Geneva Patch 2012 Person of the Year: Mark Grosso

• Editor's note: This is the final installment a 10-part countdown of articles looking back at the Geneva newsmakers of 2012. The No. 1 newsmaker, Geneva Patch's 2012 "Person of the Year," is School Board President Mark Grosso.

To be Geneva Patch's "Person of the Year" is not necessarily to be a hero or a villain. Like TIME Magazine's Person of the Year—who have ranged from Adolf Hitler to Pope John Paul II—the title goes to the person who has had the biggest impact on the news of the past year.

The process starts with identifying the top Geneva stories of the year, and in 2012, the story that far and away captured our attention was the School District 304 teacher contract negotiations.

That's why Geneva Education Association President Carol Young was No. 2 on the countdown of 2012 Geneva newsmakers, and it's why the first-ever Geneva Patch Person of the Year is Geneva School Board President Mark Grosso.

The School District side of negotiations were directed by the board as a whole, but Grosso was the spokesperson during the often-tense process, and his steady, calm demeanor and common-sense approach to problem-solving set a tone that was firm, respectful of other people's points of view and, ultimately, successful in establishing a contract and avoiding a teachers strike.

As many observers have suggested, he was the right man at the right time.

Grosso took over as School Board president in February, following Tim Moran, who stepped down but stayed on as a School Board member after chest pains sent him to the hospital. Grosso said his primary focus would be to address two issues: the School District 304 debt and the teacher-contract talks that started soon after he took over as president.

But those weren't the only issues the Geneva School Board tackled. Almost immediately, Grosso set an aggressive agenda that started with a hard look at the sale of surplus properties, including the Coultrap facility and 27 acres of land on Brundige Road. In those first weeks, Grosso and the board also established a new Finance Committee, open to the public, in an effort to expand opportunities for public comment and input. 

“I guess in my job I always believed in leading by example and leading by action," Grosso said in an interview in December. "A lot of those issues needed to be addressed. It was a decision as a board, too. When you put things on an agenda, they tend to (get addressed.)"

What Grosso could not expect was the fallout of the so-called "Enrollmentgate" issue, which surfaced in April, when TaxFACTS co-founder Bob McQuillan accused the board of inflating enrollment projections prior to the 2007 referendum that approved construction of two new Geneva schools.

Grosso promised to look into the issue and did so himself. He came back with a report at the next week's board meeting, where he acknowledged that the numbers were not the same as those projected by the District 304 consulting demographer, John Kasarda. Grosso also said he was unable to determine how the inflated numbers ended up on the School District website.

Although the outcome was not conclusive, the trial by fire showed Grosso's leadership style as well as the steel he would need in contract talks.

Some of that style was forged during Grosso's 38 years as an employee of the the Chicago & NorthWestern Railroad and later Union Pacific Railroad, the last 25 years of which were in management. He handled a budget of about $10 million and he learned how to work with people, get along with customers and help employees work through personality conflicts and reach their full potential.

"My bosses always said, 'You have common sense and you can put things in ways folks can understand,' " Grosso said.

That common-man touch is one of the qualities that made him such an affective leader in 2012.

His overarching philosophy as it applies to the School Board is "just using common sense and trying to treat people the way you’d want to be treated," he said. "Listening to their concerns and trying to balance that with the concerns taxpayers have. There’s something for everyone."

Grosso isn't an attention-grabber, by any means. He's more likely to wear a flannel shirt to a board meeting than a sweater or tie, and before he was thrown into the president's role, he rarely spoke at board meetings.

"I like to keep a low profile," he says.

The Grossos have a family farm in Michigan, where they spend as much time as possible—something they just weren't able to do this year. They have two children, both in their 30s, a son who lives in St. Charles and daughter in Batavia. He became involved in School Board activities when he ran for his first term four years ago.

