Westlake Urgent Care is a labor of love and source of pride for Shellye Pechulis, a nurse with more than four decades of experience who was integral to its creation in 2021. Pechulis, 71, currently works as nurse administrator at the non-profit urgent care facility in Melrose Park, which was created by her and a team of doctors, nurses and medical professionals who banded together to meet the needs of the community.

“When we opened up everybody laughed at us and said we’d never make it,” she recalls. “Well, here we are.” Pechulis, whose father was born in Foggia, Italy, grew up in Chicago’s Taylor Street neighborhood with dreams of becoming a pediatrician. She developed a passion for nursing after serving as a candy striper at a hospital and earned a nursing diploma from Cook County School of Nursing and a bachelor’s degree in nursing from DePaul University. She also earned an MBA in 1993.