Ellen Servais | Trinity Fellow 2001-03 | by Lillian Wellen
Sitting on the floor. Picking up one building block at a time. Taking instruction from a 6-year-old on where to put it. Watching the blocks slowly create a house. After a day at work, Ellen Servais sits down at home and plays with her two kids in the living room. Now that she has a family, Servais has to take a step back from volunteering – a major focus of her life beforehand.
“Service is the rent we pay for the space we occupy.” If queen for a day, Servais would mandate that we would all do service of some sort between ninth grade and age 21.
Servais had a long journey of helping people. She started at an early age, and all that service led her to become a Trinity Fellow at Marquette University in 2001. Trinity is a graduate fellowship program dedicated to developing urban leaders with a commitment to social and economic justice. The fellows earn a master’s degree while working at a local agency in the community of Milwaukee.
Servais was a part of the program’s second class, studying public service with a discipline in dispute resolution and placed with Village Adult Services as a communications and business development coordinator. She worked with the agency’s executive director to develop its business and marketing efforts by working on newsletters, fundraisers and grant applications.
Trinity program director Carole Ferrara said that Village Adult Services was the “best fit we had for her, and she embraced it completely.” Ferrara would visit Servais at the agency to check up on how it was going. She said Servais looked well established sitting behind a desk there.
During her time in the graduate program, Servais became pregnant with her first-born. She said that this only motivated her more to succeed and did not let her pregnancy hold her back.
The students were expected to spend 18 hours a week at their agency. Servais said she always ended up spending more time there than that. She loved being a part of the program so much that, once she graduated, she still kept it as a part of her life.
Servais also stayed in touch with Ferrara, who mentioned that she should help with the Trinity advisory board. The opportunity immediately interested her. It would let her see what other students who applied were like, which excited her. She wanted to be there to give wisdom.
“A lot of it was that I was still here in the Milwaukee area, so I thought if there was anything to give back to the program that I really benefitted from, then I wanted to be a part of it,” Servais stated. Ferrara said that as a board member Servais read applications and helped choose who would be picked for the class. When Trinity began, it was not well established and Servais did her best to refer organizations to continue helping the program, the director said.
“Ellen is a part of that wave that helps build our reputation,” Ferrara stated. She hopes that the alumni continue to make an impact, and Servais fits that role. Servais wishes she could do more for Trinity since she sees it as a strong addition to the Milwaukee community.
Now, Servais works as a family office staff member at the Brico Fund, an administrative hub of a family in Milwaukee who owns real estate and manages multiple businesses. She works with a small team to coordinate all of the family’s efforts.
When not at work, she is at home with her two kids: Adele, 12 and Odin, 6. Adele enjoys swimming, cross country and playing the violin. Odin just started baseball. Servais said that her children have already started their service life by participating in walks for causes as well as helping with neighborhood clean-ups. “I want to be home at the end of the day rather than volunteering at an organization,” she said. “Working full-time and having children, we do less than we did before, but it means different things at different times in your life.”
Before motherhood, she volunteered in many different ways. In high school, she did so as a leader at Camp Easter Seal, where she led crafts, hikes and sailing. Servais then sped through her college career at Washington State University so she could graduate early and live overseas. This allowed her to follow in her mom’s footsteps and join the Peace Corps, an organization that sends Americans abroad to help tackle the needs of people.
In 1996, the Peace Corps sent Servais to Ethiopia, where she became a secondary school English teacher and a midwife in a birthing unit at the clinic. She also helped the women with basic health needs. It was difficult for her to see them struggle. Helping them was tangible and impactful for Servais; she considers helping them among her biggest accomplishments.
“I think about it every day and I think I helped them,” Servais said.
During her time here, she met her husband, Steve Servais. “She happened to be one of my trainers,” he said. As they traveled around on the bus together, he just “knew this is the one.” After they got married, they both re-entered the Peace Corps and served together in the Solomon Islands. Her job there involved helping with rural education in women’s business development. Her focus was to teach them how to control their population and their hygienic issues.
Servais considers it vital that everyone sees the impact that one person can have on everything around us. In her eyes, service really demonstrates how interconnected we are. She has dedicated her life to helping not only local communities, but also global ones. She devotes her life to helping others and communities to help fulfill her public service aspirations.
