Charlie Gardner took over as general manager of @ the Grounds in Roseville in December 2020 . Previously , he was a project manager at the Washington State Public Stadium Authority , which owns Lumen Field where the Seattle Seahawks play , but his career has taken him to jobs all over the country . Placer County Fairgrounds , which was rebuilt with new facilities and opened as @ the Grounds in February 2020 , has hosted the Placer County Fair for more than 80 years in addition to trade shows and other events . The venue has been managed by Placer Valley Tourism since 2017 , which oversaw the rebranding and major renovations of the 55-acre campus . Comstock ’ s spoke to Gardner about this new era for the fairgrounds , which includes the new 160,000-square-foot , $ 34 million Roebbelen Center .
You ’ ve worked in facilities and events management for 20 years . What led you to this position ? This is my 12th or 13th city to live in . I ’ ve traveled quite a bit for work in the industry . If you want to move up , you have to move a lot . … When opportunities arose , I was always flexible enough in my personal life that allowed me to do that . But long story short : I was in St . Louis , and I was working at the convention center and the stadium there , where the ( NFL ) Rams played , as VP of operations , and a friend in the industry contacted me … to come to Seattle . … I moved there in December 2019 , and the gentleman who had been there from the beginning was retiring . He left at the end of February ( 2020 ), and I moved into my office , and two weeks later , I was sent home because of COVID . … I stayed on until the end of October , and they finally said , “ Look , we don ’ t know what we ’ re going to do . We don ’ t know what ’ s going to happen .” Frankly , I ’ d said to them , “ I ’ m surprised it took this long .” …
I had a friend who was a headhunter , and he turned me on to this position . Obviously , this is quite different than being in NFL stadiums , but what I found in my career … when I was in the roles in the larger organizations , I didn ’ t have a lot of reach . I had a very narrow scope of what I was doing , and I found that to be unsatisfying . This one is essentially a startup , because (@ the Grounds was ) only open for three events before they had to shut down for COVID last year , and most of the staff had been furloughed or let go because no events were going on . So it was an opportunity to kind of create something from scratch .
You took over as general manager during an unprecedented time . What have you learned about your industry ’ s ability to adapt ? We ’ re being as creative as we can possibly be to bring events in that we can host . The thing that I ’ ve taken away from the industry in this situation — and I have a lot of contacts across the country , and I ’ m involved with the International Association of Venue Managers — is the adaptability and nimbleness of everyone in the situation to try to minimize the damage that ’ s caused financially and personally to people ’ s jobs and lives . …
Larger venues , which even include this venue , they ’ ve really done a great job managing the financial expectations . You watch what the NFL has done ( and ) what baseball has done , what hockey has done and what basketball has done : They figured out a way to keep us entertained . It ’ s been interesting to watch . I ’ ve learned a lot , have gotten a lot of great tips and ideas . … I would never want this to happen again , but it ’ s been invaluable that it ’ s happened in a lot of ways , to be able to kind of expand the scope and our ideas of what we can do .
What are some of the events the Grounds has been able to hold over these past several months ? We are a vaccination point for Placer County … since Jan . 2 , and we ’ ll probably continue that for the foreseeable future . We ’ ve been able to socially distance groups that are doing classes . We have a company that teaches people how to trim trees , and so we can socially distance , and they ’ re outside actually surveying the trees . We ’ ve got notary classes . We ’ ve been able to do some
Focusing on youth sports , which is an industry that is really doing very well right now and for the foreseeable future can do very well — parents always seem to love to spend their money on their kids — the business model that was created here almost can ’ t fail .
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