Amazing Tales of Adventure, People at Chamber Meeting

The label on this story says "business" because it comes from a get-together. But as with most things in life, there's a lot more here than business as usual.

The chamber after-hours event on Feb. 22 was at U.S. Bank's new home at 808 W. State St. Our hosts, Branch Manager Mary Ellen Thielemann and Chicago West District Manager Michael Fasshauer, threw a terrific party—with the assistance of the chamber and , which is great at all things. (I am especially fond of the Cinemmon Swirl, but I digress.)

My Geneva Patch advertising counterpart and ying to my editorial yang, , met some fascinating people, each of whom merits a feature-length story.

Among the most fascinating is Stephen R. Paul, a lawyer with Paul & Associates, LLC on Campbell Street, who was just back from Iraq in a stint as a prosecutor for the U.S. Army. Paul is in the Army Reserves and has spent time in Baghdad, and I think, Delhi in India. (I waited too long after the event to write this story, and my notes are sketchy.)

I asked Stephen if his job would be the equivalent of Kevin Bacon in A Few Good Men, and I think he said it was more like the Demi Moore character's or whoever played Kevin Bacon's co-counsel—but that's digression No. 2, for those keeping score at home.

The cases Stephen worked on did not follow the A Few Good Men storyline. They were more along the lines of prosecution for extracurricular misbehavior that's not appropriate to military doctrine or describable in a family online publication. At any rate, Stephen is the good guy in the drama.

We talked about how hard it was to be away from his family for a few months at a time (wife, two sons, daughter), how they communicated a lot by Skype and Internet and phone, the heat in Baghdad (93 low, 135 high ... but it's a dry heat) and how business has been now that he's back home. Stephen does a lot of estate planning, and business is good, thank you.

We talked to Gregory Trengove of Farmers Insurance, who said Farmers was rated No. 1 in customer service by JD Powers awhile back, and he was proud to be part of that.

We had wonderful conversation with the incomparable Jamie Daniel of Miscella Real Estate, who has been a strong thread in the fabric of Geneva and its history for so many years, and Liz Wiggins of Delnor Glen senior living.

We met and made a Bobby Knight-like recruiting campaign to add Ann Twite to our . Ann is the (I love this) "mompreneur" of Fox Valley Mom, whose mission is to make life easier for busy moms. How cool is that?

We talked to Cheryl Schermerhorn of WebSketch Studio Inc. website design. (It's interesting at these affairs finding so many people who are in one way or another employed by or actively using the Internet as a key component to their business. And this is simply an anecdotal observation, not a Patch pitch.)

Also in that category is Howard Pribble, who left the world of big business to start his own PC and networking support business, at 922 Appleton Drive in Batavia. Howard is kind of the Geek Squad without the geek—the one-man IT department for your home or business computer needs.

We had a super-interesting conversation with Atala Dorothy Toy, president of , about the explorations of consciousness and how she works with kids to help develop their spiritual selves and even extrasensory talents. (I don't think I'm paraphrasing that well. You can find out more here.)

Once again, I'm missing more than I'm writing. Thanks to all who were at the chamber meeting and apologies to anyone not mentioned.

In closing, this isn't a "business" story because, as they say, it's personal. Businesses are about people. It's also not just a business story because it's a "Viewfinder" photo gallery. So please be sure to check out the photos here.