GILROY
– For 1998 president Jeff Martin, it was all about sticking to
the festival’s mission statement.
GILROY – For 1998 president Jeff Martin, it was all about sticking to the festival’s mission statement.
“The Gilroy Garlic Festival is established to provide benefits to local worthy charities and nonprofit groups by promoting the community of Gilroy through a quality celebration of garlic,” it reads, and Martin wanted to make sure this goal was being achieved.
“We had to make sure the festival was bringing in enough money for the charities and school groups who raise their funds by working at it,” he said. “I hate seeing children have to raise their money by selling candy bars door to door.”
When making decisions on how to improve revenue for the festival, Martin worked with fellow past presidents Ed Mauro, Randy Costa and Jim Habing, as a team to try new things business-wise that would eventually have long-term results.
“We all sat down together and looked at the issues at hand,” he said. “One of the ways we dealt with it was looking at things and asking ourselves if we would do that in our own businesses.”
During his term as vice president in 1997, Martin became aware that more promotion was needed. He and the other groups members started asking themselves questions like “Well what would Disneyland do?”
“I remember Lynda Trelut saying ‘been there, done that, already bought the hat,’ ” Martin said. “That was the last thing I wanted people thinking of the festival.”
Before attending his first meeting as president, Martin already had compiled a list of about 50 “what if” possibilities for ways of improving the festival. One idea that was picked up was the Garlic Mercantile. The Garlic Festival cookbook sales had been down in the previous years, and the Garlic Festival Association was still selling its merchandise out of a dusty 10-foot-by-10-foot booth. Martin came up with the idea of the Mercantile as sort of a little shopping mall of garlic memorabilia.
“It cut down on a lot of committee work, and it not only streamlined the cookbook but it also got the other merchandise more visibility,” he said. “This way people may walk in looking for a wine glass and end up leaving with the cookbook, apron and anything else they needed without having to look all over the park for the different booths.”
Among other things, Martin remembers a certain volunteer he ran into during his vice president term who gave him an idea to improve Gourmet Alley.
“I remember watching this tired, sweaty guy who was volunteering at Gourmet Alley, and you could tell he had been working hard the whole week setting the Alley up,” he said. “He sat down and as he took a bite into his pepper steak sandwich, a yellow jacket was sitting on it and bit him in the mouth. I remember hearing him say ‘man what is the point of me doing all of this?’ ”
Martin, who wanted all volunteers to have a great time, decided to make things more comfortable for the workers. He did away with the rickety old crates that used to form Gourmet Alley, and set up a nice airy tent to improve the relentless conditions.
“Those guys would be out there for a week setting that old thing up, and would even find things like dead skunks in the crates when they set it up,” Martin said. “Now the tent crew sets it up and it is a much nicer atmosphere for the workers.”
Besides a beehive suddenly appearing on the back of a worker’s truck, Martin’s festival ran rather smoothly, and he said the most satisfying feeling ever was closing the gates on Sunday and relaxing with his friends.
“It was the best feeling in the world,” Martin said. “All my friends were there and we were all tired, dirty, smelly but also really happy.”
