Elissa Garofalo had a knack for getting things done.

Though simple, that statement uttered by many of Garofalo’s friends and colleagues this week sums up the life and career of the former Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor leader who recently passed away after battling cancer.

Garofalo retired from the heritage corridor in 2021 after a 20-year career that included nine as president.

Among her accomplishments was overseeing the completion of the Mansion House Bridge across the Lehigh River in Jim Thorpe. The $4.1 million project helped connect D&L Trail users to downtown Jim Thorpe and closed the last remaining trail gaps in Carbon County.

Dennis DeMara, who along with Jim Thorpe’s Ben Walbert, conjured up the idea of the pedestrian bridge project, said Garofalo’s passion and love for the area helped bring many recreation projects to fruition.

“The average person doesn’t have any idea the complexity and moving parts that go into securing funding for a project like the pedestrian bridge, keeping that funding and bringing it to completion,” DeMara said. “I wrote the first grant with Elissa in 1993. It took 27 years to cross the finish line on that and her ability to stick to it and work with our politicians is really one of the main reasons it happened.”

Before her work with the heritage corridor, Garofalo managed one of the country’s first Main Street programs in Jim Thorpe from 1981-86. Her efforts helped the town’s main street, Broadway, to an American Planning Association designation as one of the Great Places of America in 2013.

“Elissa and Agnes McCartney are the Main Street program in Jim Thorpe,” Mayor Michael Sofranko said. “They are both sorely missed. Much like Agnes, Elissa rolled up her sleeves and when she started a project, she finished it. Downtown Jim Thorpe wouldn’t be what it is today without the work she put in.”

Many of Elissa’s philosophies mirrored those her mentor McCartney. When there were talks of Mauch Chunk Lake being utilized as a flood control dam with an empty lake, McCartney fought to turn it into the recreational jewel of Carbon County that it is today.

“Elissa, when she was in her 20s, ran with Agnes a lot and got some of that mega vision for preserving places and maximizing their potential,” Jerry McAward, owner of the Lehighton Outdoor Center, said. “The D&L Trail is a perfect example. It’s a former industrial heritage way that is now a recreational milestone for the whole region.”

Garofalo spent a decade as co-owner of Blue Mountain Sports & Wear, an outdoor specialty store in Jim Thorpe, McAward worked for her for three years. The two stayed friends and McAward was by her side not long before she passed away.

“We thought a lot alike on many things and had a lot of common moral goals, which led to a lifelong friendship,” McAward said. “Elissa’s ability to hear an idea and then put together a plan and implement it was unmatched. It wasn’t in a bulldozing way where you had to stay out of her way. She had this ability to get people to see what a project or an idea could do for the future.”

One such example came in the 1990s when local leaders were exploring the thought of moving the Carbon County Correctional Facility to the bottom of the Switchback Trail and Flagstaff Road. Amid tremendous opposition, Garofalo gave a speech at a Jim Thorpe Borough meeting that McAward remembers to this day.

“It was the most impassioned speech about where to put things and where not to put things that I ever heard,” he said.

ople may not have always agreed with Elissa on something, but no matter what, her opinion was always welcomed and well thought out.”

Together with DeMara, Garofalo was instrumental in the creation of Mountain Bike Weekend in Jim Thorpe, which was traditionally held on Father’s Day weekend at Mauch Chunk Lake.

“It was through her efforts that this became so successful for several decades,” DeMara said. “We had to turn people away. It became a part of the community to identify mountain biking and Jim Thorpe in the same sentence. And look at it now. Jim Thorpe is one of the top ten mountain biking locations in the country.”

Garofalo was also a founder of the Carbon County Chamber of Commerce; chair of the Leadership Carbon Steering Committee; and president of Carbon County Partners for Progress.

“She was always learning and growing,” McAward said. “There are people who really take their potential and maximize it. Elissa was one of them.”