Pattie Pavlov isn’t out the door yet, nor does she plan to lose sight of being involved in the community.
Even when she is officially retired this fall, the outgoing executive director of the Jasper Park Chamber of Commerce (JPCC) feels strongly about the Jasper that she has helped to strengthen. What started with 90 business members quickly doubled to approximately 180 before the end of her first year. That number has remained more or less consistent ever since.
“I'm not going anywhere. We don't want to leave Jasper. There'd be no reason to. We're happy here. We love it here,” she said, speaking about her and husband, retired RCMP officer Stephen Pavlov.
“You'll see me around doing different volunteer things that are of interest to me.”
Until then, there is still chamber business to take care of, and Pattie Pavlov is not one who is known to neglect her duties. Ever since the beginning of her time leading the business organization in 2010, she has been a force for integrity in leadership.
Her leadership has been useful in the ever-constant battlefield she charged onto. Admittedly, there have been some pretty big challenges that have come across the chamber’s path in those years, she said.
The first real hurdle: identity. Tourism Jasper had just been formed, which presented a unique conflict of purpose.
“There were a lot of unknowns, including what the chamber could look like going forward,” Pavlov said.
“It had always been known as Jasper Tourism and Commerce. Well, now that element is gone.”
The current JPCC is now considered more of a traditional chamber: more so active with advocacy and community presence, helping businesses when they need assistance with finding financing or finding learning opportunities for new staff or themselves for that matter.
“It was quite a pivot for the board, and obviously for me, I had not done anything of that nature before,” Pavlov said.
“But I've been in the community a long time. I've been involved with the chamber because of my work with the rodeo. I had a reasonable ground frame, but it had a lot of building to be done.”
It’s true that the chamber wasn’t her first rodeo, nor even her first great challenge.
Pavlov came from a background in education, teaching for years after getting her degree at an age that many would have considered later rather than younger, she confided.
Still, be a teacher had a way of teaching her how to manage all the personalities and paperwork that would come her way during her next career at the chamber. Each business has its own vision, she said, as well as its own way of operating. To come up with one voice for all when meeting with any level of government was its own version of politics and mediation.
“For some people, one thing might work, and for others, it won't,” Pavlov said.
“To be honest with you, I've led a lot of courses, I've taught a lot of what used to be called the Ambassador Program, I was in on the ground level with that. I've never ever not used my degree in the past 14 years.”
That brings her back to another thing that teaching and being the executive director of the chamber have in common: both have advocacy for their members at their cores.
Advocacy is something that has always driven Pavlov. It’s where she lives.
“For me, it's not that new,” she said. “My father always wanted me to be a lawyer, and I don't regret not doing that. I always wanted to be a teacher.”
There haven’t been any apples left on her chamber desk, so to speak. In their place, she does have a list of her accomplishments, some harder won than others.
She was one of the founding members of the Jasper Partnership Initiative, which had such diverse interests at the table as Parks Canada, the Municipality of Jasper, the Alberta Hotel and Lodging Association and businesses, not to mention the chamber itself.
Its premise was always one of maintain the recognition of all the separate mandates while maintaining the respect and progressiveness to ensure that all could work together for the common good.
“There's some major things that came out of that, but as far as advocacy goes, I am very confident with the hot button issues, so to speak,” Pavlov added.
“We try to represent all of our businesses. We try to get information from them. We do count on them taking responsibility for their concerns to reach out to us as well.”
Beyond that, she was instrumental in helping businesses recover from the pandemic and from the Chetamon Wildfire. She was also responsible for bringing fireworks to Jasper for Canada Day celebrations.
“People could love me or hate me for that,” she joked.
