Department of Parks and Recreation director Holly Heitkamp retires Dec. 18 after 27 years with the city. (File photo/Nancy Hanson.)

Holly Heitkamp retired from fastpitch softball at the age of 52. She was part of the Klevgaard Construction team that placed third nationally in 1997.

Nancy Edmonds Hanson

Holly Heitkamp has spent her entire career focused on other people’s favorite passions and pastimes. Now she’s just one week away from retirement, looking forward to her own turn to relax.
“I don’t plan to do anything at all for a month,” she suggests, sitting down briefly in her cramped office in the Hjemkomst Center, which she has managed since 1998. “I need a chance to catch my breath. Then … who knows?”
The director of Moorhead’s Parks and Recreation Department is wrapping up nearly 45 years of a professional life managing what others do for fun. She has worked for the city for 27 of those years, heading the department in charge of everything from 40-plus regional, community and neighborhood parks to miles of riverside and crosstown trails, from aquatics and ice-skating rinks to golf courses and dog parks, from the farmers market and River Arts to Greater Moorhead Days and Frostival, and more.
She oversees Parks and Rec’s $2.8 million annual budget. She’s also responsible for hunting grants and raising private funds, extending the department’s vision far beyond the funds allocated by the city: Among them, the 16-mile biking and hiking trail along the Red River, funded in part by $2.9 million from Minnesota Legacy Act funds; the upcoming $5 million makeover of Romkey Park’s swimming pool; and the new stadium and facilities at Matson Field, with a first-phase investment of $1.2 million.
You might say Holly was born for the recreation roles she has filled throughout her career. “Athletics have always been a big part of my life,” Holly says. Growing up in tiny Mantador, N.D., she was drawn early to her lifelong love of sports. She was big in track – “I was too short for basketball,” she notes – before finding her personal sport of choice, softball.
She played throughout high school and for her first two years at the University of North Dakota, “until,” she confides, “I realized I should concentrate on the college part more.” Nevertheless, her prowess earned her a place in the North Dakota Softball Hall of Fame. She continued to play as an adult, ending up behind the plate as catcher. “I played until I was 52,” she grins. “Why did I retire? I was 52. Also, I had to have a bad knee replaced, though I did that to myself snow skiing.” She still works out, bikes and skis on both water and snow.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in athletics management at the University of North Dakota, she was hired as the activities director of rural nursing home. Eighteen months later, she moved to Fargo-Moorhead for a similar position with Eventide.
That was 1982. For the next 17 years she worked with its senior living facilities. That changed in 1998, when the city took ownership of the Hjemkomst Center and contracted with Eventide to grow and manage the senior center that had been located in the basement of the Center Mall.
Holly became the building’s manager in 2001. Her role expanded to include activities for all ages all across the city, first when “recreation manager” was added to her role, then as director of what was known as the “recreation division.” Ultimately, she was named director of the full-fledged Parks and Rec Department.
She credits her 11 supervisors with planning and day-to-day management of the wide range of year-round programming the department provides. “Variety – that’s what I’m proudest of about our program,” the director says. “I have a premium staff who’ve been doing what they love to do for years. They’re dedicated to their jobs and know them in and out … and I don’t know anyone who goes home after only 40 hours a week.”
Seasonal employees expand their staff to more than 200. That includes all kinds of tasks handled mostly by students on summer vacation and retired Moorheaders looking for outdoor seasonal jobs throughout the year. In summer, that could mean mowing golf courses and watching out for kids splashing at wading pools. Right now, think of staffing warming houses, renting cross-country skis and presiding over open gyms.
During much of the year, the parks and rec director spends her rare days off driving to rural Pisek, North Dakota, where her partner of 21 years, Darren Kadlec, farms. “I’ll continue to live here in Fargo-Moorhead,” she adds. “I’ve spent my whole adult life here, and I’m not going anywhere.”
At press time, the city was continuing to interview Holly’s potential replacements. She has a few simple words of advice for whoever is named her successor. “The key is hiring good staff. You can’t do it all, no matter what you think,” she smiles. “It’s impossible to do what this job takes without really good people around you.”