Fifteen years after taking home Sweet Corn Festival Queen honors, Madeline Piller is back in her hometown as the president and chief executive officer of the Mendota Chamber of Commerce.

Piller says that family ties drew her to this position.

“My whole family has been here in the area,” she said. “I come from two pretty well-established farm families in the area. My grandma’s first job was working for the chamber.”

A graduate of Mendota High School and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Piller took over in December after more than a decade as an educator.

Piller’s grandmother, as well as former presidents of the Mendota Chamber of Commerce, convinced Piller to go for the job.

“Throughout my experience and career, I have always been in community organization-type roles. You learn a ton about relating to people,” she said.

Some of those roles have been in the area. Piller served as a teacher and track coach at La Salle-Peru High School and as a Conservation Education Representative at Starved Rock.

Piller is unrestrained in showing her love and admiration for the area. She credits that in large part for her desire to take on the responsibility of leading the chamber.

“I grew up in Mendota. I got into this because I love Mendota. When my friends and I were kids, we would talk about all the beautiful windows and beautiful spaces in Mendota and what we would do if we could decorate it,” she said. “Now this is the closest I can get to making that fantasy game into an actual reality.”

Piller has a vision for what she wants to accomplish in her first year on the job to help out members of the chamber.

“My pet project is working on business spotlights,” Piller said. “I’m working a lot on spotlighting agriculture and industry in Mendota.”

Piller plans on working with the City of Mendota to possibly put together a Farmers’ Guild, a Business Association and some resourceful classes for members to use.

She has faith that people’s belief in the makeup and potential of Mendota can go a long way.

“I live here. My family is here. The people that are owning businesses, inheriting businesses or starting businesses are all people that I kind of know,” Piller said. “Everybody loves Mendota and everybody wants to see Mendota thrive and flourish. That’s something we can all agree on.”

Piller sees communication as the number one issue that she and the chamber have to contend with. She hopes that by engaging with business leaders face-to-face and potentially bringing back “Chamber After Hours” events, in-person communication will be improved.

She has already taken some steps to improve virtual communication for the chamber. She hopes to funnel everything through the chamber’s website and is working on generating content for social media platforms like Facebook and TikTok.

Piller sees procrastination with infrastructure as another problem she hopes will improve in 2026.

“Our infrastructure will suffer unless it’s cared for, so upkeep of all our projects is huge,” she said. “Everyone wants to start a project, but people don’t really think about upkeeping them. We can’t deny that we have buildings that have aged.”

Piller touts the efforts of Mendota’s Project Director Annie Short, Project Coordinator Maria Arteaga and City Inspector Justin Boelk in helping to combat this issue.

“This is the year you’re going to see things come to fruition. Grants have come through and I just hope to continue being on the bandwagon of action.”

Overall, Piller is excited about the prospects for Mendota and hopes that she can be a small part of its success as the chamber’s CEO.

“Mendota’s got a certain heart to it. It’s got that spice,” Piller said. “It’s got a certain panache to it.”