Greater New Haven lost one of its brightest lights when Jean M. Handley passed away January 26 in her Guilford home at the age of 83.
Jean Handley was a shining exemplar of the best qualities of this community’s leadership class — visionary, fearless, committed and endlessly resilient. Moreover, she was an inspiration to the generation of female business and community leaders that followed her into the corridors of power.
A native of Manchester, Handley was graduated from the Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor before earning BA and MA degrees from Connecticut College and Northwestern University, respectively. In 1950 she began a decade-long tenure as executive director of the Connecticut League of Women Voters.
She began a long and successful corporate career ten years later, joining the public relations department of the then-Southern New England Telephone Co. where she served in positions of increasing responsibility. In 1978 she was named the company’s vice president of corporate relations and advertising — SNET’s first-ever female vice president. The phone company could not have chosen more wisely.
Beyond success in the corporate arena, Handley spent much of her life putting into action ideas on how to make New Haven a better place. In 1992 she co-founded Leadership, Education & Athletics in Partnership (LEAP), a groundbreaking model enrichment program for young people. Two years later she commissioned a market study that indicated that New Haven had a large potential audience for an arts festival within a day’s round trip. Two years later that idea became the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, which this June celebrates its 15th anniversary. Festival organizers could do much worse than dedicating the 2010 event to Handley’s memory.
