DULUTH – Just one month into his new role as director of the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center, Dan Hartman had a full-blown emergency on his hands.
An ammonia leak mid-July in Pioneer Hall's cooling system led to a staff evacuation and the shutdown of Harbor Drive. The incident — handled swiftly by DECC engineers and the Duluth Fire Department — laid bare the need to replace crucial pieces of the aging, publicly funded regional tourism center, clawing its way back from pandemic-forced layoffs and cancellations.
"It's not going to be easy," Hartman said. "Government support has been very, very crucial."
The DECC booked 87 events September through December, from a wedding convention to Oktoberfest at Bayfront Festival Park. An infusion of federal and state COVID relief money and some earmarked from the city is aiding the continued operation of the 800,000 square-foot harborside complex, whose first arena opened in 1966.
Hartman, 38, comes to the DECC from Glensheen Mansion, where he was director for eight years. A former Duluth City Council member, his ties to the DECC's Amsoil Arena, home of UMD Bulldogs hockey, run deep. As a student at the University of Minnesota Duluth, he and others regularly traveled to the Capitol in 2006 to lobby the Legislature for the arena's funding. A Crosby, Minn., native, Hartman sees part of his job as showing off what the DECC does. Recently that's meant using social media to highlight the Bayfront Blues Festival and the Bon Iver show.
"This is what I learned at Glensheen: I get to see all the cool stuff," he said. "So why not bring a camera with so everyone else can see it?"
Here is an excerpt of a recent conversation with Hartman that has been edited for length.
Q. How's the DECC's financial outlook?
