Former deputy city manager’s origin story runs through UNCG
The origin story of Chris Wilson ’98 begins long before he got to UNC Greensboro.
It all started with a trip to the park.
He was just a little kid back then, growing up in the Triad with a young, single mom and a brother with special needs. Money was tight in their household, so sometimes their mother would bring them to what is now Bur-Mil Park. Back then, it was like a country club for employees of Burlington Industries, where his father worked.
Wilson loved that park, he recalled during his Lawther Lecture Series talk at UNCG on Thursday, Nov. 13. He loved it because it was a place he could play with his brother, where he could escape from his family’s problems, and, perhaps most importantly, it was a place where nothing was off limits to a kid looking to have some fun, a place where everyone was welcome.
Well, almost everyone.
That particular day, he recalled, his family was denied entrance to the club because their father had cancelled their family membership, leaving Wilson to toss a ball with his brother on the small lawn by the parking lot.
He told the story to demonstrate “what one instance can do to an individual.”
“This was an instance where someone wasn’t included,” he said. “And I’ll never forget how that made me feel.
“No one should ever not have the right to play.”
Years later, as his star was beginning to rise in the Greensboro Department of Parks and Recreation, he took a post at the former Burlington Industries Club, now a city property known as Bur-Mil. Though he was still young, the irony was not lost on him.
The Business of Recreation
Today Wilson is the manager of government affairs for Cone Health. But before that he worked through Greensboro Parks and Recreation Department on his way to becoming Greensboro’s deputy city manager, the capstone of a decades-long municipal career. And while the journey began that day outside Bur-Mil, his path was formalized during his time at UNCG.
He had been coaching tennis at a Greensboro city park to help pay his tuition, and though he was a business major at the time he took an Introduction to Recreation course, remembering his childhood love of parks. And—no big surprise—he loved it, too.
He remembers talking about his affinity with the professor of the class, Dr. Jim Sellers, who was able to harness his enthusiasm and point it in the right direction.
“He said to me,” Wilson recalls, “‘What you’re doing is a whole profession.’”
In short order he changed his major to Leisure Services Management, as it was called at the time. He kept his job with the city and transitioned to a full-time position upon graduation. In time, he worked in every neighborhood in Greensboro. He was convinced to move into the city manager’s office by a colleague who pointed out that the move would enable him to help more people, make a bigger difference, and live his values.
Advice for Tomorrow’s Community Health Leaders
The talk he gave to students, “Quality of Life is a Right: Design Lives, not Programs,” underscored the principles he began to understand when he was still a small boy.
“This thing we do supports other people,” he said. “It supports whole communities. You are needed now more than ever”
He encouraged them to think about their work qualitatively, as opposed to quantitatively. “The human equation is so much more than metrics, financing,” he said. “If you want to affect change, tell a story.”
Those values still apply to his new position, he said, but are more concerned with health and wellness than sickness and treatment. Good health, he believes, is also a human right.
“As a leader, you don’t always have to conform to structures,” he said. “You can shape them. You can change systems.”
Second-year recreational therapy student Brynn Nguyen attended both the student lecture and the fireside chat at the Marcus T. Johnson Alumni House.
“When he was speaking about barriers and rules, I was thinking that there must be some good barriers, because some people take advantage of the system,” she said. “When he explained that rules should be set for individual people, but that barriers target whole populations, I was like, ‘Ah!’ Everyone’s different. You can have rules for individual people, but they’re not barriers if people still have access to the things that they need.”
His final piece of advice: “Ask yourself every morning: ‘What will I do today?’ And then every night ask, ‘What did I do today?’”
School of Health and Human Sciences (HHS) Dean Carl G. Mattacola, who hosted the fireside chat, appreciated the parallel between Wilson’s message and his actions:
“Chris has always been a devoted alumnus of UNCG, both as an adjunct professor as well as taking on students for internships and externships. As importantly, his vision and his goals have made Greensboro a better place to live and engage in physical activity.”
Story by Brian Clarey, University Communications
Photos by Sean Norona, University Communications
