Celebrating Our First Year

This January 2023 Oak Brook Magazine marks our 6th issue. It features Allison Rosati on the cover as she hosts the Oak Brook Infant Welfare Fashion Show on the group’s 50th anniversary. Time passes quickly when you are busy, having fun, and satisfying the people you are serving from our readers to our advertisers to everyone in the community.

A Look At Our First Issues

We started by publishing Dick Portillo on our first cover. He is the quintessential entrepreneur in Oak Brook, a town filled with more than its fair share of success stories. We coupled his story with a focus on Oak Brook as a dining mecca. For good measure, we added his fellow restauranteur Rich Melman, and his Lettuce Entertain You restaurant group of Oak Brook restaurants.

We devoted the second issue to Paul Butler, the father and visionary of Oak Brook. If it wasn’t for him, and the people he was smart enough to surround himself with, we wouldn’t have the special community that has become Oak Brook. Can you think of another town, especially a small one, which has so many attractive amenities?

Speaking of attractive amenities, our third issue focused on the fact that our Oakbrook Center, one of the premier shopping centers in America, turned 60 years in 2022.

Our fourth issue put the spotlight on the Oak Brook Park District. It turned 60 years old also and atracts a large share of its membership from neighboring communities. We also brought readers up to date on Premier Athletic Management and their soccer program which is making great use of soccer fields and adding revenue to the entire business community.

Our fifth issue gave you an inside look at one of the largest non-profit organizations in the world, Lions International. The organization is headquartered in Oak Brook and supports and inspires 1.4 million Lions Club volunteers around the world to help people in need. It is symbolic of the types of organizations that have chosen Oak Brook as their home.

We also reported on the 100th anniversary of the Oak Brook Polo Club, and another Butler entity, Friends of Conservation, as it celebrated 40 years of supporting the preservation of wildlife, and land helping the natives of Masai Mara in Kenya prosper.

In this same issue, we couldn’t resist another helping of Oakbrook Center, thanks to the efforts of our very active Oak Brook Historical Society. They invited Tim Geiges, Senior Manager of the property, to update everyone on what has been going on recently, and what is in store for the future, as Oakbrook Center diversifies its makeup of stores to make it a prime destination for not only shopping but unique entertainment and leisure activities. His presentation was not only informative, it was optimistic, as he explained how the shopping center has smartly diversified.