Milwaukee Recreation’s director Lynn Greb announced this fall that she plans to retire from the department at the end of January. Greb began her career with Milwaukee Recreation in 1989 and became the department’s director in 2015.
Lake Effect’s Xcaret Nuñez spoke with Greb about her career accomplishments and what’s next for Milwaukee Recreation.
What will the next chapter look like for you?
I was thinking — OK, the first 12 years you're going to school, and then you're going to college, so you have everything kind of figured out. For me, anyhow, it was. Then I got my job, and I've been in that for 36 years. So I actually don't know what it feels like to be unscheduled for an extended period of time. So I think it's going to be really interesting to figure that out. I feel like on the first workday of my retirement, I might just be lost, not knowing what to do. But when people retire, I say, 'Enjoy being a full-time re-creator,' because, for me, that would totally be my goal. I've been a full-time recreation employee for many years, and now I'm looking forward to being that other kind of full-time re-creator and experiencing a lot of things that I've seen other people enjoy, and now a chance to see it from the other side.
As the director of Milwaukee Recreation for the past decade, you have led several projects, including the department's "Dream Build Play" initiative. Do you feel like you’ve reached the goal you set out to achieve with this project?
So we maintain 52 playfields throughout the city of Milwaukee, and they're smaller types of parks where they have some recreational amenities and some green space. And for many years, we have maintained those play spaces and we program them. That was really our responsibility. But over time, there wasn't an investment in making sure those facilities were meeting the needs of the neighborhood. And of course, time, weather and use, wore a lot of these playfields down. I was just seeing this opportunity that we could do something more than just program these sites and maintain them.
I think the thing we're most proud of with that [Dream Build Play] project is that the basis of it all was around equity. When we started looking at which playfields to do first, we had 52, and honestly, over 60% were rated as fair-to-poor condition. So the odds of finding one to do were very great because there were so many that needed help.
But I heard the former director of Minneapolis’ Parks and Recreation. I saw something they had done, and they created this matrix that looked at numerous characteristics of each neighborhood, and by looking at those characteristics and doing some analysis, they came up with a rating system. Then they ranked all of their parks according to poverty levels around the park, crime rates, or the number of children under 18.
So we took that concept and applied it here in Milwaukee. By doing that, we came up with our priorities for where we were going to invest initially, where the need was the greatest—not just on the condition of the site, but the need of the neighborhood. So we've revitalized 10 or so playfields now. If you look at which locations they are, there's no arguing that this is where the investment was needed the most, and that's kind of how we're approaching these projects. So we have a long way to go, but the ones that have been completed, I think, have really transformed neighborhoods.
How do you envision the future of Milwaukee Recreation?
I envision it probably like maybe other people did 36 years ago. In 36 years, somebody else may be sitting in this chair talking about all the amazing things the department has accomplished and being a part of that. Again, I feel like when your base is so solid, like the recreation department is and has been, I don't have any concerns that the great work is going to continue. There are so many wonderful staff members that we have who really do all the work, day in and day out. And all the part-time staff we have—we have well over 1,000 individuals that we hire as instructors, officials, timers, scorekeepers, building staff, and event staff. There are so many people I've crossed paths with that I just can't say enough about. The fact that people would dedicate their time above and beyond, many of them having full-time jobs, to come and work for the recreation department so that we can do everything that we do.
So with that unit of people, I have no doubt that the wonderful work will continue. There are enough people who understand the history of Milwaukee Recreation, and they will pass that on, and it will just keep evolving. They'll be celebrating their 200th anniversary down the road and looking back at 2024 and what was happening then. So yes, I'm very grateful and optimistic that everything is going to be in good hands, and hopefully, I'll be a participant enjoying some of these classes that I've always seen in the book and never had the chance to sign up for.
