Lisle Park District's Mike Gianatasio forging special bonds, winning awards

A decade ago if anyone had told Mike Gianatasio that one day he would win a state award from the Illinois Park and Recreation Association, he would have been baffled.

The Downers Grove native was a broadcast major in college when he took a job as a summer camp counselor at York Center Park District back in 2002. The job grew on him and his responsibilities expanded until York Center offered him a full-time position after he graduated in 2006.

Gianatasio took it and hasn't looked back since. He moved over to the larger Lisle Park District in 2008 to become a recreation program manager and received the “Young Professional Award” from the IPRA earlier this year.

“I always joke that I just kind of fell backward into it,” Gianatasio said of his career. “This is it, without a doubt. I hope one day to become a (parks) superintendent.”

Mike Toohey, Gianatasio's supervisor at Lisle Park District who nominated him for the state honor, said Gianatasio is fully deserving of the award.

“That award is for someone who just goes above and beyond their job,” he said. “Mike is extremely well-liked among his peers, not just at the Lisle Park District but in the state.”

Willing to help out

The recreation manager in charge of youth, teen and adult general interest programs, Gianatasio especially enjoys working with adolescents but he's willing to help out anywhere. He's driven the bus on senior trips when the park district was short a driver, Toohey said. Back in his days at York Center, he even taught preschool.

“I like all ages,” Gianatasio said, “but teens are my favorite age group.”

Under Gianatasio's leadership, the park district's summer “No Name Teen Camp” for grades six through nine has doubled in enrollment and had a waiting list last year. During the school year, on one Friday evening a month, Gianatasio can be found mingling with middle-schoolers at the after-hours program held at Lisle Junior High School. He also serves as co-director of Operation Snowball, an overnight event for high school students held each fall.

Gianatasio's personable nature makes him popular with young people, said Yousef Matariyeh, psychologist at Lisle Senior High School, who has worked with Gianatasio on Operation Snowball.

“He doesn't have to be a boss to get his point across,” Matariyeh said. “He looks at them as people.”

Nicole Puccini, a senior a Lisle Senior High School, said she first met Gianatasio during the after-hours program at the junior high. Since then, she has worked with him on Operation Snowball and Lisle Teens with Character.

“It's really easy to talk to him,” she said. “He makes it fun, but still gets productive things done.”

Fellow high school senior Kayla Hanley agreed. A teen director of Operation Snowball this year, Hanley said Gianatasio is dedicated to the program, but not heavy-handed.

“He's so easygoing. It makes it easy to forget the age difference between us,” she said.

Part of community

A Lisle resident since before he joined the park district, Gianatasio said getting to know young people and their families provides him with the most satisfaction.

“It's a great town,” he said. “There's a lot of good people in this community who are doing a lot of good things.”

As a recreation manager, Gianatasio is not the hands-on staff member conducting most of the programs he oversees. Still, he seems to know every teen out there, Toohey said.

Gianatasio said he still runs into teens from York Center who remember him from the programs he ran when they were little kids.

“It's nice to be noticed and recognized. You feel like you're doing something. You feel like you're doing a good job,” he said.

Gianatasio's position at Lisle Park District includes overseeing the before- and after-school program and special events such as Totally Tuesdays, Movies in the Park, the egg and flashlight egg hunts and Battle of the Bands. He also serves as the Lisle representative for Road Rally, a multi-park district scavenger hunt.

When something doesn't seem to be working, Gianatasio said he'll ask the experts — the kids — what they want. Fun for young people includes such stuff as skateboard dodgeball, a game of Cheeto Head with the Cheetos thrown at a teammate wearing a shower cap filled with shaving cream, and a bike tour of Chicago's lakefront.

“I try to get them to do things they normally wouldn't do and normally wouldn't think to do,” he said.

Gianatasio's also involved with Lisle Character Counts and serves on several IPRA committees on the state level. He was the co-chairman of the Teen Committee last year and serves on the school-age day camp committee.

This year, he's taken on new responsibilities as supervisor of a two-day symposium for newer park district professionals and as director-elect of the IPRA's Recreation Section.

Asked if he has any regrets about his planned career in broadcasting, Gianatasio recalled the days when he hosted radio shows in college. Radio taught him to be comfortable speaking, but it wasn't for him, he said.

“I hated being locked in a room by myself talking to nobody,” he said.

Toohey said he knew when he interviewed Gianatasio that he had found someone who could do an outstanding job running recreation programs.

“He was definitely the right fit,” he said.