Barb moved to Sycamore in 1996 and has been very active in the community. She has served on the Sycamore Board of Education for the past eight years, has chaired the DeKalb County Transition Planning Committee for more than six years, and is one of the founders and organizers of The Penguin Project theatre troupe for children and young adults with disabilities in DeKalb County. For the past four years she has served as “Director of First Impressions” for the Siepert and Co. accounting firm in Sycamore. Prior to that, she spent four years serving as assistant to the director of the Kishwaukee United Way. She is the mother of three grown children and her husband, Joe, works in media and public relations at NIU.