Illinois Tollway highlights internship and mentoring gains in executive director's report

Executive Director Cassandra Fasano told the Illinois Tollway Board on Jan. 28, 2025, that the agency marked progress on mentoring and internships in 2024 and is preparing a 2025 internship recruitment. Fasano said January is National Mentoring Month and highlighted statistics showing last year's internship and mentoring activity.

Fasano said the Tollway hosted 31 student interns across 13 departments in 2024 and 32 employees served as mentors. After the summer program, 17 interns were extended into the fall and 13 of those remained with the agency, she said. Fasano said the 2025 internship search will launch in March.

She also described the agency's Partnering for Growth mentoring program for construction and engineering firms, saying more than 260 mentoring agreements have been executed since the program's launch. Fasano said the Jan. 28 board agenda included contracts for five mentoring agreements, including one described as a "diverse agreement where the sub consultant is serving as a mentor, supporting the prime consultant." She said the agency established 20 new mentoring agreements in 2024.

Fasano closed by thanking the board for supporting mentoring and saying the program helps small and diverse firms remain competitive. The board did not take a separate vote on the information Fasano presented; the mentoring agreements referenced were included among contracts listed on the agenda.

Ending: Fasano said the Tollway will begin recruiting for the 2025 internship program in March; specific dates and candidate counts were not provided on the record.