1. hen Vince Cavin first heard about
the renovations happening in
Hemming Park, he knew he wanted
to be involved, but when the conver-
sation shifted to who would be the CEO, he didn’t
immediately think of himself for the job. Even with
Cavin’s lengthy list of credentials including de-
signing video games, co-creating non-profit Party
Benefit & Jam to being one of the founding mem-
bers of One Spark, it ended up being a vivid
dream of what Hemming Park would become that
gave Cavin the idea to step down from his role as
board member and put in his request to be its
chief executive.
b How did you end up being one of the found-
ing members of One Spark? I met a friend who
was starting a group called Party Benefit & Jam
(PB&J.) He said, “I've got this idea for a small non-
profit that runs events and I need some friends to
make it work.” So we hit it off and I became his
admin operations person. Just about five of us got
together and made PB&J happen, which is still
going today. Through all of that we got noticed by
Elton Rivas, who brought us in for conversations re-
garding this idea festival. I proved myself through
successive stages, told him I wanted to be on the
One Spark team. I was the first employee that he
brought on to help him build it from the ground up,
and because of that I got the Hemming Park job.
b What do you think about the future of Hem-
ming Park? I think we need to do a lot more work
there to make it a place that’s considered safe. You
know, people say “clean that up,” or “that’s not the
behavior of the people who we want there,” but we
do all the placemaking we can. It’s a constitutional
right to be in the park, so we’ve got to figure out
how to set a community standard for the behavior
that we want and enforce that at all times.
b What is placemaking? This idea of creating a
space that people want to visit. It’s not about about
taking people out of the park, it’s about bringing
people into the park. It takes about three to five
years to establish this concept.
We can’t do programing 24-7, we have to be as
light, quick and cheap as possible. For example
lunch time music—if we do three hours for one
hundred dollars, that’s a good way to prove the
concept that people will come if there’s food,
music, a place to sit and shade, where they can
congregate with their community. We need to do
more of that. ˾
W
58 : June 2016
THOUGHT LEADER ̈ WORDS BYSHANNON GREENE • PHOTO BYAGNES LOPEZ
VINCE
CAVIN