Chamber chief celebrates 30 years in Geneva

Praise is raining down on Jean Gaines this week, as the Geneva Chamber of Commerce president marks her 30th anniversary working for the group.

There was a party in her honor Tuesday, and a memorial stone was placed on Third Street. Wednesday, a tree and a bench were dedicated to her in Island Park.

A gal could get a swelled head with all the nice things being said about her.

But Gaines deflects the praise, saying that her success is a result of teamwork between Geneva business people, civic leaders and her co-workers.

"The days when I knew everything that is going on (with Chamber people and programs) are long gone," she says, praising her staff of six.

Gaines moved to Geneva in 1970 from Michigan. In 1977, the stay-at-home mom saw an ad for a part-time job as an assistant at the chamber that read "must enjoy people."

She didn't know what the chamber did. "I couldn't even type," she says, laughing. It was her and an executive director, operating an office for a group that counted 60 members. Sometimes they had to approach prominent local businessmen to donate money to pay their salaries; she recalls how hard it was to get the board to buy a photocopier back then.

A year later, it turned into a full-time job, and when the director left in 1979, Gaines took over.

Today, Gaines oversees a group with 600 members. She's gone from mimeographing a newsletter to e-mail blasts and Web pages.

She's proud that 88 percent of Geneva businesses belong to the chamber.

"We take good care of our members. They see a return on their investment," she said.

Gaines said her skills grew as the chamber did.

One of the biggest guns in the chamber's arsenal for helping Geneva has been its development of festivals, which bring in visitors and increase spending in the town. In 1979 it ran just one, Swedish Days. It took over both the Geneva House Walk (after the Geneva Garden Club dropped it) and the Christmas Walk, and added Festival of the Vine.

The Festival of the Vine was not initially a success. It was cold and rainy the first year, Gaines recalls, and tents blew over. People wondered if the chamber knew what it was doing. It took a couple of years to convince them.

Weather almost got her again last year, when 7 inches of snow fell the night before the House Walk. But every volunteer showed up and they managed to clear paths to the houses. "That was a feat," she says. (Santa Claus had to walk from the North Pole to the Christmas Walk that night, because his horses and carriage were delayed by the storm.)

She's proud of developments in the city -- whether it is downtown, such as turning former riverside factory sites into the Herrington Inn and Riverside Receptions, or Third Street, or Geneva Commons on Randall Road. Downtown merchants feared the mall, she says, but she welcomed it, figuring it was inevitable and that Geneva might as well get it. Those shoppers often spill over to downtown, she says.

Gaines is not resting on her laurels.

"I would like to see the quality of the festivals improve," she says (they have an idea involving gourds for Festival of the Vine next year), and is always concerned about bringing more people to shop in town every day, not just on festival days.

Gaines, who has two adult children and two grandchildren, is not going away.

"This was not an invitation to retire," she says of the recent honors. "I really do need to keep working -- I become bored."