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JILL AND OZZIE GIGLIO pose with their HarleyDavidson motorcycles outside their Hinsdale home.
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helping keep the new business thriving and growing. “Jill is a very strong, dedicated woman, who both supported me and really supported and took charge of our organization,” he said, adding that she is a “great patriot” and “understands the responsibility” that service entails. ... “We had a great deal of support from our staff and from the people who work with us.” Between 2001 and 2013, Giglio served multiple tours of duty in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bahrain and Djibouti, among other locations. “There are times where I was gone for a month, times when I was gone for a year,” he said, adding that one tour lasted 18 months. ... “Early on, there was less warning and less predictability. As we prosecuted these wars over the course of time, there became more predictability and more adjustments.” There are a number of details about his duties that Giglio is not permitted to share, due to the classified nature of the intelligence he is charged with gathering. He said he has spent most of his career in special operations, supporting special operations forces in their missions. When he joined the Navy Reserve before the first Gulf War, Giglio said he never really envisioned being deployed overseas. While some might abhor the thought of trading the relatively safe streets of Hinsdale for the deserts and firestorms of Afghanistan and Iraq, Giglio described his tours as “phenomenal experiences.” “It’s a myriad of experiences,” he said. “Iraq is certainly a different place than Afghanistan—the people, the target sets. ... Being in a combat environment for an extended period of time is an unusual experience that I think you come to live with,
46 Hinsdale Magazine | www.hinsdale60521.com
and frankly sometimes, you come to really want to go back to support and be with the people who are doing the job every day. “I think they were both phenomenal experiences, and experiences that I probably wouldn’t want other people to have unnecessarily.” Since Giglio’s first deployment in 2001, he and his wife have purchased three more Harley-Davidson dealerships in Palatine (2006), Countryside (2010) and St. Charles (2011). “We’ve had a lot of growth in the last five to seven years,” he said, adding that e-mail communication made it easier for him to monitor the business abroad as well. The Giglios’ dealerships are all involved in charitable activities, including the Ride for Autism Speaks Chicago. Giglio said since starting their business, they have raised “hundreds of thousands of dollars” to support autism and muscular dystrophy. Not surprisingly, they have also given back to military organizations, including Rolling Thunder, a non-profit that supports MIA prisoners of war, and Operation Support Our Troops. “It truly is near and dear to my heart,” Giglio said. “I know what it’s like to get a care package when you’re in dire need.” On the business front, Giglio said he still sees considerable growth on the horizon. “From a business standpoint, we are not done growing, both organically and externally,” he said, “so we ourselves perhaps in the next five years are looking to double at least in size.” Despite an overall troop reduction in Iraq and Afghanistan, the emerging threat of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) indicates that the United States will be maintaining a military presence in the Middle East. Giglio, who most recently spent a year at The Pentagon ending in 2014, said he expects to be redeployed overseas “within the next 12 to 18 months,” adding that he anticipates a change in foreign policy after the 2016 presidential election. “I think at some point over the next several months, our posture will change significantly in the Middle East,” he said. “It has to—I believe that. I think that when the political environment starts to shift, we’re going to see a shift in our foreign policy.” n