James M. (Mack) Trapp was for 53 years an attorney with McDermott Will & Emery LLP, an international law firm headquartered in Chicago. Mack’s legal practice focused on federal taxation as related to estate planning and wealth transfers. He was known as a national leader and innovator in dealing with family partnerships, corporate recapitalizations, holding companies and charitable transfers. Mack has written extensively on taxation and estate planning. He has lectured at most of the nation’s major tax institute programs. Mack was president of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel and was made an academician of The International Academy of Will and Trust Law. He was president of the Chicago Estate Planning Council, a director of the Japan America Society of Chicago, founder and President of the Asian Art Council of The Art Institute of Chicago, and chairman of the board of the Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education. At McDermott Mack was the for many years head of the Private Wealth Department and on the firm Management Committee. He has been a director of a number of major privately owned business companies. Mack served as a military intelligence officer in the United States Army, as a part of the 3rd Operations Group, Counter-Intelligence Corps in Japan and with the China-MAAG group in Taiwan.
Mack and his wife, Carol, live in Chicago, Illinois, and in Snowmass Village, Colorado. Mack’s son George is a Denison University Phi and chair of the Mitchell Fund board. Brother Trapp joined the Foundation Board of Trustees in 2010.