SportsTurf provides current, practical and technical content on issues relevant to sports turf managers, including facilities managers. Most readers are athletic field managers from the professional level through parks and recreation, universities.
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/533607
THE INTERVIEW 10 SportsTurf | July 2015 www.sportsturfonline.com benefits of turfgrass to the world. STMA, I am happy to note, is a major sponsor of the NTF as well as the Grass Roots Initiative. SPORTSTURF: Working in a university extension program you meet a lot of turf managers. What are they saying are the biggest obstacles to overcome for them to be successful today? OWEN: Some of the biggest challenges turf managers are facing today: overcoming the mistaken public perception of turf as being less than environmentally desirable; adapting to regulations, some reasonable and others not; being able to offer a level of compensation competitive enough to attract and keep qualified, passionate people in sports turf; and, perennially stretched and strained budgets. Sports turf managers are facing these challenges head-on, both as individual, knowledgeable professionals and in dedicated teams, making good headway in some areas and determinedly persevering even when the odds seem stacked against them. SPORTSTURF: How has social media impacted your work? OWEN: Social media has opened up incredible new avenues for communication, collaboration, networking, career build- ing, education and more. I believe the potential for information exchange is enormous, but will readily admit that I am less than fully engaged. Some challenges for me: to quickly and defini- tively sort the chatter from the substantial; to keep messages brief and speedy without sacrificing accuracy; and to be in con- trol of the medium and not allow it to control my workday. SPORTSTURF: How do you think the natural turf vs. syn- thetic turf issue will play out over the next decade? OWEN: I believe that the controversies and problems will be sorted out. Personally I prefer natural grass. There is no completely adequate substitute for it. The sports turf industry must continue to look for innovative ways to keep natural grass playing surfaces as dense, safe fields. Looking beyond the edge of the horizon to see what is new, what is adaptable, what works—like using fraze mow- ing for rapid renovation—should be high on the priority list. Yet there are certainly situations in which using a well and thoughtfully designed artificial surface make good sense. When a synthetic field is suggested, a complete and realistic com- parison should be done with a comparable natural grass field so that decisions are made based on facts not feelings. Human safety and environmental protection should always be key priorities. STMA has been a leader in providing information to assist with that process. And STMA will continue to need to provide good education for sports turf managers in the con- struction and care of all kinds of fields. All that said, I do have a synthetic surface pet peeve: people who use the word "turf " to generically describe artificial surfaces. I just wish they'd cut it out. Let's use the word "turf " for what it is, the real thing. SPORTSTURF: What should be the aim of the profession and industry in the next 10 years? OWEN: We must continue to be leaders by example: in the protection of precious and limited environmental resources, particularly water and soil; in bettering the health of our com- munities by providing safe playing areas for athletes of all ages and abilities; and by being optimistically skeptical about new ideas and innovations while embracing those that show prom- ise. We must continue to build strong partnerships amongst researchers, educators, practitioners and businesses, in both the public and private arenas. We must continue to encourage sports turf managers to be professionals of the highest caliber, and can demonstrate this particularly through the Certified Sports Field Manager program. We must continue to grow the SAFE Foundation for its championship of scholarship, to ensure that bright, energetic and passionate students are encouraged and rewarded as they become our next generation of leaders. SPORTSTURF: How has your career benefitted from being a member of STMA? OWEN: Through STMA I have had the opportunity to meet and work with a host of intriguing, clever, committed and otherwise terrific people, many of whom have become lifelong dear friends and every one of whom has been a teacher to me in one way or another. I am especially grateful to those sports turf managers and business people who are out there doing the hard field and management work every day, and who, with their enduring and good humored patience, answer my many, many questions and basically keep me grounded in reality. Their generosity has made me, I believe, much more effective in my work as an Extension Specialist and educator. SPORTSTURF: What are your passions and interests out- side of work? OWEN: What do I like to do outside of work? Tend my kitchen garden, help my husband, Tom, with his retail farm business, and delight in our wonderful grown children and the rest of our family. I read real books, the kind with pages that can be turned; histories of the great American presidents and selected 20th century authors have been my recent choices. I love to go to yoga class, and would very much like to say that I practice every day but that would be stretching the truth, instead of myself, just a bit too far. And believe it or not, I enjoy mowing the lawn! ■ ST "We must continue to encourage sports turf managers to be profes- sionals of the highest caliber, and can demonstrate this particularly through the Certified Sports Field Manager program."