Mike Mrachek awarded McHenry chamber’s highest honor for Riverwalk Shoppes, Fiesta Days volunteering

In bestowing the McHenry Area Chamber of Commerce’s highest honor on Mike Mrachek, former McHenry Mayor Sue Meyer said, Mrachek shares many characteristics with the namesake of the Frank E. Low Award.

Meyer, formerly Sue Low, is the daughter-in-law of Frank Low, who was one of the founders of Fiesta Days and someone who was heavily involved in the community.

He was, Meyer said, “master of the impossible.”

Meyer credited Mrachek with the same ability to move metaphorical mountains, citing his central role in helping to launch McHenry’s Riverwalk Shoppes, a cluster of 10 tiny shops along the Fox River that just completed its first season as a brick-and-mortar retail incubator.

Chamber officials said Mrachek, who is executive director of construction and development for commercial real estate developer Glenstar, was critical to the accelerated, three-month construction of the shops, coordinating labor, materials and other logistics for the hundreds of volunteers and hundreds of thousands of dollars that went into the project.

Mrachek’s abilities, smarts and good nature were “instrumental” in bringing the project to fruition, Meyer said.

“Mike embodies a spirit of selflessness. He anticipates a need and jumps in to help,” Meyer said in honoring Mrachek on Jan. 27 at the chamber’s 2024 gala, “Boombox Ball: A Totally Tubular ‘80s Party.”

Mrachek grew up in McHenry, where his family owns and operates Colonial Funeral Home. Meyer said she’s known him all her life and that he’s a “third-generation community servant.”

Mrachek also spoke of his family’s tradition of local involvement, saying that “giving back was the mentality of how we lived.”

Mrachek said he was approached about a year earlier to help with the Riverwalk Shoppes and said it seemed at first as if it “should be a piece of cake.”

But he said it quickly became apparent that “the real battle we had in front of us was time.”

He credited many others whose contributions helped make the project a success, including Mayor Wayne Jett.

“It takes leadership such as yours to keep [the community] evolving and growing without losing that small-town feel,” Mrachek said.

Besides his help with the Riverwalk Shoppes, Mrachek previously owned Epic Cycle and Fitness bicycling shop in McHenry, has served on the chamber board and has volunteered “countless hours” as a member of the Fiesta Days committee for more than 10 years, chamber officials said.

“In addition to year-round planning for Fiesta Days, he also puts in over 70 hours over five days every July to produce the event,” according to a news release from the chamber.

Meyer said she’s proud to see that Mrachek “learned by example that good citizens get involved.”

Also during the gala, the chamber posthumously honored Cris Bimbi as Board Member of the Year. Bimbi was a longtime State Farm agent and former chamber board chairman who died in June at age 55.