List of Famous people born in Illinois, United States of America
Henry Engelhardt
Henry Allan Engelhardt is an American businessman, and the founder and former chief executive of Admiral Group, a Welsh motor insurance company. He was credited as driving the company in to a position where it became one of Britain's most valuable companies and stepped down as chief executive in 2016 to make way for a younger management team to take the group forward.
William K. Reilly
William Kane Reilly was Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under President George H. W. Bush. He has served as president of World Wildlife Fund, as a founder or advisor to several business ventures, and on many boards of directors. In 2010, he was appointed by President Barack Obama co-chair of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling to investigate the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Harlan Anderson
Harlan Anderson was an American engineer and entrepreneur, best known as the co-founder of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), which later became the second largest computer company in the world. Other notable entities that Anderson has been associated with include Lincoln Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was a member of the technical staff. He served as Director of Technology for Time, Inc., where he spearheaded their evaluation of the future of the printed word during the explosion of television, long before the Internet existed.
Richard Yates
Richard Yates Jr. was the 22nd Governor of Illinois from 1901 to 1905—the first native-born governor of the state. From 1919 to 1933, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives from Illinois. Although he failed to receive his party's nomination in 1928 to the Seventy-first Congress, he was later appointed nominee and elected in place of Henry R. Rathbone who died prior to the election. In 1932, he was unsuccessful in his bid for reelection to the Seventy-third Congress.
Becky Wahlstrom
Becky Wahlstrom is an American actress. She attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in England for her college years.
Craig Rice
Craig Rice was an American writer of mystery novels and short stories, described by book critic Bill Ruehlmann as "the Dorothy Parker of detective fiction, she wrote the binge and lived the hangover."
John J. Myers
John Joseph Myers was an American prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of Peoria between 1990 and 2001, Ecclesiastical Superior of Turks and Caicos from 2001 to 2016 and Archbishop of Newark during the same period.
Eddie Schroeder
Edward "Eddie" Julius Schroeder was an American speed skater who competed at the 1932 and 1936 Winter Olympics. In 1932 he finished eighth in the 10,000 m event. Four years later he again finished eighth in the 10000 m; he also placed 12th over 1500 m and 15th over 5000 m. He was selected for the 1940 Olympic team, but the games were canceled due to World War II.
Gertrude Olmstead
Gertrude Olmstead was an American actress of the silent era. She appeared in 56 films between 1920 and 1929. Her last name was sometimes seen as Olmsted.