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ISI UNIVERSITY ISI UNIVERSITY LISA FEDICK, CAE ISI Certification Programs & Courses Chair Up Close with CAE Rob McBride I
N OUR CONTINUING series of profiles on Certified Arena Executives (CAE), we spotlight a member of the 2005, first graduating class: ISI President Rob McBride.
Having grown up playing pick-up
hockey games with his brothers on a frozen pond on Boston’s South Shore, McBride traveled a path through the operations side of the ice arena industry. By age 16, he was driving a Zamboni at Rockland Ice Rink in Rockland, Mass. and went on to become a facility maintenance technician shortly thereafter. This position funded his formal education at Bridgewater State College (now Bridgewater State University) from which he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business management.
After spending four years as general
manager of Rockland Ice Rink, McBride founded his own ice sport facility management firm, FMC Ice Sports, in 1992. It now operates 25 ice skating facilities in the Northeast and has become one of the most well-respected entities in our industry. McBride’s unyielding passion for the why’s and how’s of the way things work has fueled the importance he places on professional education, and ISI proved to be the vehicle for his professional growth and development.
ISI Introduction
“My first exposure to ISI was a joint seminar with NEISMA at the Gallo Ice Arena in Bourne, Mass., back in the late 1980s,” says McBride. “I was just beginning my career in this industry as a young night and weekend manager at the privately-owned ice arena located where I grew up. My experience was typical of the Northeast commercial (and many public) ice rink management model of selling ice time to hockey associations with very
little, if any, focus on public sessions, introductory classes or recreational skating. My rink was 100 percent hockey with no public sessions or skating classes. Te home hockey association ran the learn-to-skate and learn-to-play sessions. Like almost every ice arena in those days, we were struggling financially; energy and insurance costs were spiraling out of control, and ice rinks that were built in the boom of the 1970s were closing or barely able to stay afloat.
“I attended that seminar to learn more
about ice maintenance, but what I heard from the ISI speakers changed my entire view of the industry and in hindsight was the pivotal moment in determining my future in the ice sports industry. Te ISI concept that arena management must play the central role in attracting new skaters and/or players and transitioning them to committed participants made perfect sense to me. How could we be successful in stabilizing and growing ice sports long term if we rely on amateur volunteers who change every few years? How could we attract a new generation of ice sports enthusiasts if we don’t have a low-cost, fun entry point like public sessions and recreational skating programs? We were relying on the narrow top of the ice sports pyramid and ignoring the wide base that is so essential to sustain the industry.”
That simple revelation ignited a
passion in McBride to change their old model of just selling ice and to take control of their future by focusing on building a strong entryway to ice sports and long-term retention through fun and recreational programs that provide an alternative to competitive skating and travel hockey.
ISI University
In 2002, McBride attended his first ISI University (then called iAIM) course and that again was a revelation to him. “I had participated in Ontario Recreational Facility Association (ORFA) schools in Canada as well as many regional seminars and the ISI national conferences,” he says.
“While all of them provided valuable information and new ideas, they didn’t pull together all the facets of management, programming and operations into a cohesive model for operating a successful ice arena. Up to that point, my industry education was ‘how to’ and task- oriented training and lacked the deeper understanding and systemic practices to guarantee success. I’m convinced that much of the professional success that I have enjoyed can be traced directly back to the things I have learned and philosophy I have developed through the ISI University program.”
Rob McBride with his FMC Ice Sports staff at the 2017 ISI/MIAMA Ice Arena Conference & Trade Show.
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