Jacksonville Chamber Honors Grojean, Three Businesses at Annual Meeting

Tom Grojean, who planted his first stake in downtown Jacksonville in 2000 when he purchased a building at the beginning of the square's revitalization, received the Jacksonville Area Chamber of Commerce's highest individual honor Thursday night: the circle of excellence award.

The Chamber held its annual meeting March 26 at Chapter II Events, 420 S. Clay Ave., where members gathered to recognize 2025 contributions and map out priorities for the year ahead. Three local businesses also received awards across the Chamber's annual categories, which include Small Business of the Year, Large Business of the Year, and Not-for-Profit Business of the Year.

To qualify for the circle of excellence, a nominee must be retired from an active Chamber business, must have served on a committee, board, or as chamber chair, and must demonstrate at least 10 years of documented service. Grojean, who served as president of Jacksonville Main Street's board of trustees in 2024, meets each threshold by a wide margin.

He acknowledged the weight of that history when accepting the award. Grojean said he was honored to receive the recognition and noted his respect for those who had been honored before him.

That list of predecessors matters in Jacksonville, where downtown property owners have functioned as quiet economic anchors through decades of retail shifts and mid-sized city pressures. Grojean's quarter-century of ownership along the square represents the kind of sustained private commitment that keeps storefronts occupied and blocks walkable while public incentive programs come and go.

The Chamber used Thursday's meeting to close the books on 2025 and lay groundwork for initiatives in workforce development, small-business assistance, and downtown programming heading into the summer season. With Illinois College, Jacksonville Memorial Hospital, and a cluster of manufacturers anchoring the local employment base, the Chamber's work in 2026 will center on connecting those anchor institutions to the small businesses and property owners who define street-level commerce in Morgan County.

Chapter II Events, the evening's venue on South Clay Avenue, sits within the downtown footprint that Grojean and others in the circle of excellence have spent decades maintaining, a detail not lost on the Chamber members in the room.