Jan. 15--Jan Marino was a longtime career coach who ran her own consulting firm and spoke frequently on the radio and at speaking engagements about the importance of career reinvention.
Marino also wrote a book about career management, offered her expertise to LinkedIn's Chicago community and maintained a blog that was a part of the Tribune's ChicagoNow collection.
"Jan was a major connector of people," said Mary McFarlin, who manages LinkedIn's Chicago community. "Her big goal in life was to help people and help businesses thrive. She tried to find and dig out win-win opportunities for people."
Marino, 66, died of complications from brain cancer Dec. 31 at her home in Lisle, said her husband, John.
Born Janet Echternacht in tiny Spalding, Neb., Marino received a journalism and marketing degree from Creighton University in Omaha in 1971.
She worked in marketing for a year for a Nebraska company that sold kitchen cabinets, and later worked in Minneapolis as the marketing manager of a health food company.
Marino lived in California before taking a job in sales at voice mail system producer Tigon. For several years, Marino lived in Cincinnati, where she worked in sales for the now-defunct radar detector manufacturer Cincinnati Microwave. In 1996, the couple moved to Lisle, and she worked for a year for Near North Insurance before joining Bank of America's telecommunications group.
In that job, Marino served as a go-between for engineers and bank employees.
"Jan wasn't an engineer, but she would go out with engineers and speak in plain English with the people in the offices about what was going to be done," her husband said. "Engineers would do engineer-speak, and Jan had the relationships. That was pretty much her responsibility, managing relationships."
After subsequent jobs at outplacement firms Challenger, Gray Christmas and Right Management, Marino formed her own firm, High Gain Companies, in 2008. The firm aimed at providing companies with sales training, management coaching, succession planning, and social media program creation and maintenance, among other services.
"Her business transformed from helping individuals to helping companies," her husband said. "She would help companies with their marketing plans, and she was a great networker, so she would help companies find people."
Marino also co-hosted a weekly radio show at blogtalkradio.com with Brian Basilico, and in 2011, she published "Take Back Your Career," a 98-page book that used her own experiences with career transitions to offer advice for experienced professionals shifting careers.
"She was on the 'bleeding edge' of trends and technology," John Marino said. "She was a great believer in trends. She would figure out what the new trends were in most anything. And she was driven to help people figure out an easier way to find a job."
In 2012, Marino began authoring a blog titled "Take Back Your Career" at ChicagoNow.com, and the following year, she started serving as the strategic alliance manager of LinkedIn's Chicago group, which has 102,000 members, and began blogging at LinkedIn as well.
For LinkedIn, Marino's role was to moderate and approve discussions by members of the LinkedIn Chicago community.
In August, Marino was diagnosed with brain cancer. She blogged about the experience, writing that "even in this short period of time since I learned the diagnosis I've started to understand to spend time on things that are really important. Let go of stupid stuff and focus on what will make a difference."
"She was a strong person who felt sorry for herself for about three seconds with this brain cancer," McFarlin said.
Marino's first husband, Mike Milwood, preceded her in death.
In addition to her husband, she is survived by brothers Jim Echternacht and Chuck Echternacht; and a sister, Mary Savory.
There were no public services.
Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
