Working on recreation

MOSES LAKE — It was horse riding that brought Doug Coutts to Moses Lake.

Or rather, it was his wife Janine’s love of horses that brought them here.

“My wife is a barrel racer, so we came to the Grant County Fairgrounds a lot in the summer,” Coutts said as he sat in his corner office in the City of Moses Lake’s new Larson Recreation Center.

Horses aren’t really the same passion for him as for her though.

“She’s the horse person. I’m the horse holder. I stand there and hold the horse. I will walk the horse,” he noted. “I do not get on the back of the horse.”

It’s day eight of Coutts’ new job as director of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services for Moses Lake. He arrived the day before the formal ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Larson Recreation Center on Feb. 14, and hasn’t been able to unpack the boxes sitting in his office since he started.

“It’s been hit the ground running,” Coutts said. “It’s been amazing. The staff here is a great staff, and they’re doing a great job. I’m just trying to get caught up, get up to speed with everybody and make sure I understand what’s going on.”

Coutts comes to Moses Lake from Whidbey Island, where he was executive director of the South Whidbey Parks and Recreation District beginning in 2013. Before that, he was director of facilities for Highland Park, Illinois, north of Chicago, where he oversaw operations of the city’s swimming pool, golf course and learning center, an indoor racquet club and a clutch of beaches on the shore of Lake Michigan.

Moses Lake City Manager Allison Williams said the city views Coutts’ varied experience as an important asset in implementing the city’s new comprehensive parks plan and helping to develop new recreation services for city residents.

“We are pleased to bring Doug Coutts on board,” Williams wrote in an email to the Columbia Basin Herald. “Our Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services facilities and programs are economic generators for our city and we look forward to Doug’s fresh perspective on the services we provide.”

While he started working in recreation as a lifeguard in high school, Coutts said he never intended to make it his life’s work. During a stint as a student teacher, however, Coutts said he discovered the difference that self-motivation can make in how young people engage in an activity.

“When I got out of college, my degree was in music education, and I had to do a teaching practice,” he said. “At the same time, I was working as a lifeguard at night. So I go 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at school and 3:30 to 11 p.m. at the swimming pool in the same town, and I was dealing with kids from the music department.”

In school, Coutts said many of the kids understood they were there because they had to be. But after school, in the recreation department, many of those kids were there because they wanted to be. Recreation staff still has to let kids know about available programs, but it wasn’t such an effort to get them involved and engaged.

“And it was more enjoyable working with those people on a regular basis,” he said. “Getting them to want to go ice skating or to play baseball, or to go swimming at the waterpark or down at the lake, it was generally not like pulling teeth.”

A lot of the struggle is pointing people to the right programs, Coutts said, and Moses Lake has a lot to offer, from pickleball to BMX to cornhole (bean bag tossing) and innovative arts programs like pottery.

“I was impressed with the breadth of what was offered,” he said.

Coutts said he’s very impressed with the facilities in Moses Lake. Not just the new Larson Recreation Center, but also the city’s various public parks, which he said were excellent and well-maintained. He also said he’s very impressed with the staff in the city’s Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services department.

But Coutts also noted the cultural services part is new for him and said he’s never managed or worked in a park and recreation district or department that included a museum before.

“I’m learning the museum,” he said. “But it’s an important thing … because as stewards of the culture and the history of Moses Lake, the city has a responsibility to continue and maintain that. To keep it for future generations, so we know from whence we came.”

Charles H. Featherstone may be reached at cfeatherstone@columbiabasinherald.com.