The Tamaqua Area Chamber of Commerce would like to congratulate the 2022 Joseph M. Plasko Citizenship Award recipient, Jay Hollenbach. Since he was 18 years old, Jay Hollenbach, Jr. has readily demonstrated his commitment to civic volunteerism in the Tamaqua area. He is a 34-year member and volunteer fire fighter at the American Hose Co. #1 of Tamaqua. In that time, he has worked in multiple Engine Room Officer roles including Engineer, Lieutenant, Captain, and a total of at least 5 years as an Executive Officer including the positions of Trustee and Company President. Jay and his wife, Gloria, are very active parishioners of Bethany Evangelical Congregational Church where he has volunteered for countless years with the church’s Operations Commission and Vacation Bible School, has served as a Greeter and an Usher, helped on mission trips to Big Creek Missions in Kentucky, and has worked as a part of local mission initiatives including Restore 2019 and Restore 2022 to help the less fortunate directly in the Tamaqua area.

There are numerous other ways that Jay has demonstrated his dedication to betterment of our town. Jay currently serves on the Borough of Tamaqua’s Borough Council, he and Gloria have been foster-parents to twenty-one children, and they have legally adopted two of them bring the total number of his children to four. He is a member of Tamaqua’s Masonic Lodge and the Tamaqua Area Chamber of Commerce, has coached for the Tamaqua Youth Soccer League for about 19 years, and is generally known as a reliable person to call for assistance with behind-the-scenes work throughout the community. For example, he and the staff of this Plumbing business donated a weekday of their time in 2016 to help prepare for Tamaqua Remembers Opening Event, and he spent several days in 2020 assembling the new playground equipment for use at West Penn Township’s J.E. Morgan Park. Jay is the owner of two Tamaqua-based businesses: Jay Hollenbach, Jr. Plumbing and Heating and Hollenbach Home Comfort Services. Together, Jay and Gloria are dedicated financial supporters of many non-profit organizations in the Tamaqua area, most notably the Tamaqua Area Football Boosters and the Tamaqua Community Arts Center. Jay is a firm believer that change is best achieved by a grassroots effort with citizens who are hardworking volunteers, who live and raise their children in town, and who support other local businesses.

The Tamaqua Area Chamber of Commerce would also like to congratulate the 2022 Business Person of the year is Micah Gursky. Micah graduated from Head Start in 1978, Tamaqua High in 1991 and cum laude from Princeton University in 1995. Micah then returned home to Tamaqua and got to work on making it a great place to live. Micah has worked for 15 years as the Business Development Manager for St. Luke’s and he has led the effort to reinvigorate health care services in the Tamaqua Area beyond a full-service hospital in Coaldale. All of the St Luke’s family practice and specialty offices are in Tamaqua because of Micah’s direction.

This started through Micah’s involvement with the Tamaqua Area Community Partnership, where he has served as director and our true leader when it comes to downtown community development for 27 years. Whether it be the Arts Center development, the expansion and Hope and Coffee, or many other initiatives that he has brought to the table over the years like Choose Happiness, Tamaqua has Heart and Tamaqua Night Out, Micah has been instrumental in seeing things through in Tamaqua.

In addition, he has been involved in the restoration of the Tamaqua Train Station, the development of affordable housing units, and has brought business owners to the borough including Wheel-Tamaqua, Stoker’s Brewing Company, and Revere Brewery. The non-profit recently started a new planning effort “Tamaqua Choose Happiness,” an effort to make Tamaqua a place where peoples’ happiness is a community goal. Micah also served on Borough Council for 16 years, 8 of which he was president. Without Micah’s steadfast leadership since the 1990’s, Tamaqua would still be struggling rather than a thriving community.