Coordinating Concerts—and Much More

Lisa Abernathy said no, we shouldn’t do the interview in her office at the —it was just too full. There weren’t really many places to sit.

“There’s just so much Halloween stuff in there,” said Abernathy, the city’s recreation coordinator. She and her colleagues are busy planning the Goblin March and Boo-Gie Concert, the center’s annual kids’ Halloween party, which will be held this year on Oct. 28.

So we found a place in the lobby to talk, and it soon became clear that, like her office, Abernathy’s plate is full, too.

From special events like the Halloween party to the city’s —and a lot in between—Abernathy has a hand in a wide range of St. Louis Park’s activities. In addition to special events and the farmers markets, she oversees the playground programs, the summer concert series, arts programming, arts and culture grants and the youth tennis program.

And that suits her just fine.

“I’m a good multi-tasker,” Abernathy said. “Every day is different. I didn’t want one of those jobs where you’re sitting at a computer just typing.”

So just how does one become a recreation coordinator?

Abernathy said that in her case it started with one thing:  “I wanted to work with kids.”

Knowing that, she started working summers at age 15 for Jay Lotthammer in the Brooklyn Park Parks and Recreation Department. Lotthammer, who Abernathy considers her professional mentor, is now the director of the parks department in Eden Prairie.

Abernathy went on to attend the University of Minnesota-Morris, where she majored in elementary education, before deciding that the “classroom setting wasn’t for [me]” and transferring to the school’s Twin Cities campus and declaring a recreation, park and leisure studies major. She learned everything from how to plan a budget to how to create and manage her own event, doing an internship in Chanhassen to cap her studies.

In 2005, she was hired as the only employee of the Falcon Heights Parks and Recreation Department. As it turns out, working as a staff of one did have its advantages.

“In this field it was good to start in a city like that because it forced me to do everything,” Abernathy said.

So when she was hired in her current position in June 2010, where she works with a recreation superintendent, a director and two recreation supervisors, Abernathy knew she had some space to breathe.

“I can be creative; I have more resources,” she said.

Some of those resources were put to good use at last year’s Goblin March and Boo-Gie Concert, which attracted about 300 kids, according to Abernathy. She said that it is her favorite event in her 16 months on the job.

“Seeing this building turn into ‘Halloween Central’ was great,” Abernathy said. “It just kind of gave me a chance to say, ‘Look what I did.'”

Abernathy will have that chance again in a few weeks. For now, she will head back to her office and juggle her many tasks, trying all the while to avoid tripping over the plastic tubs that will soon be filled with candy.