Pat Nicolais averted a crisis of meteoric proportions when this year”™s Rising Stars Awards ended up at the Massachusetts headquarters of Stop & Shop instead of MasterCard Worldwide in Purchase ”“ the day before Westchester”™s 40 Under 40 event.
Hours of phone calls ensued between The Business Council of Westchester, the grocer and FedEx.
Luckily, all was solved by showtime.
“I would say a point of pride from all of us at the Business Council is that all of our events tend to go very smoothly,” said the Business Council”™s longtime director of membership and special events, who announced her retirement last week.
Having spent 35 years in the nonprofit world of Westchester, Nicolais joined the Business Council as a freelance event consultant in 2001.
She fondly recalls shopping for event venues with Ron Stytzer, president of Antun”™s of Westchester, for the county”™s first Hall of Fame Awards ceremony.
“At that time, Glen Island was primarily a wedding, bar mitzvah, special occasion place and they did not have a lot of business events there,” Nicolais said. “We worked with them on how the flow of the evening was going to go and we started working with a committee on developing the criteria for each of the five award categories.”
Honorees over the years have included IBM Corp., The Dannon Co. and the Westchester County Business Journal.
Nicolais didn”™t stop at the Hall of Fame. She was part of the team that helped transition the business group”™s annual dinner from a “sparsely attended lunch into a dinner featuring a prominent keynote speaker.”
She ticks off the names Ben and Jerry, Steve Forbes and Joe Scarborough.
The council stands at 1,100 members today.
“Growing the membership has been until the financial meltdown, easy, because the reputation of this organization has really sold people on getting involved,” Nicolais said. “But the economy has hit our smallest members or what we call ”˜luxury businesses.”™”
“I think Pat has really created a culture of understanding business and ”¦ of service to members and understanding what the needs were of each member, each winner, each sponsor and really working to meet those needs,” said Marsha Gordon, president and CEO of The Business Council of Westchester.
Nicolais”™ future will involve travel and family.
“My husband spent 30 years as a railroad engineer on Metro-North and he”™s also an attorney so he maintains a small practice from home as well,” she said. “He retired about a year ago and it”™s always been our goal that I”™d follow him soon after.”
As for what she will miss the most at the Business Council, it is “the people.”
“Marsha”™s the kind of boss who gives you the ball and lets you run with it,” she said. “She was an amazing person to work for.”
