Photo provided
Nikki Murphy has been named the new director of Columbus Parks and Recreation.
City officials on Thursday selected one of their own to lead the city’s parks and recreation department.
The parks board unanimously backed an appointment by Mayor Mary Ferdon to make Nikki Murphy the next director of Parks and Recreation for Columbus.
The appointment comes at a critical time after the official completion of NexusPark and the Circle K Fieldhouse as the department continues to look for ways to offer new, varied programming, while also working to make the new facility a prominent sports tourism destination and bustling community center.
Former parks director Mark Jones in July announced that he would resign effective Sept. 4 after nearly 29 years of public service to pursue new professional opportunities, city officials said. Since that time, parks’ current assistant directors and staff, including Murphy as associate director of recreation, have been leading ongoing operations.
Murphy — who has spent more than two decades in parks and recreation and was well-involved in the launch of NexusPark— was sworn in by Mayor Ferdon Thursday, but officially assumes the role of director of the department on Monday.
The search process was led by a hiring committee made up of Eric Frey, executive director of administration, parks’ Jess Prowant, Misty Weisensteiner, executive director of the Columbus Visitors Center, parks board member Dave Bush, along with Jackson Sargent, the city’s human resources assistant director.
Frey said there were 98 applications for the position and the committee took part in nine phone interviews, five in-person interviews, along with two other second-round interviews.
“Nikki Murphy is a visionary leader with a deep commitment to accessibility, innovation, and public service,” said Mayor Ferdon. “Her experience and collaborative spirit make her an ideal choice to guide our parks system into its next chapter.”
The mayor called the role “obviously a very important role for the city of Columbus” and said Murphy has “demonstrated exceptional leadership, management skills and a deep commitment to the city of Columbus.”
State statute outlines that while the mayor makes the appointment, the parks board makes the final decision, which members were enthusiastic about.
“For an internal candidate to rise to the top is very exciting for us as a community because it allows us to fast forward the timeline a bit,” Bush said. “We don’t have to spend six months to a year on-boarding and getting to know the system. Nikki knows that.”
Bush gave kudos to parks for maintaining operations in recent months after the departure of Jones, as well as former associate director of business services Pam Harrell, who was replaced by the department’s new business point-person in Dawn Ray.
“To be able to hold together as a department and fill both of those roles and work without in the absence of those two critical roles for those two months is a big, big deal,” Bush said.
One of Murphy’s first orders of business will be to search for a person to assume her former role, but before that, she expressed gratitude to the board, mayor and her colleagues.
“I think we have an absolutely exceptional team. I think there’s always room for improvement and I think we’ve got the team that wants to improve,” Murphy said. “I think that we are doing some things exceptionally well that we want to try and maintain. I wouldn’t have accepted this role without these people (her colleagues). They make it really easy.”
Murphy’s career includes prior leadership role as director of Washington Township Park in Avon, as well as at the National Center of Accessibility, where she served as a national expert on outdoor accessibility and ADA compliance.
She holds dual master’s degrees in Recreational Sports Management and Outdoor Recreation from Indiana University and has served on the Indiana Parks and Recreation Association Board of Directors.
