Karen Totaro
In the back of her mind, Karen Totaro has always wanted the chair position at the International Association of Venue Managers. It’s a goal that began during her days as a student at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she worked her way through college at the university’s Assembly Hall (now State Farm Center) when it was managed by Tom Parkinson. She started in concessions, but was promoted to a supervisor position within a month.
Parkinson was heavily involved in IAVM while Totaro was a student working at Assembly Hall.
“He was just this huge, tall man who had such a presence and made such an impact on me,” said Totaro. “Here he was as part of this whole association and it had me thinking that he was somebody so important, cool and influential in what we do in these buildings.”
It wasn’t necessarily the ability to see shows or rub elbows with the music stars that got her hooked on the industry. “It’s just the coolest adrenaline rush to watch a crowd right before the entertainer comes out,” she said. “You feel this energy and pure joy. It’s an experience I knew I really wanted to be part of.”
When she graduated from college, her run at Assembly Hall ended and she looked for jobs at venues. After a tough search, Totaro settled on the closest thing she could find, which was working at a hotel that hosted some conventions in her hometown of Chicago. Later, she worked at a resort with a small conference center in Tortola, the largest of the British Virgin Islands. Though living in paradise sounds wonderful, for an ambitious 20-something, it felt claustrophobic.
Former contacts from Assembly Hall knew how much Totaro wanted to be in the industry and offered her the chance to interview for Marketing/Promotions manager in 1993, a position she stayed at for six years before accepting a new challenge as associate director of University of Dayton (Ohio) Arena.
In early 2003, Totaro made what she now sees as a very strategic move to the associate director position at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, where she spent nine years learning from Director Jeff Blosser, who she said treated her as a teammate instead of an employee.
“She actually walked the talk,” said Blosser, who now serves as director at Washington State Convention Center in Seattle. “Karen had never worked in a convention center before Portland and she jumped in with both feet. Sometimes the number two position in a building wears many, many hats, and as we got going we had a couple people leave. She took over those responsibilities and got a really good first-hand knowledge of operations and event management.”
“Karen is one of the new breed in our industry in terms of people understanding how to get things done and multitask. In our business that’s more and more important, and hopefully she’ll bring that same type of tenacity with her to the chairs and office at IAVM,” he added.
Her time in Portland made Totaro realize that the convention center side of the business was a good fit. Though she loved her time at arenas, Totaro called working at those venues a dramatic roller-coaster ride.
“Honestly, I felt like I got my life back a little bit by moving from arenas to convention centers,” she said, noting that convention centers plan events so far in advance that you see everything coming many months — or even years — out. About six months after Blosser left for Washington, Totaro moved to the assistant GM position at Duke Energy Convention Center in Cincinnati, managed by Global Spectrum.
It’s her first time working in private management and Totaro is enjoying having access to so many resources.
“You have all of these experts within our industry all under the same umbrella and it’s so easy to pick up the phone and ask someone how they did something,” said Totaro, who added that all of the convention center managers under Global Spectrum have a monthly conference call.
Her current boss, Ric Booth, said that Totaro’s unanimous appointment to the second vice chair position of IAVM just proves that he made a really smart hire.
“I’ve done the second level position and basically, with a building of this size or bigger, that’s the person who runs the building day-to-day,” said Booth. “I have a lot of work responsibilities outside of the building and it’s nice for me to have someone of Karen’s ability to rely on and make sure everything’s running smoothly.”
Booth said that IAVM made an especially smart choice because Totaro is a great mentor and has the ability to make people want to work hard and go the extra mile for her.
“She’s very good at making people better at what they do,” he added, saying that it takes a certain love, dedication and passion for the industry to take the chair position at IAVM.
Totaro said that when interviewing for a job, she sizes up the potential new bosses as much as they evaluate her because she knows that having a good relationship will have a huge impact on life.
The interview between Totaro and Booth immediately went well, with one notable exception.
“She’s a Bears fan,” said Booth, pointing out Totaro’s love for her Chicago football team. “We’re a baseball town here, so we said that she can be a Bears fan, but she has to start rooting for the Cincinnati Reds, otherwise we just weren’t sure it would work out.”
Totaro agreed to the compromise and it’s been smooth sailing for more than a year at the venue.
When it comes to IAVM, she wants to focus on a brand development strategy. Totaro wants to make IAVM so well known for having industry experts that people seek out the association naturally. Her goal is for those in government roles in Washington working on legislation about ticketing or ADA accommodations to call the association to be at the table for discussions.
“We can have a much bigger impact as an organization versus one of our venues or members fighting alone for something,” said Totaro. “That, to me, is why we are even part of an association — for the support and comfort level of knowing you have those resources available and people who are going to fight the good fight for things that matter.”
Totaro said she also hopes to expand the international reach of the association, connecting leaders at venues around the world.
“To me, one of the best pleasures is when I go to one of our national or international conferences and spend time with Australians, Canadians, folks from South America, China and all over the world,” she said. “I love it because we absolutely all have the same issues, some groups just drink more beer while talking about them.”
Interviewed for this story: Jeff Blosser, (206) 694-5000; Ric Booth and Karen Totaro, (513) 419-7300