New director hired for Parks and Recreation

WAUPACA – From working summers as a lifeguard at South Park Beach to Arlington, Virginia to the mountains of Colorado, a former local resident is finally making her way back to Waupaca as the new Parks and Recreation Director.

Kaylee Boltz, maiden name Biba, will be returning to the City of Waupaca to begin work as the department head starting on Nov. 2.

Boltz said she is used to moving across the country at this point.

“We’ve done it a couple of times, we’re pretty good at it and we’re excited to not have to do it again,” she said.

Boltz graduated from Waupaca High School in 2014, after which she headed to the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire where she studied kinesiology with a minor in Spanish.

In 2017, she held an internship in Boulder, Colorado at the Parks and Recreation Department, and then returned to Eau Claire to finish her last year of college.

After college, Boltz said, she held a few different jobs including personal training, bartending and a day-care teacher; however, when COVID hit, she lost all three.

She landed a job in Arlington, Virginia managing a gym inside Freddie Mac [Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation] through Corporate Fitness Works and worked there for a couple years before deciding she missed her role in parks and recreation.

Boltz and her husband moved to Boulder in April 2022 where she took the very position she had interned for in 2017.

Boltz said she kept her eye on the job market in Wisconsin, hoping to eventually be able to move closer to home.

Both Boltz and her husband, Logan, are from Wisconsin and Boltz said they had been wanting to move closer to their family to put down roots and start thinking about having a family of their own when she found the job posting for the Director of Parks and Recreation.

“I loved growing up [in Waupaca] and I’ve moved around enough to now know what I am looking for in a community and to raise a family,” Boltz said. “I couldn’t ask for a better place than Waupaca and I know that from firsthand experience.”

Former department head, Laura Colbert, recently promoted to the city administrator role, was involved in the creation and completion of many projects throughout the city, something Boltz hopes to continue.

“We are excited to have Kaylee start in November as our new Parks and Recreation Director! Kaylee brings a wealth of experience. Most notably, from her time with Parks and Rec in Boulder, Colorado. We look forward to seeing her continue our existing successful initiatives while bringing new opportunities to the Waupaca community,” said Colbert.

“The goal I think that any person that’s dedicated to parks and recreation is just serving the community,” Boltz said. “Looking at the community as a whole, what are we lacking? What do we need to add? How do we do that in a fiscally responsible community-oriented way? What’s doing really well? And we keep letting that thrive.”

Boltz said the new business center is something she is excited to see and ready to dive into and get more ideas in motion for the center.

Boltz said they enjoy sports, as her husband recently secured season tickets to the Green Bay Packers, so she is extra excited about going to games. She and her husband are avid fantasy football fans and play in multiple leagues.

Boltz said mostly she has missed the Midwest landscape, namely the lakes where she is ready to go boating and swimming and get back out on the water next summer.