Judy Singleton

Judy's career path has led her through roles in business, politics, and community service.  She started her business career in commercial real estate sales and leasing in El Paso, TX in 1972 with a company that later moved to Chicago as LaSalle Partners.  In 1978 she joined Duke Realty in Indianapolis where she directed the specialty retail division, and met her husband, Jim Singleton. Together they formed their own commercial real estate company in the early 1980s. While she no longer works in the day to day of their business, Judy has an advisory role and also handles outside investments for the family business including farms, films, and start-ups.

 

In the early years of their company, Judy was also active in community development.  She was a member of the Greater Indianapolis Progress Committee and had appointments to the National Board of the Small Business Development Centers by the Bush 43 administration and to the Indianapolis Bond Bank Board. She was also named in the IBJ's annual list of Most Influential Women.

 

While Judy and Jim were raising their three young children, she spent less time in the real estate business and became more interested in public policy and women’s involvement in public service.  In 1990 she and Teresa Lubbers founded The Richard G. Lugar Excellence in Public Service Series, a political leadership development program which trains, inspires, and positions women for key leadership roles in government and public office. 

 

Now in its 30th year, The Lugar Series has trained more than 500 Hoosier women.  The program was so successful at producing more women leaders for Indiana, the Republican National Committee hired Judy as a consultant in 2001 to set up similar programs in various other states.  Now there are nearly 2,000 graduates nationwide.

 

Judy also served on the Women’s Advisory Board of the International Republican Institute. She helped train women leaders in countries with emerging democracies on the responsibilities and opportunities of citizens in free and capitalistic nations. 

 

Her long-term interest in promoting women in the workplace and in politics made her the ideal candidate to be Editor of Indianapolis Woman Magazine where she worked in the mid 1990's and where she began collecting stories about women who had broken gender barriers.  She went on to publish two books titled Indiana’s Trailblazing Women, which inspired a film produced by public TV station WFYI. For her work she was awarded the Corporate Mentor Award by Girls, Inc., a Torchbearer Award from the Indiana Women’s Commission, and was honored by the Women and Work Conference with their annual award. 

 

Currently, she serves on the boards of the Indiana State Museum, the Indiana Nature Conservancy, and Union Chapel Cemetery Association, and works in an advisory capacity for Singleton Companies.  As a seventh generation Hoosier, she is interested in helping preserve Indiana’s artifacts, history and natural resources.