Innovators

Bob Galvin attended Evanston Township High School and led Motorola from 1959 into the cellphone age. A look at his career, Six Sigma and management approach.

Northwestern’s Samuel Stupp builds nanofibers that self-assemble inside the body. His regenerative medicine research and the startup built on it.

William Deering built a harvester empire, moved to Evanston and became one of Northwestern University’s most important benefactors. Here is his story.

Adrian Smith spent his early childhood in Evanston and went on to design the Burj Khalifa. His career and the wind-taming ideas behind supertall towers.

A profile of Whitney Wolfe Herd, who founded Bumble, took the company public in 2021 at age 31 and returned as its chief executive in March 2025.

Chicago folk singer Steve Goodman, who wrote City of New Orleans and Go, Cubs, Go, was a fixture at Evanston’s Amazingrace coffeehouse in the 1970s.

Alice Riley, author of the lullaby Slumber Boat, is credited with founding the Evanston Art Center in 1929 with help from some 20 local civic organizations.

Evanston-born Robert Slimbach has designed Minion, Adobe Garamond and Arno since 1987. A look at how type design works as both a craft and a software product.

Evanston-born cartoonist Gahan Wilson spent decades in The New Yorker and Playboy. See how Punch and monster movies shaped his dark, funny style.

A neutral profile of Jimmy Donaldson, known as MrBeast: his YouTube growth, Feastables snacks, Beast Philanthropy and the Prime Video series Beast Games.

Lorraine H. Morton taught in Evanston for decades, then became its first Black mayor and led the city from 1993 to 2009, the longest tenure in its history.

Hecky Powell opened Hecky’s Barbecue in Evanston in 1983 and spent decades on youth jobs, scholarships and civic work. A look at his business and legacy.