Ian K. Linnabary, 34

By Elizabeth Davies

Whether he’s racing on a mountain bike, running along the Rock River or drafting letters in his law office, there’s one constant about Ian Linnabary: He’s giving 110 percent.

This Lake Summerset native simply doesn’t knowhowto do something halfway. It’s whatmakes hima fierce triathlete, and how he managed to make partner in his law firmjust four years out of school.

“I work hard and invest myself in whatever I’m doing. I try to listen to others,” the 34-year-old said. “Those qualities will get you far in any business.”

Craig Thomas, one of Linnabary’s law partners at Reno and Zahm, said it was evident early on that this young lawyer would stand out from his peers.

“For as long as I have known Ian, his self-confidence, desire to succeed and willingness to work hard made it very evident that he would be a leader whom otherswouldwant to follow,”Thomas said.

Most of Linnabary’s practice focuses on commercial law, an area he says is a perfect fit.

“I like the type of law I practice because it’s complex and challenging,” Linnabary says. “It’s by and large ‘happy’ law: I deal with businesses that are buying new businesses or expanding the business. I love what I do and hope to be able to do it until I retire.”

But law wasn’t Linnabary’s first profession of choice. He initially went to work for the Illinois Republican Party as a campaign strategist after college. There, it was his job to make sure the party was following the strict legal regulations surrounding campaign contributions and the like. That piqued his interest in the law, and he applied to Northern Illinois University for law school.

Today, Linnabary still maintains an interest in politics. He has been known to pass along legal advice to Republican candidates, and manages local judicial campaigns—the “decidedly unsexy, unglamorous” ones, he laughed.

After all, Linnabary maintains that following politics “is important. Everyone has the responsibility to, if not get involved, at least pay attention to it.”

When he’s not at the office, you’re most likely to find Linnabary working up a sweat. He works out between eight and 12 hours a week—half the amount he exercised before having kids—as he prepares for amyriad of bike races and running events. Linnabary competes in 30 races each year, from triathalons tomarathons.

If that isn’t enough, Linnabary also is on the board of the Rock River Valley Pantry, a volunteer for Rockford Global Alliance and Friends Forever Humane Society, treasurer of the Winnebago County Bar Association and a parishioner at St. Peter’s Cathedral.

“I would like nothing more than to see Rockford develop a sense of pride in itself,” he said. “So everything I do is designed to do that, to give us that sense of self-worth that will reflect outward.”

He has a very personal motive for wanting tomakeRockford a better place: So his three young children will have a better city in which to grow up.

“I’ll do everything to make this community as good as I can for my kids,” he said. “I feel very strongly that you don’t have place in life to complain unless you’re part of active change, and you make changes a little bit at a time.”