Retiring St. Paul Parks and Rec director proud of progress with facilities, programs

When Mike Hahm says he leads one of the best public park systems in the country, he's not lying.

Ranked second nationally by the Trust for Public Land, with 99% of city residents living within a 10-minute walk of one of its 264 parks, St. Paul scores well year after year for its park amenities, programming and green space.

The city's parks and recreation director since 2008, Hahm started his career 36 years ago as a recreation leader, flooding hockey rinks and working with kids. He retires Feb. 28.

Hahm, 54, who is married to St. Paul City Council President Amy Brendmoen, said he believes he is leaving a strong parks system better than he found it.

In a recent interview with Eye On St. Paul, Hahm talked about adding "hidden gems" to St. Paul's roster of parks, launching programs that are more inclusive of the city's cultural diversity. He also describedwhat he plans to do after retirement.

This interview was edited for length.

Q: What's your plan after retiring?

A: I'll be around. I plan to stay involved in the community — 36 years is a long time to work for an organization. We have a great team here, and they're totally ready to pick stuff up. I have total confidence in that.

I think there are great opportunities out there. There's a lot of great work going on around the state with water, with parks and trails, with the environment. It's really an exciting time, and it will be fun to plug into that in a different way.

Q: When did you start at Parks and Rec?

A: Jan. 2, 1986. I was a recreation leader at Rice Recreation Center.

Q: What does a rec leader do?

A: They do a lot of the same things now that they did then: work with kids directly, spend a lot of time in gymnasiums and facilitating after-school programs. Back then, I spent a lot of time flooding hockey rinks and coaching floor hockey.

Q: When did you move into administration?

A: It was in the early '90s. I wanted to take a grant-writer position. Work on stuff like Night Moves.

Q: When did you become director?

A: [In] 2008. It was reported in your paper the day after President Obama was elected, so it wasn't exactly Page One news [laughs].

Q: As director, what are you proudest of?

A: There's people, places and things. On the places side of it, the continued transformation of [the Como Park Zoo and Conservatory]. And updating Como and Highland pools into world-class facilities.

We built Frogtown Park and Farm and Midway Peace Park, working directly with community where there were gaps in the system. We incorporated some more skate parks, some more pickleball and some more dog parks. But we also incorporated culturally specific activities — like tuj lub — that are really important and relevant to our community.

I inherited a world-class system, based on decisions made 100 years ago. Our generation — under Mayor Coleman's leadership, Mayor Carter's leadership, my leadership — has left this in as good or better position than when we found it.

Q: What are the challenges this department still faces?

A: The hardest thing to get people committed to do is to take care of what we have. It's easy to rally people around a new building or a new program. But to make sure that the parking lot or the [walking] path last as long as they can, to make sure the buildings that we invest in last 75 years versus 40 years, it's hard to do that. We still have to work to get resources to take care of all of the great things we have.

Q: Some people see parks and recreation as an extra. Make an argument for why it's not.

A: It's easy to feel like you're not getting enough. I would say in St. Paul, we have a great police chief. We have a great fire chief. We have a great public works department, and we have great elected officials. And we work together. The successes we've had as a community have been when we all pull in the same direction.

The case for parks and recreation is not a new case. The parks movement started in the early 1900s, and it was an economic argument. Someone figured out if you have nine properties and you develop the one in the middle as a park, the other eight would be worth twice as much.

Communities that have great parks, the businesses around them, the properties around them, they all do better.

Q: I hear you like to travel. What are your three favorite places?

A: I loved Vietnam. The pace, people's generosity, and also the lens of history that I didn't understand — history being eons of history versus a couple centuries of history. And I enjoyed the war museums of Europe and learning about [that] history from the perspective of other folks. Learning about ourselves through the lens of others has been great fun.

For straight-up vacationing, it's great being on a sailboat in the Apostle Islands, or any place really. Just relaxing and, unless there are any pirates out there, you're pretty much all to yourself.