The mayor’s 2022 budget expanded free youth sports offerings at 16 rec centers in areas of concentrated poverty, such as soccer and flag football for ages 10 and up. Before being appointed director, he had served as the department’s recreation program supervisor from 2013 until 2019, overseeing nine rec centers, and then as rec services manager, overseeing all 26 rec centers. Rodriguez, who grew up in the Summit-University and Macalester-Groveland neighborhoods, now takes his three young children to karate at the Martin Luther King Recreation Center on Mackubin Street. (Robert Piram was 32 when he was appointed parks superintendent in the early 1970s). Rodriguez, 37, is thought to be among the youngest Parks and Rec directors in city history, and likely the first Latino. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter appointed Rodriguez to lead the department of some 600 employees, one of the city’s most public-facing agencies. It’s literally been embedded in my life.”Īnd where did Rodriguez want to be? Little did he realize at the time, but the answer was at the top. “Both personally and professionally, it helped get me to where I wanted to be. “This department raised me,” said Rodriguez, who went on to graduate from Augsburg University in Minneapolis in 2012 with degrees in sociology and urban studies. It was time, they told him, to go to college. A few years in, fellow parks staff took him aside. Paul’s Linwood Recreation Center, so much so that rec center staff had little choice but to hire him to help out as a teen.Īfter graduating from Central High School in 2003, he worked his way up the Parks and Recreation ladder, climbing as high as he could go inside the department without further education. As a kid, Andy Rodriguez spent most every available waking hour at St.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |