrell in 2003.
Barry also served on Chicago’s cable TV Commission in the late 1980s and early 1990s. She was a life director of the Joffrey Ballet, and she was involved in the successful effort to persuade the dance company to move from New York to Chicago in 1995.
A marriage ended in divorce. In addition to her daughter, Barry is survived by three grandchildren and a sister, Eileen Dolehide.
A service was held.