CHICAGO - Former Cook County chief financial officer and well-known Illinois lawmaker Henry Woods "Woody" Bowman died July 10 in a car crash.
Bowman, a Democrat who represented the north side of Chicago and the city of Evanston, was a high-profile public figure in state and local politics for years. In addition to being the Cook County finance chief in the early 1990s and a state Representative, Bowman was a college professor who taught economics at DePaul University's School of Public Service.
Bowman, 74, was killed in a car crash July 10 in southwest Michigan. He and his wife, Michele Thompson, were rear-ended by a semi while driving on I-94. His wife suffered serious injuries and remains hospitalized. The couple was driving to Detroit to see an exhibit at the Detroit Institute of Arts, according to a local press report. Bowman had also visited the museum in recent years while Detroit was in bankruptcy and the collection was under threat of being sold.
"Woody was a fixture in Illinois politics and government for decades," said current county President Toni Preckwinkle in a statement. "He served with integrity in the state House of Representatives and later, as the county's chief financial officer," she said. "Even after he left that position, he remained committed to Cook County, serving most recently as a member of my task force on unincorporated areas."
Bowman was born in Charleston, W. Va. in 1942. He earned a degree in physics and economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1963 and a masters of public administration and a Ph.D in economics from Syracuse University in the late 1960s.
Bowman then came to Chicago to work as a research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank. He taught economics at the University of Illinois at Chicago and was elected to the Illinois House in 1976. He served in the House until 1990 and as chairman of the House Appropriations Committee for seven years. After mounting an unsuccessful bid to become state comptroller, Bowman moved to Cook County, where then-President Richard Phelan appointed him as chief financial officer in 1991. He held the post until 1994.
He became an assistant economics professor at DePaul in 1995.
"Woods was a wonk, but he was also a soft-spoken, gentle human being," Rich Miller, who writes the influential Capitol Fax newsletter, wrote on his blog. "He was truly an exemplary public servant - the kind we need so much more of, but the sort of modest person who never gets a statue or plaque erected on his behalf."