"I ran because two neighbors of mine, Gib Thostenson and Pat Murphy, who was a superintendent in Berwyn, encouraged me," he said. "I only went to a couple of School Board meetings, but what probably motivated me was, I saw people speaking, and I spoke at one of the meetings, and I didn’t really know if the board heard what I was saying, because the board didn’t respond. Now I understand more of that and try to be more understanding of how people feel.

"I decided that I could either keep going to meetings and complain, or I could become part of the process. So I went down to Fourth Street and got a candidate's packet."

In addition to the contract negotiations, Grosso and the board faced a number of tough issues, including a kindergarten enrollment bubble as Mill Creek and other grade schools, the renovation of Burgess Field, expenditures for school technology, a pending look at elementary-school boundary changes and the controversy that could follow proposed demolition of the Coultrap facility.

Many of those are actions that will be at the top of the School Board's to-do list in 2013.

Grosso said he will seek a second term, and if elected would be a likely choice to continue as School Board president.

His legacy from 2012 could be the prospect of a new way to go about teacher compensation, with an eye toward merit pay and an end to pension spiking. Part of the new three-year contract calls for the establishment of a joint Salary Schedule Study Group, comprised of teachers and administrators, which will address the issue of future compensation for teachers. 

"I thought I’ve done a good job, tried to balance things," he said.

For that reason and others, Mark Grosso is Geneva Patch's first-ever Person of the Year.

Related Articles

• Reports: GEA Members Authorize Strike; Nov. 9 Earliest Possible Strike

• Geneva Teachers Express Frustration Over Stalled Negotiations
• UPDATE: Geneva School Board Calls Special Meeting to Discuss Teacher Negotiations
• Is a Teachers' Strike Possible in Geneva? Green Buttons Show Solidarity on First Day of School
• Patch Poll: How Much of An Increase Should Geneva Teachers Get?
• Batavia Teachers Get Raises in New Two-Year Contract; Geneva Still Negotiating
• Where Do You Stand on the Geneva Teachers' Union Negotiations?

• Geneva Teachers Expected to Picket Before Tuesday School Board
• State Teachers Union Announces Geneva Talks at Impasse
• UPDATE: Geneva Teachers Union Posts Its 'Final Offer'
• District 304: GEA's 'Final Offer' Calls for 18% Salary Hike in Final 3 Years Before Retirement
• Teacher Talks Resume Friday; Here's the Timeline If an Agreement Isn't Reached
• Geneva School Board's 'Final Offer' Made Public
• Geneva Teachers Give Notice of Intent to Strike
• School Board: Union's 'Rigid Stance' Kept Parties Apart for Months; GEA Responds
• Patch Poll: Which Offer Is More Fair to Teachers and Taxpayers?
• UPDATE—Geneva School Board: GEA Filed Intent to Strike While Sitting at Negotiations Table
• Geneva School District Outlines Plans in Case of Teacher's Strike
• GEA Posts Open Letter to Geneva Citizens
• Geneva School Board Releases Its Most Recent Contract Offer; Special Meeting Monday
• 'Show Will Go On' for the GHS Fall Play—Even If There's a Teachers Strike
• Geneva School Board Posts Most Recent Offer to GEA
• School Still Scheduled for Monday in Geneva

So Far, In This Series

• Geneva Newsmakers of 2012—No. 10: Jenny McCarthy
• Geneva Newsmakers of 2012—No. 9: Pam Broviak
• Geneva Newsmakers of 2012—No. 8: Todd Searcy
• Geneva Newsmakers of 2012—No. 7: Steve LeMaire
• Geneva Newsmakers of 2012—No. 6: Kevin Burns
• Geneva Newsmakers of 2012—No. 5: Nicole Wiesner
• Geneva Newsmakers Countdown 2012—No. 4: Joe Stanton
• Geneva Newsmakers Countdown 2012—No. 3: Bob McQuillan
• Geneva Newsmakers Countdown 2012—No. 2: Carol Young

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