TLS Veterans’ Executive Director

At the height of the Vietnam War, Alan Belcher left behind his studies at Baylor University in Waco, Tex., to volunteer for the Army.

He served with the infantry for two years, his tour including time in the jungle along the Cambodian border northwest of Saigon. After being honorably discharged, Belcher returned to Baylor, graduating in 1971 and earning a master’s degree in philosophy in 1973.

Belcher started his career as a caseworker at Gatesville State School for Boys, an institution for troubled teens in central Texas. In 1978, he returned to his hometown, Woodstock, Illinois, to work with juvenile offenders as a therapist for McHenry County Court Services. While working for the county, he earned a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. Belcher opened his own counseling practice in 1988.

Belcher’s time in Vietnam has had a profound influence on him, leading him to put significant effort into helping veterans and their causes whenever he could. He has held group therapy sessions for combat veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, was master of ceremony for the Agent Orange Forum in McHenry County, helped found a local chapter of VietNow and has been the chairman of Woodstock’s Memorial Day observance committee for more than 20 years.

He has served on the Illinois Attorney General’s Commission on Veterans as well as the Illinois Veteran Leadership Program. In 2005, he was called by then Sen. Barack Obama to Washington, D.C., to testify at a Senate hearing on homeless veterans.

Locally, Belcher is best known for founding TLS Veterans in 1996. TLS is a not-for-profit group striving to help disadvantaged and disabled veterans as well as troops and military families. He fought vigorously against community resistance so the group could open a shelter for homeless veterans in Hebron, Illinois, in 2001. The shelter currently helps dozens of struggling veterans a year overcome alcoholism and drug addictions so they can go on to find jobs and lead productive lives.