Above the door to Helen Mayle’s office hangs a plaque etched with one of her favorite sayings: “It is what it is.”
The plaque was a gift from a Pickerington Chamber of Commerce member, says Mayle, who is chamber president, but the phrase has become her unofficial mantra. From growing up as one of six kids on a Northern Ohio farm to her eventual arrival in Pickerington, Mayle is a firm believer in taking life as it comes and doing the best you can.
Mayle and her husband David moved to the Pickerington area in 1990 from Columbus. The couple met while they were students at The Ohio State University. A mother of three, Mayle says she moved in and out of the business world as she and David raised their children.
After the couple moved to Pickerington, Mayle opened her own business, Hanna House Collections, in 1993. The store carried crafts, original artwork and candles. She eventually expanded the business model to seven locations, including one in the Short North called The Candle Gallery (which Mayle ran with a business partner).
Mayle became active in the Pickerington chamber as her involvement in the business community grew. She became a member in 1997, and later became a board member. In the years that followed, a rotating roster of chamber presidents made her curious about the job.
“We had four chamber presidents in three years. My famous statement was, ‘It can’t be that hard,’” she says. “So they offered me the position in interim in June of 2004. Then they offered it to me permanently by the end of the year, and I’ve been there ever since. It seems right. It just seems to work.”
For Mayle, the joy she receives from her job comes from bringing different people and resources together.
“The value I bring is that I can connect the dots,” she says. “I’ve lived in this community since 1990, owned a business in this community since 1990, and I know I can connect those dots. That’s what I’m good at, knowing how that integral web of Pickerington and Violet Township works. It’s fun to figure out what the puzzle is and to help businesses where they’re at get to where they want to be.”
As enthusiastic as Mayle is about her work, her business interests have always taken a backseat to her family. This was evident in 1998, when her oldest son Michael was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Mayle decided to close her retail shops and open her own event planning and marketing company in 2001, which gave her the flexibility to concentrate on her son’s illness.
“For most entrepreneurs, their business is them, and I was no longer able to do what it took,” she says. “I lost some of my spunk when my son got so sick.”
Michael’s cancer diagnosis came after both her father-in-law and mother-in-law died from bladder cancer. According to Mayle, his illness was hard to accept at first.
“(The doctor) called and said, ‘Helen, Mike’s filled with cancer,’” she says. “And I could not get there.”
Michael ultimately received treatment for his illness at the University of Indiana Medical Center in Indianapolis. At age 36, he is currently cancer free, Mayle says. Their family’s battle prompted Mayle to become an advocate for cancer fundraising and research, starting with the first Relay for Life in Pickerington in 1999.
“We were approached to do Relay for Life, and we were like, ‘Oh, yeah,’” she says. “Because my family felt so helpless, you just want to do something. So they asked us to have a team, and eventually my daughter Jen and I co-chaired the event for a couple years.”
Currently, Mayle serves as an ambassador for the American Cancer Society, a position she calls her “passion.” It has given her the opportunity to lobby for cancer research, she says, both at the Ohio Statehouse and in Washington, D.C.
Nowadays, Mayle says she is experiencing “a fun time” in her life. Her kids are all adults – the youngest, Matt, will graduate in 2010 from OSU. She’s also the grandmother of two (soon to be three in March).
For fun, she and her husband ride Harley-Davidson motorcycles, taking off for nearby destinations such as the Hocking Hills when the weather allows.
“We got back into it when our youngest son was a freshman in college,” she says. “We ride all the time. We’re more spontaneous people. If I get up on Saturday and I want to ride, I want to ride.”
Instead of dwelling on the hard times she and her family have experienced, Mayle says she instead chooses to focus on the joy in her life. And if Mayle should ever need a reminder, she need only look to her plaque for inspiration.
“‘It is what it is.’ Everybody hates that statement,” she says. “It’s obviously something someone said to me at some point, but it’s kind of how I live my life. You have to take what you got and move forward.”
Kate Seegraves is editor of Pickerington Magazine.