Mario Treto Jr., who is Illinois’ secretary of the department of financial and professional regulation, said that he’s reassured by the frequent calls he gets for advice from agency heads in other states.
“We’re doing it right if we’re being looked at as a beacon of hope,” said Treto, whose
agency oversees licensing for professionals and organizations in the state.
Treto was first appointed to his role in 2021 by Gov. JB Pritzker. He is perhaps best known as the first openly gay Latino cabinet member in the Illinois state government.
He told Windy City Times that his background as a child of Mexican immigrants inspired him to work in politics. While growing up, it fell on him to translate doctor’s appointments and building permits to his parents, who came from, as he described, “modest means” in Mexico. He was raised in the predominantly Latino Little Village neighborhood.
Throughout his youth, as he attempted to support his parents, he recognized that Chicagoans like his parents struggled for accessibility in numerous personal and professional situations.
“That has always been that’s always been my North Star,” Treto Jr. said. “Helping other people—because I just know how important it is, and I know exactly what it feels like to not have resources or the language or access to be able to get some of that.”
Before working for the state government, Treto was deputy city attorney for Evanston, where he made many strides for both the LGBTQ+ community and the immigrant community.
During his tenure in Evanston, he drafted the first gender-neutral restroom ordinance in Illinois, authoring the inclusion of gender identity as a protected class as part of Evanston’s Human Rights Ordinance. He also authored the city’s Sanctuary City Ordinance, which strengthened immigrant protections and limited cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
Treto also served as board chair for Howard Brown Health and in 2025 was inducted into the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame.
A desire to make the government more proactive, not reactive, and to keep it as accessible as possible led to his current role, he said.
When he began his current job, his first initiative was to update the system in place since 1999 so that people could get their licenses more quickly. He also made sure that the team had the proper resources in place to make workflow more efficient.
He said that he’s been very grateful to work with legislators, stakeholders, and industry groups, all of whom are helping to create a system that works better for everybody.
Looking ahead, Treto said he is focusing on managing the rise of artificial intelligence and its widespread use. One strategy was the creation of an Office of Innovation, which serves as the “corrective arm” meant to identify emerging marketplace risks, trends and opportunities that can then be analyzed immediately by state officials.
But the many challenges in his job have not dimmed Treto Jr.’s optimism, and it’s his intersectional background that he has to thank for it.
“We know what it’s like to have limited resources,” he said. “We know what it’s like to have entities work against us, and those things force us to be creative. The internal resilience that we’ve had during those struggles, that historically we’ve faced and that we continue to face, shows us where we can take advantage of opportunity.”
He hopes that, through his journey into public service, younger generations can see that there is no need to limit one’s aspirations or be ashamed of who they are.
“Believe in yourself and never put an artificial ceiling on what you can accomplish,” Treto said. “Celebrate what makes you different, because that is your superpower.”