"Cathy Rutter was recently appointed to lead community relations and volunteer affairs efforts for the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games. In the following interview with Business Lexington Editor-in-Chief Tom Martin, Rutter discusses the preparations being made in local communities and the support that has already been offered from volunteers near and far. The entire interview is available as a podcast online at www.bizlex.com.
TM: Cathy, would you detail for us your duties with the World Equestrian Games Foundation 2010?
CR: Absolutely. My primary duties are going to be in the area of community relations and volunteer affairs, as well as some government relations and committees and how all of those interweave together. So (that includes) what roles the communities will take, the contiguous communities, as well as what roles committees will take, and how volunteers weave up through that. making sure everybody succeeds in their related goals, if you will. And (making sure that) everybody who wants to have a part in the World Equestrian Games has an opportunity to do so.
TM: Can you tell us about your background?
CR: I started over 20 years ago at Churchill Downs. I started in the racing office over there and quickly moved to community relations. (I) started in the development department, where we started the acquisition mode at Churchill Downs, buying the racetracks for the racing content. Then my role was to go into the communities and make those better places to work, live and play for our employees, for the communities and for the company. I worked on the transition teams to make sure that we had a positive brand image in the communities where we had operations. I was also president of the foundation for Churchill Downs, making sure we had a philanthropic arm in the company as well, making sure that we donated money to organizations that fit within the priorities of giving and making sure that we did have a positive image.
TM: How do those experiences inform what you will be doing now?
CR: The experience that I had at Churchill Downs will integrate well into what I am doing right now, because I will translate those to the communities that are contiguous to the horse center. We'll go out and we'll meet with all the communities and the counties that are contiguous to the Games. (We'll) make sure that they have a role with the Games, make sure they're included if they want to be, make sure that we are reaching out to them, that we're educating, engaging them with respect to the World Equestrian Games. (We'll) make sure they understand what the Games are, and if they want to participate, if they want somebody to come speak to their organization, if they want to co-brand with respect to merchandise.
TM: The Lexington Fayette Urban County Government, the administration of Mayor Newberry, has established a liaison who will be working, I guess, directly with you?
CR: Right, Mary Wathen.
TM: Right. And are other communities in the contiguous counties around the area doing the same thing?
CR: They are absolutely. There will be a Louisville committee, there will be a Lexington Committee, there'll be a Northern Kentucky Committee and there'll be other committees as well that will be working on plans. There will be things like welcoming guests that are coming into the airport with flags and different welcoming signs in their communities. There will be welcome receptions. There's an international committee that will have different events going on throughout the community to welcome the German team (for example). There are going to be over 61 countries represented, so there will be an international flair. There will be interpreters that will be available throughout the different communities to help folks that don't speak the various languages feel welcome. And we're going to have representatives from the World Equestrian Games act as liaisons to work with the various committees. We are going to have a software system that is going to be set up so various committees will be able to talk to one another, so the Northern Kentucky committee knows what the Lexington committee is doing, so that there will be some consistencies in place. We've already had over 13,000 volunteers register on our Web site, which has been phenomenal. So the response has been overwhelming. I mean, everybody is just so excited about the Games.
TM: We had heard that the volunteer outpouring was pretty incredible; 13,000 at this early stage is amazing. I'm sure many of those are just general volunteers, but are there some interesting specific volunteers among them that are offering up services or products that might be of help?
CR: Yes. There are people that are offering up software systems. There are people offering up services such as printing. There are folks that are offering translation services. There are categories they can check (when signing up as volunteers), such as are they interested in volunteering in dressage or eventing or reining or the various categories, if you will. Some are just interested in volunteering in office services. They just want to be a part of the Games in any way they can be. And it's interesting because they are volunteering from all over, different states. Some folks already volunteered before they left Aachen. We have folks from Germany that have already volunteered to help with the Games. The response has been absolutely amazing, and we're just thrilled. We're going to already do an outreach of folks that maybe want to talk about the Games. (We) have a speakers committee that we're going to set up immediately, so folks that want to go out and educate and engage folks about the Games now can be part of that and begin to help us spread the word, if you will, about what this event is and how it's going to affect the region.
TM: Are you looking to communities such as Lexington and other surrounding communities to provide entertainment and opportunities for these crowds, to do something in between the events that they are attending, and what are you hearing from communities who might be interested in doing that?
CR: Many communities are going to have various gala type parties and events that they are going to be offering even during the Games, like art fairs. They're going to have dinners. They are going to have international-type venues in the evenings. They're going to have concerts — I know some communities are working on getting some big name acts that are going to come in in the evenings.
Tourism efforts are working on busing different people who may just want to buy the general admission tickets and come to the Games as well. So there are a lot of activities already going on to make every community feel a part of the Games.
TM: At the point of this conversation, you've been in this position for only a couple of weeks.
CR: Yes.
TM: Does 2010 seem near or far at this point?
CR: Actually, three years seems very close to me. It seems like a lot to do in a little amount of time. It's really quite far away, but with everything everybody is talking about doing and the magnitude of the event, it seems like we've got a lot to accomplish in a very little amount of time. So we are all keeping very busy. People call up every day with just wonderful ideas. The one thing we've got to remember is it's a 16-day event, which is a marathon. And many people think, yes, I want to volunteer for a 16-day event, but when you get in the middle of that 16 days, it's going to become much of a challenge to sustain, so we want to manage that as well.
TM: That's an interesting point, because that begins to break up that number, 13,000.
CR: Yes.
TM: What is the reasonable amount of time? How many days do you think a typical individual can sustain themselves doing this?
CR: I think if we manage it correctly, If an individual wants to volunteer all 16 days, if we have them for maybe four hours a day all 16 days, they could probably sustain that, but I think they need a day off. They can volunteer five days, maybe eight hours a day if they would like to, and then take a day off. I don't think any individual can sustain 16. Of course our staff will, but no individual I think can sustain 16 days, 8 to 10 hours a day. I think that is unreasonable for us to ask that of a volunteer. So we'll try to break it into manageable, bite-size pieces for the volunteers. And we may put some incentives in place, a volunteer that volunteers the most hours will get a special incentive bonus. We are going to try to have some really nice thank you gifts or recognition awards for our volunteers that serve for us.
TM: I guess anybody who can volunteer an eight-hour shift is probably not working a day job.
CR: Probably not.
TM: Well, Cathy, thanks so much for spending time with us. And again, since this is very early in the game for you, we would like to revisit now and then to see how it's going.
CR: Absolutely. I would love to, and thank you so much for having me."