Class Year: 1968
Outstanding Alumni Award Winner 2004
Eliza Moravec is president and CEO of Keating of Chicago, Inc., which manufactures and sells fryers, griddles, food warmers and pasta cookers to commercial kitchens and restaurants around the world.
Moravec began working at the Keating factory in 1968, after graduating from North Central with degrees in business management and economics. She soon realized that manufacturing was a male dominated industry and she had to work hard to make her way as a woman. Today, Keating’s biggest contracts include the United States military and federal and state prisons. Her company also supplies Disney and Six Flags amusement parks, the Hilton and the Marriott hotel chains, the Billy Goat Tavern, Soldier Field and fine Chicago area restaurant chains including The Rosebud, Tuscany and Carmine’s.
For the last 36 years, Moravec’s management skills and self motivation have proved invaluable. Although the business was started in 1931 by her grandfather and father with just $1,000, she has built the firm into a multi-million dollar global corporation with 100 employees. President of the privately-held company since 1988, she successfully bought out her business partners in 2003. Her future business plans include a new $11 million plant.
She is married to Donald Moravec ’69, and the couple has two grown children.
