50 Notable Alumni

Tom actually first came to Parkland as an elementary student enrolled in the summer College for Kids program at Parkland. However it would be after earning his Bachelor’s degree in Aviation Management at Southern Illinois University in 1992 that he came back to Parkland looking for assistance in entering the MBA program at Eastern Illinois University. The staff at Parkland helped Tom, who was working full-time, to identify undergraduate course work that he still needed. He enrolled in those courses at Parkland around his work schedule and completed his Master in Business Administration from Eastern Illinois University in 2001.

After earning his degrees, Tom was President and Founder of Tracy Real Estate 1997-2000; President and Co-Founder of Schmidt-Tracy Inc. 2000-2007; Vice President, Commercial/Correspondent Banking at Busey Bank 2000-2007; Chief Credit Officer and Senior Lender, in addition to being a member of the Board of Directors, at First Bank and Trust 2007 to 2009; and Senior Vice President and finally President and Chief Executive Officer at Farm Credit Illinois from 2009 to present.
 
Tom is a member of the University of Illinois College of ACES Advisory board; was a member of the Board of Directors of Champaign County YMCA from 2005-2009, a member of the Board of Directors of Champaign County Community Development Corp from 1995 to 1998 and served as President from 1999-2000; and is affiliated with United Way and CU Habitat for Humanity.

Tom’s most memorable moment at Parkland was “…how helpful the Parkland administrative staff were in helping me to prepare a plan to obtain an MBA. We were able to come up with a plan that met my needs working full-time and prepared me to enter the MBA program (at EIU) in a little over a year.”