Teresa LeGrair '99 Serves as President and CEO of the Akron Urban League

“I was never the girl who dreamed about getting married and having babies, I always dreamed about being a business woman. I insisted to my mother that I have a bookbag for kindergarten, and my bookbag had to look like a briefcase,” said LeGrair. “She found one and put a little piece of paper and a sharpened pencil in it. I was in kindergarten after all, so what was there really to carry in it? I remember walking to school with that bag and imagining that I was actually going to work.” 

As she entered the professional sphere that same attitude remained with LeGrair, although, as is common, the day-to-day interruptions of life often required her to re-strategize her goals. 

“I always wanted to go to college as a personal goal of mine.  I started that journey but I got married young, and in two years I had my first child. From then on there was a pattern of start school, have a child, then take a break; not to mention the difficulty of going to school while also raising children,” she said. “After I had my third child I knew if I didn’t go to school this time, 17 years out of high school with three kids, I wasn’t going to do it.”

Despite the difficulty in making a college education work with her schedule, LeGrair was still the same woman who, as a little girl, proudly carried a briefcase into kindergarten. She knew she just had to find the right path. 

“Malone provided an opportunity that I knew had a start and end date. I always say that anybody can press-on for a period of time. I knew Malone’s program would give me an opportunity to learn and get back into an academic environment while leaving with a degree,” she said. “It was a blessing that Malone had a program formatted in that way, and I was a poster child for it, working full time and married with children. I was living a good life, but I still had an educational goal that I had not achieved, and Malone allowed me to complete that goal.”

Just before coming to Malone, LeGrair left her job at Aetna Health Services where she had worked for 17 years. After climbing the ranks in that company, starting from entry-level clerical work, LeGrair took the leap because she knew a Malone degree would equip her for the future she envisioned for herself. 

“As I left my job at Aetna, I knew that having the degree would be a springboard for staying on my career path and moving into other leadership roles. The degree provides additional credibility no matter how much work experience one has,” she said. “The program allowed me to delve into the areas of study that I was interested in immediately. By the end of the program, I had pride in my accomplishments and my work. Bit by bit, I could look back and see all the work that I had done in a giant binder that we all accumulated over our coursework. At times, I still refer back to that binder for things that I’ve learned. I knew at that point in my life my career was in the business field, and that program was exactly what I needed.”

With her degree in Business Management completed, LeGrair began a professional journey in which she would excel at the highest level in numerous organizations. A key to this success was a high standard of excellence for herself, as well as the cultivation of an invaluable network. 

“I’ve always protected my reputation, walked in a place of integrity, and wherever I’ve worked I’ve done my best and demonstrated my skills. What started to happen frequently was when I wasn’t in a room my name still came up, and people would say ‘Teresa will know what to do, call her.’ So many people tell their executives about me, and I’m grateful for that and I don’t take it lightly,” she said. “Fortunately I always saw the value in a  professional network, even if I didn’t understand how much it would really help me down the road. Over many years my network came back in a positive way; I have only ever had to apply for one job.”

And LeGrair has definitely saved time filling out applications. She began her executive career as Executive Director of Human Resources at The Akron Inventors Hall of Fame before becoming Vice President of Operations at The Akron Urban League. She then became Vice President of The Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank, and was then pursued by an executive search firm to eventually become the Chief Executive of The Boys and Girls Club of the Western Reserve. 

“I made the decision to move on from the Boys and Girls Club, and once word got out that I was leaving the phone started ringing. I got a call from the CEO of the Akron Community Foundation, and ultimately four months down the road I joined that organization as a Program Officer before being promoted to Director of Community Investment,” said LeGrair. “That was my first time on the philanthropy side of things, which I enjoyed because it was a completely different perspective from my previous work.”

LeGrair however found that this type of work wasn’t giving her what she had come to learn as ideal job conditions.

“I know what my brain needs, which is a high level of stimulation to be fulfilled at a job. That position was low stress, and it wasn’t the right fit for me,” she said. “Again, once people knew I was leaving I began to be contacted. I was approached by a lot of people at The Akron Urban League. I never thought I would return to run the organization, but when the opening came this time there was a peace about it that I had, and I knew that this was the time that I was supposed to go into this role.”

LeGrair has served as the President and CEO of The Akron Urban League ever since; a position that she knows is of utmost importance.

“We have to work from a standard of excellence. I always tell my team that if they ever think we’re doing too much or that it doesn’t take all this work, I can confidently say that it does. We have too many people counting on us and too much at stake for us to fail,” she said. “Our focus is to remove barriers and create opportunities for our residents in all of Summit County. Our logo is an equal sign, and that represents equality and inclusion. We address issues around bigotry, racism, white supremacy, biases; all of those things that have unfortunately existed for centuries. We work in the area of workforce development, training, resume writing, interview preparation, and with hundreds of small minority and women owned businesses. Our primary focus is always going to be the African-American population as we address barriers and open doors for people on the road to self-sufficiency.”

And while there is a focus on the day-to-day well-being of Summit county citizens, the organization also makes big-picture efforts. 

“We are also at the table around advocacy concerning legislation and laws being proposed that would be detrimental to the black and brown community. Those are things we focus on 24/7 because there is still disparity and racism is alive and well,” said LeGrair. “It’s hard work, but rewarding. It's a fight we’ve got to keep fighting.”

While much of LeGrair’s success can be attributed to her hard work, self-standard of excellence, and years of cultivating her professional network, she still views her time at Malone as crucial. 

“The academics were just what I needed because what I was learning I absolutely knew I would be using again. Having that curriculum be directly related to what I knew I wanted to do professionally mattered a lot to me,” she said. “Even though I haven’t necessarily attended Malone’s events, I read a lot of the publications that Malone puts out. I love that Malone is a faith based school, and I like to see other students succeeding. I’ve kept up with Malone because I feel like it's a part of my journey, my family, and it feels familiar. I have nothing but good thoughts about what my journey was at Malone.”

Looking back, even though her path was not the most traditional, LeGrair is thankful for the journey.

“There are times I wish I had a more traditional journey, but my life was different. I don’t regret it at all. It was tough, but it was my journey. Malone having that program was a blessing to me because it allowed me to get there in spite of everything else I had to deal with in my life. I felt celebrated at the end of it all; Malone made me feel legitimate and acknowledged that I had worked extremely hard to get that degree. It’s a rewarding feeling to be a part of the Malone family.”