“It was goosebumps galore,” Jackie Boos said, recalling the jolt she felt while touring the bare brick building at the corner of Island and West River streets in downtown Chippewa Falls. While snowflakes stuck to the ground outside, it was anticipation — not Wisconsin’s winter — that raised the skin of her arms.

For more than three years, Boos has lived and breathed that building — now known as the award-winning Market on River, the multi-use headquarters of the Wisconsin Farmers Union — seeing it through from construction to the day its doors opened to the public and beyond.

The potential of Market on River continues to evolve thanks to the flexibility of what it offers.

Today, the historic restored space hums with the efforts of small business owners who call Market on River home; venue spaces awaiting the day’s events; locals and travelers settled into residential units; and from the rooftop, a view of Riverfront Park and the rippling Chippewa River.

Boos pointed to the neighboring park — a project she also had a hand in during her previous tourism roles — as evidence of Chippewa Falls’ steady, community-led progress.

“We’ve started to see, over the years, some great events, community development; people that are excited to see change and development happen,” she said. “And we just thought, ‘let’s become part of that vibration.’ ”

Boos has long held a foothold in the continued growth — and positive vibrations — of the Chippewa Valley, tracing back to her arrival. After accepting a role with Visit Eau Claire in 2008, Boos’ affinity for personal connections quickly shone.

In just a handful of years, she would flex her entrepreneurial muscles — not as a business owner, but as an individual creating and opening the doors for others to walk through.

In 2016, Boos helped create Eau Claire’s Artisan Forge Studios, a multi-use creative space which empowered artists as entrepreneurs. It was perhaps the first signal of Boos’ ability to transform unique vision into reality via community development; when she departed from the project in 2020, she stepped up to the helm of Chippewa Falls’ tourism division.

“(Being the tourism director of Chippewa County allowed me to) start talking about who we were and kind of break out of the shadows a little bit and show how beautiful our community was,” she said.

“I think that that is one of the biggest feathers in our cap here in Chippewa,” Boos continued. “(What we do) is not an ego boost. It is about the community.”

The relationships she built with locals, the chamber of commerce, city officials, statewide economic development staff and more were crucial to the realization of Market on River — and part of why Boos became the first person to hold the position of facilities director with Wisconsin Farmers Union.

Over three years into the role, the pressure to succeed continues. For Boos, the challenge doesn’t leave her frozen — but fuels her to act.

“The amount of stress that I felt over the last three years is something that I didn’t think that I would experience. I knew that there would be triumphs and there would be some stressors — I knew all of that existed,” she said. “To the level of which it did… it came with a lot of self-sacrifice.”

Perhaps the toll of those whose work is not simply a clock-in-clock-out job is most reflected in their personal lives. Yet Boos’ cup seems endless, pouring herself into her children’s busy lives and deep gratitude for her rock and husband, Matt.

“The concept of leaving things better than you find them has been put into my brain since I was a child. I hope, specifically with my children, (that they can look back at) the community and say, ‘my mom helped do that.’ ”

When it comes to her place and influence in the community, there is no specific goal on the other end of Boos’ vision — not for lack of creativity, but in acknowledgment of all that is left to do; all that she can do.

“(Getting this far is) obviously a nod to my hard work, but you don’t get there by yourself,” she said. “The mover and shaker can happen from any level and from any person if they have the true passion for it.”

“It is exciting to think about what that next thing could be, and there is no time stamp on that,” she said. “I challenge that to anybody that thinks about their own community. What can you bring to the table to make it more enjoyable for the people around you?”

Boos’ legacy is still taking shape, but if one thing is clear, it is that with every hurdle she has faced, she didn’t accept a “no.” She accepts the challenge and thinks, “what’s next?”