By Jim Bloch
Nancy Winzer, the longtime recreation director of Port Huron and, more recently, its deputy city manager, has retired after 31 years with the city.
Winzer announced her departure at the regular meeting of the city council April 14.
“Today is bittersweet standing here before you guys for my last time at the podium after 31 years with this great city of Port Huron,” said Winzer, as heard on the recording of the meeting posted on the city’s website. “The time has come to bid farewell, which is very weird. But it’s time. This journey has been filled with countless memories. It’s hard to believe that I started here at the same age my youngest daughter is right now. So, I grew up here. I learned a lot of life lessons throughout the years. I started teaching on the field – Bitty Baseball and Sporties for Shorties. It’s all been about the kids. It’s brought me so much joy. In those early days, I couldn’t imagine what my impact would be or what this job was going to bring me. But to come back home and work in my community has been the biggest blessing to me in the world.”
Winzer graduated from St. Clair County Community College and finished her bachelor’s degree in recreation administration at Central Michigan University in 1992. After a short stint at the YMCA, the city hired her for its recreation program.
“We’ve done over $10 million of park projects,” Winzer said. “We’ve leveraged tons of grant dollars. We’ve touched 22 of 23 parks. We’ve got Discover City now (the children’s hands-on museum). Lots of great things at McMorran… If we work together, these are the great things that can happen. When we tear people down, it just doesn’t work.”
The people she worked with and the residents she served were the sources of her biggest rewards.
“What I love to hear are things like (someone saying) thank for being a great supervisor, thanks for what you taught me — and watching people have fun,” Winzer said. “That’s why we’re here. I always look for that in an interview. When I ask somebody, Why do
you want to be in parks and rec? And they say, I want to see other people and the joy it brings them – that’s the true answer.”
She earned a M.A. degree in public administration 2004. She became the director of city parks and rec in 2010.
“Nobody gets where they are without a team,” said Winzer. Most of Winzer’s team turned out to support her at the council meeting.
She thanked Kim Harmer for writing grants for the rec department.
“I had the crazy ideas, and she put them into writing,” Winzer said.
She thanked all levels of city workers – “these people love this city” — but especially her employees in the parks and recreation department.
“Parks-and-recreation works when everybody else is off,” said Winzer. That means city employees must rely on their families. “Recreation is a family affair. My kids have picked up trash in the parks. My nieces and nephews have picked up trash in the parks. We respond to pool calls. We work events when we don’t have enough people.”
She became the deputy city manager in 2023. She said that her successor, new deputy city manager Cynthia Broomfield, is “going to be amazing.”
She thanked her parents who, looking down at her now, were likely saying how happy they were that her recreation degree made her some money; the audience laughed.
“When I transferred over to deputy city manager, it was a new challenge,” Winzer said. “It allowed me to contribute to the city in new ways.”
She thanked City Manager James Freed for the opportunity.
“He saw in me what I didn’t. see in myself,” Winzer said. “I know he does that for so many people here and doesn’t get enough credit for that. I feel it was a true honor to work alongside a leader like him.”
Freed praised Winzer: “I always tell people if I fell over dead, nobody would miss me because I had Nancy and Cynthia there to run the city.”
On behalf of the council, Mayor Anita Ashford thanked Winzer for her decades of service.
“The great thing about the city of Port Huron,” Winzer said, “I want everyone to remember this — is that we have good days, and we have bad days, but we’re family here.”
The audience gave her a long ovation.
Residents can say so-long to Winzer at a ceremony at McMorran Plaza, Friday, April 18, 5-7 p.m.
Jim Bloch is a freelance writer based in St. Clair, Michigan. Contact him at bloch.jim@gmail.com.
