About Sandra Pihos

Sandra M. Pihos has been a resident of Glen Ellyn for over thirty years and a resident of DuPage County six years longer. She and her husband Bill are the proud parents of four children: Andria, Peter, Deanna and Michael. During her three decades in DuPage County, Sandy has been active in many facets of community and civic life; she has been a parent, teacher, resident, volunteer, child and education advocate, businesswoman and elected official.

After graduating cum laude from Mount Union College in Alliance, Ohio, and receiving her master’s degree in education from Northern Illinois University, Sandra accepted her first teaching job in Elmhurst and began exploring her passion for education in earnest. Over the next twenty-five years, she taught both elementary and middle school before becoming a high school guidance counselor. As an educator, Sandy had many unique opportunities such as teaching a self-contained learning-disabled classroom, facilitating the gifted education program at Downers Grove North High School and helping high school students to identify and achieve their goals as a guidance counselor.

Leaving her professional life as an educator behind, Sandy became Bill’s business partner when she took over as Vice-President of their newly acquired restaurant management firm in 1993. In business, Sandy focused on implementing a customer-driven management style and developing the long-term capital resources of the business. In this capacity her responsibilities ranged from planning construction and expansion projects to establishing new public relations programs.

As President of the Glenbard Township District 87 School Board and a member since 1993, Sandra made safeguarding education her number one priority. Through the end of 2002 she played a role in a variety of school initiatives: building additions to all four Glenbard buildings without any tax increase; initiating a strategic planning committee and action teams to write a new plan for the Glenbard schools in the new millennium; and negotiating the first ever four-year contract with the teachers union (GEA).

In the civic arena, Sandy helped the DuPage County Workforce Development Board become the Workforce Investment Board, transitioning from merely a job training program to becoming a solid contributor to DuPage County’s economic development. As a member of the Partnership for Educational Progress Foundation (PEP), she helped institute a grant program in 1993, playing an instrumental role in raising the funds to implement the program. These grants give educators the money to provide additional opportunities to their students above and beyond the resources of their schools.

Sandra has shown her dedication to others through her actions as a member of various community organizations and as the driving force in community-development projects. She expressed her personal dedication to education and literacy by negotiating a plan with District 89 to invest in Michael’s Place, a literacy center at Park View School, in memory of her late son Michael. This literacy program serves more than five-hundred elementary students each year. For her many years of service to the Glenbard community, the Glenbard South High School Boosters awarded her and Bill the Jerry Weinstein award. Throughout many years of dedicating her time to Glen Ellyn Infant Welfare, the Holy Apostles Women’s Organization and countless PTC and PTA meetings, Sandy has impacted the education, health and safety of her community for thirty-three years and counting.

In December 2001, Sandra declared herself a republican candidate for Illinois State representative (district 42). The incumbent, Vince Persico was retiring and the largely republican district was hotly contested, with 5 candidates running in the primary. Sandra won the republican primary election with a two-to-one margin over her nearest challenger; and went on to win the 2002 general election.