Trisha Rooney
Board Member
Trisha Rooney is an experienced entrepreneur and industry leader with a deep understanding of the business and community environments essential to sustainable commercial growth. Her reputation as a strategy-driven Chicago leader, generous with her time and expertise, has paralleled her company’s success.
She is a committed participant in leading organizations that are supporting the direction of her primary Chicagoland service area including serving as Chairman for the One Chicago Fund, which focuses on fundraising for privately supported city enhancements. She is also a founding member of A Better Chicago, a venture philanthropy fund.
Ms. Rooney has diverse governance experience. She is currently Chair of the Board of Directors of the Toxoplasmosis Research Institute at the University of Chicago, Director of the Illinois Governor’s Mansion Association, and Vice Chair of the Chicago Public Library Foundation. Trisha is the Chair of Denison University President’s Advisory Council. And a Board of Trustee at the Francis W. Parker school in Chicago. Previously, she was a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of Chicago Medical Center and served on the DePaul University Theatre School and DePaul College Prep; The Field Museum and the Boys and Girls Club of Chicago.
As a young professional, Ms. Rooney worked on high profile accounts in the public relations industry, including President Clinton’s campaign, but soon turned to her goal of becoming an entrepreneur.
In 1993 she discovered a real estate investment opportunity she felt offered her an opportunity to build a business. It was a warehouse in Chicago’s South Loop being rented for record storage. She approached the tenant and offered pick-up and delivery services. They became her first customer. Focused on a highly personalized service concept, she developed this embryonic proposition into a thriving, multi-faceted business she named R4 – to stand for her company’s principals: Reliable, Resourceful, Responsive and Reasonable.
Over the next two decades Ms. Rooney developed a 35-person team that has continued to evolve her needs-based, customer-focused business. This includes an innovative technology collaboration with Andrews Software to develop solutions in areas including managing multiple Trisha Rooney Board Bio authorization levels, changing security holds and other custom on-line records management issues.
Today, R4 Services has grown into an industry-leading, multi-million-dollar organization, the largest woman-owned information management services company in the Midwest. It now offers storage, vault, scanning, indexing, secure document destruction and disaster recovery. It services 800 corporate, professional services and government clients from three sites, with a combined one million cubic feet of storage capacity. In early 2015, the company acquired Monster Shred, a mobile document destruction company.
As a founding member and shareholder, Ms. Rooney was also behind the formation of the National Records Center, a consortium of industry independents which enables service to clients nationally.
Ms. Rooney serves on the Campaign Committee for Francis W. Parker School and the Women’s Boards of Lyric Opera of Chicago and The Art Institute of Chicago.
She is a member of the Economic Club of Chicago; the National Association for Information Destruction (NAID); the National Records Center; PRISM, International; and ARMA International (formerly the Association of Records Managers and Administrators).
She has been named one of “100 Women to Watch” and an “Extraordinary Woman of Admirable Deeds” by Today’s Chicago Woman.
Ms. Rooney is a frequent speaker on entrepreneurship and customer service for organizations including the Neal Gerber and Eisenberg Institute, the Paper Recycling Conference, and Denison University.
She has been featured in the Chicago Tribune, Crain’s Chicago Business, SDB Magazine, RIMPRO Report and Michigan Avenue. She is a graduate of Denison University in Ohio where she has been honored with awards for Outstanding Alumni and Exemplary Service to Chicago.