Alicia Gillen said that when she heard someone had volunteered 1,500 hours at Maumelle High School, she thought: “That lady is crazy.” It turns out she was that crazy lady, and she received an award for her work.
Gillen, 38, said volunteering “is one of the passions I’ve had all my life,” and as the new director of the Maumelle Area Chamber of Commerce, she gets to do it in an official capacity. She was executive assistant at the chamber in 2012 and was on the chamber’s board of directors when she started as director almost three weeks ago.
Don’t think the job was handed to her, though. Gillen said she encouraged the board to take applications and interview other candidates.
“I’m super competitive,” she said, laughing.
Although she was born and raised in Sacramento, California, she moved to the Cabot area in 1993 and graduated from North Pulaski High School in 1995. She took classes at Pulaski Technical College in English, public speaking and political science. Gillen said she thought she wanted to be a lobbyist.
“I have a knack for being in front of people,” she said.
After marrying young, she quit school and started working when she got pregnant with her first daughter. She worked for an industrial-printing business in Little Rock, where she spent two years, and in 1998, she moved to Maumelle to take a job as marketing coordinator at the former Windsor Door plant.
Gillen, now a single mother of three daughters, said the company paid for her to go back to college, so in the evenings, she took more English courses and “a lot of public speaking.”
She said one of her “regrets” is that she didn’t finish college; then she rephrased it.
“It’s not a regret — it’s just a delayed opportunity,” she said. “Life has thrown a lot at me; I’m stronger for it.” Gillen said finishing her degree is going on her bucket list.
Her next job was at Network Services Group in North Little Rock from 2003-2006, and during that time, she remarried and quit school to raise her daughters.
When her oldest daughter was at Maumelle Gymnastics and Cheer, Gillen worked part time in the office there and, along with the owner, started an after-school and summer program, which Gillen directed.
The children could choose two classes from among several choices — cooking, gymnastics, tae kwon do. “It gave them experience to find out what they were interested in — something they never would have been exposed to,” she said.
She likes to keep a lot of balls in the air.
“I volunteer for everything,” she said, ticking off a list of organizations: “Relay for Life, Make a Wish, the schools, the [Maumelle] Senior Wellness Center.”
Earlier this year, she received the Retta Patrick Award from the Pulaski County Special School District. Gillen received the award for having the most volunteer hours contributed at a high school in the district.
She also volunteered with Special Olympics and brought the Polar Bear Plunge to Maumelle. It was through volunteering that she found out about the organization’s director-of-development job, which she started in January before the chamber job came open.
“[Special Olympics] was an amazing organization where I was able to volunteer and get paid for it, and impact athletes with disabilities across the state,” she said. Gillen said she has a cousin in California who is a Special Olympian, “and I saw him be so successful,” and that’s why she started volunteering with the organization.
In her job as director of development, she traveled the state while fundraising and planning events.
“It was a huge job; it was amazingly rewarding,” she said. It required a lot of travel, though. Gillen said the Special Olympics Law Enforcement Torch Run in May leading up to the games in Searcy was the biggest event she’s ever planned. She coordinated with every participating law enforcement agency — police, the FBI, the Secret Service, sheriff’s offices and more — in Arkansas. The officers ran the torch through several cities and counties and ended up at the state Capitol.
“It was the biggest jigsaw puzzle,” she said. “It took a lot of planning, and I’m a planner.”
The week of the torch run, she put 1,000 miles on her car, going from city to city to see officers carry the torch.
Even though she loved the job, the chamber position came open when Tara Davidson, the former director, resigned shortly after returning from maternity leave.
Scott Deaton, president of the chamber board, said Gillen had served on the board only a couple of months before she was hired as chamber director.
“What propelled her above everybody else — and there were a lot of good candidates — is that she is so involved with Maumelle,” he said. “She had that extra motivation of being a Maumelle resident. Her kids are enrolled in Maumelle schools; she’s been involved in the chamber. That’s what’s going to make this chamber better, is having somebody in there with all the experience and qualifications she brings to the position. It’s more than a job for her; it is a lifestyle.”
Gillen said she decided to leave Special Olympics for a couple of reasons.
“As my daughter gets ready to head off to college, I realize I must cherish every single moment with my girls,” she said. “I also knew [the chamber job] was the job I always wanted to have. I just love this town; I really do. I know the people and the businesses.”
Gillen said she plans to focus on two platforms over the next year. The first is to get the community more involved with Maumelle’s commerce. She wants the chamber to remind people to stay in Maumelle to eat and shop, and she plans to incorporate some community events to promote that.
“My doctor is here; my chiropractor is here; my dentist is here. There’s not a service or business I don’t utilize personally,” she said.
The number of businesses in Maumelle has “really exploded in the past five years,” she said. With the expansion of Counts Massie Road, “the possibilities are going to be endless in businesses that we’re going to be able to recruit.”
Her second platform is education.
“We have amazing public schools, amazing charter schools,” she said. Gillen said an education committee was formed at the chamber when she worked there previously, “and I plan on growing and cultivating that.” She said she would like to further connect businesses and schools.
“I hope I can show just through my passion for the city how motivated I am to help our businesses,” she said.
The director’s job is not overwhelming, she said.
“It’s actually exciting,” Gillen said. “I came in with my eyes wide open to what I wanted to accomplish and needed to accomplish.”
Gillen said she is the fourth executive director of the chamber in the past five or six years, but she doesn’t plan to leave anytime soon.
“This is not a stepping stone for me. This is where I plan to firmly plant my feet,” she said.
One of her strengths, she said, is that she isn’t afraid to fall on her face.
“I have such high energy — all the time — whether it’s one on one or a crowd of 100 people. I’m not afraid to get out and talk to anybody. I give 110 percent in everything I do.”
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.