“My life trajectory has taken many directions,” she said, “but they have all related to working with people, and not even with the people, but for the benefit of people.”
“Service is the rent we pay for the space we occupy.” If queen for a day, Servais would mandate that we would all do service of some sort between ninth grade and age 21.
Servais had a long journey of helping people. She started at an early age, and all that service led her to become a Trinity Fellow at Marquette University in 2001. Trinity is a graduate fellowship program dedicated to developing urban leaders with a commitment to social and economic justice. The fellows earn a master’s degree while working at a local agency in the community of Milwaukee.
Servais was a part of the program’s second class, studying public service with a discipline in dispute resolution and placed with Village Adult Services as a communications and business development coordinator. She worked with the agency’s executive director to develop its business and marketing efforts by working on newsletters, fundraisers and grant applications.
Trinity program director Carole Ferrara said that Village Adult Services was the “best fit we had for her, and she embraced it completely.” Ferrara would visit Servais at the agency to check up on how it was going. She said Servais looked well established sitting behind a desk there.
During her time in the graduate program, Servais became pregnant with her first-born. She said that this only motivated her more to succeed and did not let her pregnancy hold her back.
The students were expected to spend 18 hours a week at their agency. Servais said she always ended up spending more time there than that. She loved being a part of the program so much that, once she graduated, she still kept it as a part of her life.
Servais also stayed in touch with Ferrara, who mentioned that she should help with the Trinity advisory board. The opportunity immediately interested her. It would let her see what other students who applied were like, which excited her. She wanted to be there to give wisdom.
“A lot of it was that I was still here in the Milwaukee area, so I thought if there was anything to give back to the program that I really benefitted from, then I wanted to be a part of it,” Servais stated. Ferrara said that as a board member Servais read applications and helped choose who would be picked for the class. When Trinity began, it was not well established and Servais did her best to refer organizations to continue helping the program, the director said.
“Ellen is a part of that wave that helps build our reputation,” Ferrara stated. She hopes that the alumni continue to make an impact, and Servais fits that role. Servais wishes she could do more for Trinity since she sees it as a strong addition to the Milwaukee community.
Now, Servais works as a family office staff member at the Brico Fund, an administrative hub of a family in Milwaukee who owns real estate and manages multiple businesses. She works with a small team to coordinate all of the family’s efforts.
When not at work, she is at home with her two kids: Adele, 12 and Odin, 6. Adele enjoys swimming, cross country and playing the violin. Odin just started baseball. Servais said that her children have already started their service life by participating in walks for causes as well as helping with neighborhood clean-ups. “I want to be home at the end of the day rather than volunteering at an organization,” she said. “Working full-time and having children, we do less than we did before, but it means different things at different times in your life.”
Before motherhood, she volunteered in many different ways. In high school, she did so as a leader at Camp Easter Seal, where she led crafts, hikes and sailing. Servais then sped through her college career at Washington State University so she could graduate early and live overseas. This allowed her to follow in her mom’s footsteps and join the Peace Corps, an organization that sends Americans abroad to help tackle the needs of people.
In 1996, the Peace Corps sent Servais to Ethiopia, where she became a secondary school English teacher and a midwife in a birthing unit at the clinic. She also helped the women with basic health needs. It was difficult for her to see them struggle. Helping them was tangible and impactful for Servais; she considers helping them among her biggest accomplishments.
“I think about it every day and I think I helped them,” Servais said.
During her time here, she met her husband, Steve Servais. “She happened to be one of my trainers,” he said. As they traveled around on the bus together, he just “knew this is the one.” After they got married, they both re-entered the Peace Corps and served together in the Solomon Islands. Her job there involved helping with rural education in women’s business development. Her focus was to teach them how to control their population and their hygienic issues.
Servais considers it vital that everyone sees the impact that one person can have on everything around us. In her eyes, service really demonstrates how interconnected we are. She has dedicated her life to helping not only local communities, but also global ones. She devotes her life to helping others and communities to help fulfill her public service aspirations.
“My life trajectory has taken many directions,” she said, “but they have all related to working with people, and not even with the people, but for the benefit of people.”