Editorial

“Gregarious” is a word that was invented for Jim Elkin. The big and happy Falls Church businessman succumbed to illness suddenly at age 67 Tuesday but not before etching his name into the permanent annals of Falls Church history as the first person to ever lead the Greater Falls Church Chamber of Commerce for three successive terms as chairman.

More importantly, Jim’s leadership led to a revival of the Chamber’s role in the City at a critical juncture, just as it began to elicit interest from the wider development community and approved the first large-scale mixed-use construction projects in half a century.

Jim carried the posture and demeanor of a leader, mixed with warmth and a good heart. While kind and outgoing, he was fully capable of standing strong for what he believed in and willing to say and act on what he thought. He became a true friend for many in a wide circle of small business leaders in Falls Church. Even with the introduction of large-scale development to the City, Jim's sympathies were always first with the little guy, those like himself who strived to build mom-and-pop businesses into successful and sustainable institutions.

Jim succeeded in part by never thinking small. When he brought his Point of View Eyewear to Falls Church in the mid-1990s, he was bold to put his business on a high-profile West Broad St. corner, risking that the visibility would offset the high rent. He proved to be right. A special friend of the News-Press, Jim saw the value of relentless advertising in the local newspaper of record, and developed a one-of-a-kind ad campaign that has been held up by marketing professionals as a prime example of how to do it right. His famous Point of View Eyewear ads in the News-Press, with a different customer displaying “Before and After" glasses each week, took on a life of their own, becoming an enduring tradition and something that readers looked to check out in each edition. The more readers mused whether the “After” was really better than the “Before,” the more Jim delighted at his ad campaign's effectiveness and took it, as they say, to the bank.

Jim wasn’t afraid to dress himself up a little silly for the annual Falls Church Memorial Day Parade, either. His joy of life was infectious. He loved describing vacations aboard his boat, and showed that running a business and leading a Chamber of Commerce can be interwoven with humor and a good time, even as no one who knew him doubted for a minute his shrewd, talented and resolute command of both.

His true heart came out in the work he did for the Virginia Hospital Center's Honduran Medical Brigade, which included a trip to Honduras last October and a tireless effort to outfit persons there with 2,600 recycled eyeglasses provided by the Falls Church Lions Club. Although not a resident of the City of Falls Church, Jim Elkin was a business owner here and as such made contributions to the well-being and future of this community that will benefit it for many years to come. He shall be remembered a giant among the City’s finest citizens.