Modest Woman, Major Accomplishments

It's an inherent community spirit that makes Janice Piccolo's job feel so very natural to her.

Piccolo is an administrative secretary for the borough, but she does a lot more than share her secretarial talents. She is involved in any new mayoral project.

Having come from a family which started five generations of plumbing in the Madison area, Piccolo learned from a young age what working together is all about.

"I got my sense of volunteerism and community spirit from my dad," says Piccolo.

Piccolo's father started the Madison community pool. The town wanted a pool, but didn't have money to build the pool, so her father bonded money for the town to build it, even though he never used it.

As heavy construction plumbers, Piccolo family members kept meticulous records of where all of the pipes were in the town, and Madison didn't keep any records at that time. So Piccolo's brothers were hired by the borough as consulting contractors when Madison wanted to open their own water department.

Her cousin, second cousin and a brother still work for the town. But Piccolo eventually became a licensed practical nurse and used to work for St. Barnabas, giving chemotherapy to patients. When she discovered she was pregnant, she left the hospital not wanting to risk any possible effects to her unborn  child.

"I started doing private nursing at homes and local establishments," says Piccolo.

In 1988, Piccolo and her husband Carmen bought Chippy's Liquor & Deli, which is now Ralph Artigliare's Main Street Subs on the corner of Main Street and Rosedale Avenue. 

Their son was three years old.

"We set up a nursery downstairs in the deli and I worked part time at night as a nurse," explains Piccolo.

At one point, they had 21 employees, and did lots of catering for large companies and corporate meetings. The hours were long—5 a.m. to 10 p.m.

As her kids got older, Piccolo became more involved with the schools and was PTO president for four years at two different schools. 

She was eventually sought out by Madison government officials, having been the president of the Madison Chamber of Commerce for four years so the businesses could thrive more.

"If you're not part of the problem, then you have to be a part of the solution, so I became the Chamber of Commerce president," Piccolo explained.

The mayor at the time asked her to become the downtown business manager for Madison, a position that she held for about 10 years. She worked part time for the borough, working as a liaison between local businesses and the government. She started annual events such as May Day, the Taste of Madison and the Madison Farmer's Market.

When a Chatham council person asked Piccolo to start a farmer's market in Chatham, she still worked for Madison. But she accepted the challenge, and worked for both Madison and Chatham for one year. She eventually moved on to her administrative secretary spot.

She has garnered the praise of her colleagues, including Mayor Nelson Vaughan, who described her as a "renaissance woman." She is a member of committee after committee in the borough.

"Janice never says no," Vaughan said. "She is always willing to help."

Piccolo, for her part, feels that "nobody's telling Chatham's story." She wants to put together a public relations piece, crafted just for Chatham, that has a directory list of businesses in town.

"It is important for the community to get regional exposure [and is important for] local residents [to do] downtown shopping," she said. That's how the taste of Madison was developed."

To keep herself current on events and ideas, Piccolo is a member of NJ Future and the International Council of Shopping Centers and sits on the board of Downtown New Jersey, which is a non-profit organization that supports downtown businesses by working with different communities and trains managers to support the communities.

She certainly practices what she preaches. While explaining the importance of working together to support the local community, Piccolo interrupted herself and popped out of her chair to help a woman get her stroller up the stairs into a café.

"I had to help that woman," she said.