Joanna Zelaya always envisioned a life such as this. She would live out her days on acres of land alongside her family and a slew of animals, land that would sustain her mentally and nourish her physically via the crops she would plant, land she could someday hand down to her children so they too could live out their own dreams upon it. These dreams are beginning to come true.

“It’s always been our dream to be self-sufficient,” Zelaya says from the Barrington Hills home she purchased with her husband back in 2017. “It’s been my parent’s dream, and it’s become my family’s dream.”

Of course, life at home is just a small piece of the impressive life of Zelaya, who spends her days working as the CEO of Chicago Precision, a much-respected family business located in Elk Grove Village that works to provide custom machined parts to multiple industries such as aerospace, defense, and medical.

In fact, Zelaya’s role as one of the few female CEOs in the manufacturing space and her interest in expanding into additive machining recently afforded her the chance to meet President Biden in May during his recent visit to Ohio to launch the “Additive Manufacturing Forward Initiative.”

“It was so surreal,” she says. “I will never, ever forget it.”

It’s yet another impressive milestone on a professional journey that began when Zelaya was just a little girl growing up in Chicago under the watchful eyes of her parents, who came to the states from Poland in the mid-seventies to escape communism. After graduating from Loyola University Chicago and joining the Peace Corps, Zelaya found herself desperately trying to find her footing, both personally and professionally.

“I was feeling a little lost,” Zelaya remembers. “Luckily, my dad is amazing, and he knows how to help people find their direction. So, he asked me to come work at his company.”

His company was and is ERA Industries, a well-known manufacturing company that at the time was having trouble getting its quality systems certified. Even with relatively no experience, Zelaya took the issue on and soon had the company on the right track while, at the same time, attending Kellogg School of Management. And once again, Zelaya’s father helped her find her path, this time by encouraging his daughter to open her own business.

“He knows me so well,” she chuckles. “I’ve always been very independent. I never liked working for anyone. I felt like I always had to have control. If I didn’t have control, I wasn’t going to get passionate about it.”

Zelaya’s passion soon overflowed into Chicago Precision, which opened in 2003.

“I see it as a benefit to be a female in this industry,” she explains. “If I’m the only woman in the room, they’re going to remember me. And a lot of times that’s the first step to forming partnerships thru which Chicago Precision can be the best company it can be.”

But when life in the office becomes too much, it’s her Barrington Hills home where she finds her greatest respite.

“We bought 30 acres of land in 2018 and then just this past March, we bought another adjoining 19 acres,” gushes Zelaya, who already serves as mama to a total of 22 chickens. “We’re still in the very early stages of building a barn for animals and then we’re building an auxiliary building that is going to have living quarters upstairs where my parents will live and a big garage where we’ll have all of our equipment. You know, maybe we will start making honey,” she says with a laugh.

Truly, the sky’s the limit…both for Zelaya and her dad.

“He has worked so hard,” she reflects. “He came to the states with nothing. He was working two jobs. He didn’t speak English. He had to go to English classes at night. It’s a perfect example of the American dream. If you work really hard and are passionate about what you do, you can make all of your dreams come true.”

And there is much more work to be done.

“Hopefully by next year, we’ll be able to start buying animals,” she says with excitement. “We want goats and more chickens and maybe a cow and I really want to get some horses. I used to ride as a child, so I would love to teach my kids. Everyone in Barrington Hills loves horses.”

She draws in a deep breath.

“As much as I love working in an office environment, I too love coming home and doing the farm chores. I get so much energy from being outside. My stress level immediately goes down. You’re able to clear your head. It’s just magnificent here.”