As she reflects on her distinguished career in public venue management, Kim Bedier notes that she started her career through city employment in 1992 and is now working for a city again. You might say the City of Grande Prairie, Alberta, where she was the general manager of the Crystal Centre (just renamed Revolution Centre) and now more than 20 years later is again working for a city as director, public assembly facilities with the City of Tacoma, Wash., are career bookends.
But when Bedier talks about her upcoming year as chairman of the board of directors of IAVM that becomes official at VenueConnect in Portland, she thinks of it as a book on the shelf still waiting to be written. File it in the Adventure category with an expected happy ending.
“If I could encapsulate one thing, I would say, like I have done in every other situation, I want to leave it better than I found it,” Bedier said. “I want to take this year and make sure we are on the right track.”
“We still need to work our way through the governance shift that we’ve got underway. There are a lot of good things about it that I believe will ultimately make us a better, more relevant association. But there’s still a lot to be done not only from moving toward it as a board and as an administration at headquarters, but also in educating our members why it’s the right thing to do and making sure that our association continues to be member-driven. That’s such a key piece for me because that’s what attracted me to want to be involved with the association was that I could make a difference within it.”
Bedier is referring to IAVM’s recent evolution to a Coherent Governance model with the energy of the IAVM Board of Directors focused on oversight and setting strategic goals based on the wants and needs of members, where day-to-day operations of the association are performed by the staff management team.
Adventure comes naturally to Bedier, named a Woman of Influence by Venues Today in 2007 and from a family that moved a lot due to her father’s employment in a Canadian embassy.
“Whenever my son hears the word adventure he kind of rolls his eyes,” Bedier said. “It’s, ‘okay, here we go. We’re on another adventure.’”
The adventure began innocently enough in Grande Prairie and is where the native of Halifax, Nova Scotia, would start building the decorated bookend. Bedier had earned her undergraduate degree in recreation and physical education from Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia and briefly taught, but quickly decided that would not be her career path.
“We ended up in Grande Prairie and I needed a job,” Bedier said. “One came up in the city’s recreation department where a guy who had been with the city for 20 years left, so it was total serendipity. They happened to put me over an ice rink, which are like Starbucks in Canada because there is one on every corner.”
“The city was awarded something called the Canada Winter Games, which is kind of a mini-Olympics for Canada. As part of that they got federal funding to build a bigger arena which is now the Crystal Centre. I got to go over there and be involved in that construction project and they said Kim’s office is in a rink, surely she will be able to run a bigger one. I went, ‘sure, why not?’”
Thus began in 1992 a run that went until 1998, when Bedier was hired by one of her mentors, Bob Hunter, to become the director of guest services and security at the new Air Canada Centre in Toronto.
“I went from a small market and a very safe little arena to an NHL/NBA arena in Canada’s biggest market,” Bedier said. “I owe Bob a lot. He is definitely a huge factor in my getting to where I am today.”
After a once-in-a-lifetime stint serving as a venue supervisor of the Olympic Medals Plaza at the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Bedier moved on to another new venue when she became the general manager of the Comcast Arena at Everett, Wash., for Global Spectrum. It was Bedier’s third opportunity to be part of a venue launch and ended up being a position where she stayed for 10 years. It was at that point in November 2012 when Bedier realized that “I could either stay here the rest of my life or look for what is my next opportunity out there?”
Guess which path she chose?
“I was not really looking hard because I certainly could have stayed where I was, but the opportunity to come to Tacoma came up and after the search company contacted me a couple of times I finally decided to throw my hat in the ring,” she said.
Bedier graduated from the Venue Management School at Oglebay in 1998 and recalled the class she teaches at the school on human resources.
“I teach people every year to keep your resume current and to go and practice interviews even if you don’t want the job,” she said. “I needed to take my own advice.”
She did just that and now has responsibility for venues including the Tacoma Dome, the Greater Tacoma Convention and Trade Center, Cheney Stadium, the historic Pantages and Rialto Theaters and the Theater on the Square.
“The plans just aligned,” Bedier said. “It was a little scary because I was in a very safe place for so long and knew everybody there. I just thought, okay, I’m not about being safe. This has to be my next great adventure and it is.”
Bedier said that her personal mission statement is a simple one of Making A Difference, which she applies daily.
“That can cover a lot of angles,” she said, “whether it is making a difference by mentoring people or making a difference in the place where you work. As long as I can make a difference in Tacoma I want to be there because there is a lot of difference to be made.”
Now comes the pinnacle of her long-standing membership within IAVM — the opportunity to lead the association the next year when difference and change is in the air, most notably an upcoming August vote on proposed bylaws revisions to extend privileges to Allied members including allowing that segment to vote on association business matters and pursue election to senior leadership positions on the board.
“I think we need to recognize the business acumen and expertise of Allied members,” Bedier said. “I think that having them fully participating in our organization as voting members would be a great opportunity for us to garnish some of their energy.”
“That’s obviously a thing I would like to see come to fruition, but again the members will decide. I am glad there will be one last opportunity for this to be discussed at VenueConnect in a forum with senior officers.”
As she prepares to accept the chairman’s gavel from outgoing chairman John Bolton, Bedier said she expects her mind to think about the people who received the gavel before her, about another close mentor in Joe Floreano and his health challenges as well as the previous women who served in the association’s highest role. Finally, Bedier said she will think about the myriad challenges that she will face in the coming year working through the business of IAVM and its membership.
If past successes are any indication, expect Bedier to string together chapters upon chapters in her new role that will be full of highlights for that book on her career shelf about to be written.
Interviewed for this story: Kim Bedier, (253) 573-2554