Amy C. Pechacek

Ms. Pechacek is the coauthor of "Workers Compensation Claims Management." She is the risk manager for Lake County Government, a collar county of Cook in the Chicago metropolitan area. She directs the county's $25 million self-insured, self-administered operations and oversees the in-house claims department. Ms. Pechacek is responsible for protection of the county's assets and resources, risk transfer techniques, civil litigation management, life safety, exposure assessment, cost reduction strategies, and crisis management. Lake County currently has over 3,000 employees and operates in a variety of high-exposure areas including law enforcement, jail and juvenile detention, nursing home care, community health, courts and probation, public works, and highway transportation.

Ms. Pechacek previously worked as the director of a national detective agency serving the insurance and defense industries and specializing in fraud detection. She is a licensed private detective and supervised over 500 investigations annually into suspect insurance claims.

Ms. Pechacek received her B.A. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and is currently earning her master's degree in public policy administration from Northwestern University.