Leader Photo by Tim Ryan Matt Hendricks, the city’s new park and rec director, poses at the pool at the Shawano Recreation Center on Friday. Hendricks started his new job on Tuesday.
Shawano’s new Park and Recreation Department director, Matt Hendricks, who started this week, was intrigued by the length of time his predecessor, Judy Judd, had been on the job.
He saw a newspaper article about how Judd, Police Chief Ed Whealon, who retired Friday, and Public Works Director Rick Stautz, who retired last year, had all been in Shawano for more than 30 years.
He thought there must be something about Shawano that kept them here.
“There must be something in the culture that makes people want to stay and build a career out of it,” he said.
That was one of the things that attracted him when he saw the opening for Judd’s job.
Hendricks was park and recreation director for the village of Marshall in Dane County, where he was responsible for 145 acres of parkland and 35 recreation programs. He held that position since April 2009.
Shawano’s park and recreation system, which includes a cemetery, provided a new challenge.
“The rec center with the pool, the park land, the cemetery was unique and different,” he said.
Hendricks brings a kind of Zen philosophy to recreation; a place where visitors can forget themselves and be a part of their surroundings.
“If you can pair someone’s abilities and passions with the right level of challenge, they’re going to be in a sense of flow,” he said. “One of the roles of parks and recreation is to provide places or avenues for people to find that. For some folks that may be the pool, for others it may be watching the sturgeon run. Providing those facilities and providing those avenues is of great importance.”
Hendricks said the city’s park system was a credit to Judd, the Park and Recreation Commission and the city.
“It seems to be a very healthy system in place,” he said. “A system where a lot of time and energy and resources have been placed over the years. I’m very impressed by it and excited to be a part of it.”
Hendricks said he has been impressed with the community partnerships, such as the farmers market that will be utilizing Franklin Park this summer.
“It strikes me as a prideful community, with all these different organizations and clubs that support public projects,” he said.
“It seems like a very holistic community,” Hendricks said. “It feels like folks here are connected and have relationships. They kind of truly know their neighbor. That’s something I want our family to be a part of.”
Hendricks, who grew up in Menomonie and went to school in La Crosse, has a home that he and his wife, Emily, their three children and the family dog will be able to move into next month.
In the meantime, Hendricks is mostly getting acquainted with the new job, staff and city organizations.
“We’re very excited to be here,” he said.