Five Questions: Bob Belote

The Springfield-Greene County Park Board voted unanimously in April to name Bob Belote as director of Parks, replacing retiring director Jodie Adams. Belote served as assistant parks director 2006–11, and most recently worked as interim director. A native of Springfield, Belote had spent 12 years managing parks’ departments in Sioux City, Iowa, and Independence. Belote, 49, is now preparing for next year’s centennial anniversary for the organization that generated more than $13 million from some 50 sports tournaments the city hosted in 2011.

Coming Home
“I was fortunate during my collegiate years to learn and mentor here with the Park Board, and it was just an incredible opportunity to come back and work for such a great system. The great thing about the folks with the Springfield department is we would see them at state conferences and through different training opportunities, and so I just had really good relationships with the people who worked here. Jodie [Adams], in particular, had talked to me a few times to see if that was a possibility. Both Dan Kinney and Jodie Adams were wonderful mentors to me.”

Finding the Path
“My junior year at then-Southwest Missouri State University, being very active in sports and playing an awful lot of tennis, I just came to realize that you could in fact take a love for sports and couple that into a career in parks and recreation. I have to give Jodie an awful lot of credit because she helped me to better understand that. I also learned from a gentleman named Gary Shoemaker, who was with MSU’s (Health, Physical Education and Recreation) department how to go about that. That allowed me to, in essence, change my major and finish with a lot of parks and recreation electives and then go to graduate school at the University of Missouri.”

Tax Matters
“Voters have helped to make the system as great as it is with passing the Parks’ sales tax in 2001 and then renewing it in 2006. … I know that the perspective from the Greene County commission was not a ‘No’ [when no renewal was sought in 2011]. It was, ‘Let’s take a look at that,’ and then, ‘Not right now.’ There are certainly other community needs out there that we think are important as well.”

Progress with Partners
“We have more than 200 partnerships and associations out there, which is part of why the system is very strong. … The trail system here is an amazing partnership between Ozark Greenways and the Park Board. They help us find and obtain the land for the trails, then help us build them and finance them. We, in turn, maintain them. We have a vibrant partnership with Friends of the Zoo. It is, in essence, our fundraising arm for the Dickerson Park Zoo, and it allows us to do many more things than our typical zoo budget would allow. Another relationship that has blossomed in the last few years is with Friends of the Garden. They work with us at Nathaniel Greene and Close Memorial parks, and helped us raise a tremendous amount of money for the new Springfield-Greene County Botanical Center.”

Economic Generation
“Our research has shown that (sports tournaments) generated an economic impact for the community between $13 million and $15 million [in 2011]. We documented close to 3 million people who came in specifically to go through our gates, use our programs and our facilities – and that’s the active use. That doesn’t include the passive walk-up use we have in the Parks’ system. What you are able to show with those kinds of visitor counts is that there are people out there spending money in the community. While the Parks’ system is designed for residents, and it should be an amenity for folks who live here and pay taxes, we also look at it as a real economic driver for visitor spending.”[[In-content Ad]]