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It's all about the job

"When you're driving a team of horses, you don't drop the reins, walk off and let them keep going." - Mammoth Mountain Founder, Dave McCoy Watching Kristen Robinson in action is very much like watching a horse wrangler managing her charges.
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"When you're driving a team of horses, you don't drop the reins, walk off and let them keep going."

- Mammoth Mountain Founder, Dave McCoy

Watching Kristen Robinson in action is very much like watching a horse wrangler managing her charges. Don't laugh. I'm serious.

Consider her performance last week at the Whistler Film Festival. I'm not quite sure what her title there was - PR director, event coordinator, talent arranger, sergeant major in charge of all things media - but whatever it was, she was front-and-centre everywhere. A human perpetual motion machine. A spinning event dervish.

And it wasn't always fun. She was the hammer in the velvet glove. The tough-love mom keeping her kids in line. Yet she did it all with equal amounts of poise and grace.

Whether it was exhorting her behind-the-scenes media team to bigger and ever-better event reporting, or subtly supervising Ski Bums' enfants terribles Johnny Thrash and Troy Junger at public events, or making sure the Celebrity Ski Challenge was well attended by film stars and Whistler locals alike (and feeling good about their attendance), the ever-smiling Robinson never seemed to lose her cool.

"Just a sec," she would calmly tell a frantic VIP between the interminable calls on her cell phone. "I'll get to your problem next." And sure enough, whatever the issue they were suffering through, Robinson would somehow find a way to alleviate it.

"It's all part of the job," she told me between crises. "If you don't like dealing with people, this isn't the kind of work for you..."

It's only when you looked closely - I mean really, really closely - that you could tell the enormous toll an event like the film festival extorted from her. By the end of the weekend, she looked done-in. Dark circles wavered under her eyes; a skein of worry-wrinkles slouched across her forehead. Though a smile was still painted across her face, it looked stretched a bit. Just a touch artificial. After all, she's not a kid anymore...

"That's true," admits the fortysomething with a tired sigh. "But it's the only way I know how to manage this kind of a job. There's no halfway here. You have to be 'on' from start to finish."

And maybe - just maybe - that's the key to Kristen's long string of event-management successes. That's also why she couldn't stay in Toronto - in a prestigious job with a great future - when she found out that Whistler had landed the 2010 Games. "I knew it the moment the winning bid was announced," she says with a half-embarrassed grin. "It wasn't a rational decision. I just knew in my heart that I had to be here."

But it's not like there was a job waiting in Whistler for her or anything. As usual, she would have to re-invent herself to fit the circumstances.

"I was lucky," she says. "My old friend Don McQuaid immediately found me a job at Whistler Resort TV. And that taught me a ton about broadcast issues." She smiles. "The stuff I learned there would come in really handy later..."

Things were clicking. Robinson was getting the word out. She was back. She was hungry. And she wanted to be part of the buzz. "My goal - my Olympic vision," she says, "was to be here, standing in the village, while the rest of the world looked on and cheered. I didn't want to be a spectator. I wanted to help make good things happen."

And she did. One of her first contract jobs was with the emerging Crankworx festival team. "That was really big," she says. "We were doing things at that event that had never been done before at Whistler. Particularly in summer. Very leading edge..."

But Crankworx was just an appetizer. For another old friend, Maureen Douglas, was soon recruiting her to do work with the Sea-to-Sky VANOC communications team. "It was a truly amazing experience," she tells me, still with a tinge of awe in her voice. "That was a higher level of communications than I'd ever experienced before."

It also placed her in the very heart of all things Olympic-related. "I got to watch the construction workers building the venues, I watched all the pre-Games competitions at those newly-completed venues, saw and met all these amazing people along the way... organizers, workers, athletes." She stops speaking. Sighs. "I can't really describe how exciting it was. It was everything I'd hoped for."

And she was far from done yet. When the job for Whistler Live festival director was posted in early 2009, Kristen was one of the first to apply. "I went through the whole interview process," she says, "jumped through all the hoops they put before me." She can't help but smile a little roguishly. "I wasn't going to let that opportunity slip through my fingers."

She didn't. "We started on June 1st 2009," she remembers. "We were a lean, mean team." And then she laughs. "Very lean... but wicked!"

Still, she was now working with the Cultural Olympiad team at VANOC (and partnering with the Whistler Arts Council and the RMOW) on a very important component of the Games. "It was a complicated equation," she says. "Our job was to come up with an integrated sport and arts program and do a live show for 15 hours per day. We had to make sure that the logistics worked; that our budgets were maximized. So we worked closely with Vancouver, Richmond and Surrey to access the kind of performers that we'd never had the chance to book before - or never again for that matter..."

And did it work? Of course, she says. "It really taught me about the power of a shared vision. Our team worked really well together - it was very empowering."

Any high points? Funny you should ask, she says. "I still remember looking at the Olympic schedule when it first came out and seeing that the gold medal hockey game was planned for the last day. We knew there would be time for one band between the game and the Closing Ceremonies. So who should it be? Blue Rodeo of course..."

Anyone who was in the village that day will never forget the sense of excitement that flowed through the crowd when that iconic band mounted the stage so soon after Canada's final gold medal performance. "It was definitely the high point of the Olympics for me," says Robinson.

But, she adds, there was an even more emotional moment for her during the less-hyped Paralympic Games a few weeks later. "We had a modest budget for a Paralympic parade at Whistler that would precede the athletes into the Medal Plaza," she tells me. "So I hired (local artist) Chili Thom to build a float that would lead the parade."

Another fit of happy laughter overtakes her. "Well - you know Chili. He and his team put so much work into this thing - I don't know how many hours they spent on it but it was a lot - and the result was very impressive. They had built a deejay set-up on top of the float where Mat the Alien sat and spun..."

At the last moment CTV decided to shoot more of the Paralympics than they'd first planned. And one of the things that would now be included was Whistler Live's parade. "Of course, the moment the parade started the sky opened up and it poured with rain," recounts Kristen.

But no problem. Mat got his groove on, the parade lurched into action, the athletes started marching and the crowd ate it up.

Kristen was waiting for them at the entrance to the plaza. "What a powerful moment," she says. "Here comes this big float with music blaring from the speakers. And behind are all these athletes dancing and shimmying to the beat." She stops speaking. Tears start to well in her eyes. Her voice is so choked with emotion that she can't speak. Finally she pulls herself together and continues.

"I don't know why it hit me so hard," she admits. "But to see all these kids marching behind Mat - to see their passion and commitment and love of fun and being here in Whistler - I thought it reflected everything that was good and true about this event. I'll never forget that moment for the rest of my life."

So now what? I don't know," she says. "I'm just waiting for the 'Next Best Thing.'" And then she laughs and laughs and laughs.

But seriously... "Colleagues and friends tell me I may have to move on from Whistler," she answers. "But I love this place. I don't want to sell events in Surrey - 'Hi. I'm with the band.' That's just not for me."

She offers me one last, tired smile; after all, it's been a long week. "I know there's still a lot to be done here," she says finally. "And I know I can contribute. I just have to be patient and wait for the right thing to come my way..."