Cathy DeShambo, a Steward of Spaces and Spirit in East Lansing, Retires

Cathy DeShambo’s office in the Hannah Community Center is largely empty, with things that once adorned the walls wrapped in green bubble wrap. It’ll all be packed into her car by the end of the day because the public servant since 2012 is retiring. ELi spoke with her on Friday, July 18, her last day as East Lansing’s director of parks, recreation and arts.

DeShambo is stepping down after overseeing several transformational parks projects, installing deer management practices in the city and leading the department in the early stages after the Covid-19 pandemic.

“[DeShambo] is what we often term as a ‘Servant leader,'” Director of Planning, Building and Development Annette Irwin said at the July 15 City Council meeting. “She takes joy in working with others and serving her community with the utmost integrity and compassion.”

When DeShambo and her husband moved to East Lansing in 1989, they didn’t think this would be their forever home. The couple had met in Austin, Texas where the Flushing, Michigan native had received her secondary teaching certificate. They moved back to Michigan, settling in East Lansing because it was close to family. 

“We completely expected to move back to Austin someday,” DeShambo said. “East Lansing kind of caught our hearts, and we stayed. We had our children here, we raised our kids here. Both of our children graduated from MSU, and I ended up doing my master’s at MSU, so we kind of came here not knowing a lot about the community, only to fall in love with it and stay.”

She started her career as a teacher before moving into administrative roles.

“I worked with at-risk youth in community education,” she said. Eventually, DeShambo became the energy and project manager for the Lansing School District.

“That was a really great 10 years with the district,” she said. “I learned so much and it really piqued my interest in energy initiatives and sustainability.”

That interest in energy initiatives would lead to DeShambo becoming the environmental services administrator for East Lansing’s Department of Public Works. The experience would only reaffirm her choice to call East Lansing home.

“I think the interesting thing is the engagement with [the] community,” she said. “We are so lucky in East Lansing to have such an engaged passionate community. And our work really requires that we do everything we can to get all the community input about whatever project we’re doing, whatever initiative.

“For me, because I also live here, I think when a project comes to fruition that you’ve spoken with the community, gotten their input on and heard what they had to say, people need that. They really want to be heard by their local government and that input process is really critical.”

In her four years as director, Emerson and Tamarisk Parks have been improved and updated, and renovations to Stoddard Park will soon be complete.

“Those were really big priority projects for me,” DeShambo said. “We had such good community input and our staff was great about finding creative ways to reach out to folks that we felt we weren’t reaching. They broke down some of those barriers to people being involved. 

“I feel like that was a real win.”

Each time DeShambo is asked to tout her accomplishments as director, she redirects the praise to her staff, unable or unwilling to accept accolades as her own.

DeShambo heaped praise on staff when reflecting on the evolution of the city’s Winterfest. But the former parks director’s problem-solving skills can be seen through the steps taken to improve the festival.

“I’m really proud of how our staff shows up when we identify something that’s not working very well,” she said.  “In our community events division, we have a program, an event, in the winter that we would be downtown and we would bring in some vendors from the farmer’s market. And there’d be some music, but it was all kind of focused outside, and we looked at that and said ‘This is getting difficult. Vendors don’t like being outside in the cold.’

“We weren’t getting as many people as we had [after] COVID. And so we just went through a process of trying to identify what we could do differently, and we moved that event to the Hannah Center where we have part of it outside where you could roast marshmallows and enjoy ice carving, but we also have great events inside. We had 2,000 people coming through the Hannah Center for Winterfest for the last couple of years. It has been a joy.”

When asked about initiatives she wasn’t able to see across the finish line, she again praises her staff for their efforts in revitalizing the department and community engagement after the pandemic. But admits she wishes a disc golf course was established in the city, saying there is substantial interest from residents. 

DeShambo is stepping away as questions about funding circulate around the parks and recreation department. City Council recently approved language for a parks millage that city leaders say would insulate the department from potential budget cuts, as the city struggles to balance its budget. However, some have been critical of the millage because it would raise the property tax cap set when voters approved a local income tax.

DeShambo said the lack of “sustainable funding and revenue” for parks and recreation needs a solution.

“A robust parks and recreation program requires sustainable funding and is worthy of sustainable funding,” she said. “It’s something we were talking about four years ago coming out of COVID. I can tell you that we do benchmarking against other parks and recreation programs across the nation and we look at how we align with others. When it comes to revenue, we are different in that many communities have a dedicated levy or a dedicated tax. We don’t have that here in this community.”

DeShambo said that while a portion of the city’s income tax is allotted to parks infrastructure, the proposed millage would go towards operational costs.

“It needs to be a sustainable revenue source that can be counted on from year to year,” she said. “So that we can really grow our programs, that we can sustain our programs, so that we can bring all the recreational programming and care for our facilities that the community wants and deserves.”

In retirement, DeShambo plans to travel and spend time with family.

“I’m really looking forward to spending more time in my garden and resurrecting some of the activities that I’ve had to put aside during my work life, just because there weren’t enough hours in the week,” she said.

DeShambo will remain an active citizen and advocate for parks and recreation.

“I will remain one of the biggest supporters and champions of this department and city,” she said. “I am profoundly grateful to have worked in the community that I live in. It’s been an opportunity to learn from everyone and be a part of many, many solutions. That’s just been a true gift.”