Michael J. Kalvort, CPRE, is an enthusiastic, collaborative, and enterprising leader in the parks and recreation profession. Over the past 25 years, he has improved the organizations he has worked for by delivering new parks and facilities, developing revenue sources, reorganizing members into more efficient teams, and improving customer service delivery.
Currently, he is the Recreation Services Director for the City of Boca Raton, Florida. His responsibilities include overseeing a budget of over $50,000,000 and more than 700 team members. Boca Raton’s amenities include miles of pristine beach, world class athletic facilities, two technologically advanced libraries, and Gumbo Limbo, one of the leading coastal and marine facilities in Florida.
Prior to joining the City of Boca Raton, Michael was the Director for the City of Virginia Beach, Virginia’s Parks and Recreation Department. In his six years with Virginia Beach, Michael worked collaboratively with the community to build three new recreation centers, each over 75,000 square feet, develop several new parks, expand the Princess Anne Athletic Complex and assist the Chesapeake Bay Foundation in designing the Brock Environmental Center, one of the world’s greenest buildings. He worked with his team to increase their revenue generation by 60% and developed consensus with city council to build an administrative complex which brought 150 parks and recreation team members together under one roof and improved communication and collaboration.
Michael was also the Parks and Recreation Director for Chesapeake, Virginia and Deputy Director for Cape Coral, Florida, which won the Agency of Excellence Award in the State of Florida from the Florida Recreation and Park Association. He has also worked in Lenexa, Kansas; the City of Fort Lauderdale; and Broward County, Florida. Before his public service, Michael worked in the private sector for the Jewish Community Centers and the New York Mets Baseball Club.
Michael has been active in the National Recreation and Park Association since 1995. He served as the Chair for the NRPA Administrators and Leadership Development Network in 2017. For seven years, he served on the NRPA’s Revenue Development School Board of Regents, twice as the chair, in addition to serving two years as an Extern. He also served on the State Boards for the Virginia Recreation and Park Society and the Florida Recreation and Park Association. Michael is proud to be one of the first 53 professionals who attained the CPRE Certification. In 2010, he was chosen as one of the top “40 Professionals under 40” in Southwest Florida by Gulf-Shore Business Magazine. Additionally, in 2005, he was a finalist for the NRPA’s Young Professional Award.
He is proud to be a University of Florida Gator where he attained a Bachelors of Exercise Science with a specialization in Sports Administration and Management. He attained his Masters of Public Administration from Nova Southeastern University.
In his free time, he enjoys playing guitar and attending concerts. While he has worked most of his professional career in recreation, his favorite parks remain the Magic Kingdom and Epcot Center at Disney World where he developed his love for fun as a child and teenager. [current as of August 2018]