INDIANAPOLIS — Allison Melangton fell asleep on the stairs as she listened to both conversations.
Melangton had overheard the crying, but couldn’t tell what was going on. She peered out of her parents’ window and noticed them consoling their friends on the front step of their Auburn, Maine, home.
Norman and Ellie Cummings separated the married couple once inside. For the rest of that summer night, Ellie spoke to the woman in one room and Norman, to the man in another. As for their youngest child, she grasped every word as her parents attempted to prevent a divorce.
The wee hours of the night eventually caught up with the curious 4-year-old girl, but the moment had already established who she’d become.
Six decades later, the 64-year-old sits in her office on the second floor of the administrative building at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. May comes with its share of exhaustive 14-hour days for the senior vice president of Penske Entertainment and her team.
The 110th running of the Indy 500 is on May 24, but Melangton can’t let weariness win. She won’t let it win. Her team and the city are dependent on the grace and joy with which Melangton operates.
“My takeaway from watching my parents in that moment is when you love people, you’ve got to be there for them, and the importance of forgiveness,” Melangton said. “I knew my dad had to go to work at 7 a.m., but he stayed up all night with his friend who needed him at that moment, and my mom did the same. It was an example to me of reaching people where they are, loving them and making an impact. That’s what I signed up for here.”
Melangton impacts IMS, city of Indianapolis
It’s May 8, and as Melangton sits in her black office chair at IMS, three columns of agreements and tasks rest on a polished wood desk in front of her.
Somewhere in the stack lies information about the Red Cross blood drive and finding mentors for the Big Brothers, Big Sisters youth organization. Clips hold some documents together, and translucent folders hold the rest. She begins to gently bang her fist on each stack from right to left.
This is what I need to finish today.
This is going to be done tomorrow.
These are emergencies and things people are checking back with me.
Melangton is a visual learner. She refuses to organize her work digitally, making her desk a running joke to her co-workers.
“I know it doesn’t look very organized, but in all this, I know exactly what’s in every single one of the things,” Melangton said with a smile. “They laugh, but when they need something, they come and I know where to find it.”
But Melangton’s co-workers don’t always go to Melangton when they need her. Sometimes she goes to them first.
Melangton used her 40-minute commute from her Carmel home to IMS on this Friday morning to call a few of her co-workers and encourage them. She’s aware May comes with a lack of sleep, food and exercise as they labor to organize the largest single-day sporting event in the world.
Contacting her teammates was Melangton’s “purposeful thought” for that morning, her way of meeting the next person where they are. It’s routine for Melangton to wake and brainstorm how to impact Indianapolis and those around her.
Later that night, Melangton got a call of her own. It was IndyCar and IMS president Doug Boles.
“I told her, ‘You’re one of the key people that help me get through the days and keep me going,’” Boles recalled. “She’s the kind of person that you can count on and trust as a great, confident sounding board.
“There are not a lot of people outside my wife that I trust enough to be vulnerable and say, ‘Hey, I’m thinking about X, Y and Z, or a little frustrated with this. How do you work through that?’ You can trust her to be that person.”
Boles knew Melangton when she was the CEO and president of the 2012 Indianapolis Super Bowl Host Committee. The two developed a stronger bond once Melangton joined Penske Entertainment in 2014.
Boles admitted the Speedway struggled with “process building” before Melangton was hired. If a group of people left the company or a new one joined, the continual flow of work wasn’t always seamless.
Boles said Melangton has been a “blessing” since she began at Penske. Penske Entertainment CEO Mark Miles called Melangton a “fabulous leader.” Melangton led the planning of the 100th running of the Indy 500 in 2016. The race was recognized as the Sports Business Journal’s Sports Event of the Year after it had its first sold-out crowd since it started in 1911.
Boles commended Melangton for navigating difficult situations and ideas with calm and peace — a quality Boles attests to Melangton’s Christian faith. Boles’ office is around the corner from Melangton’s. It’s common for Boles to discuss with Melangton what he calls a “crazy” idea, such as hosting a Rolling Stones concert in 2015 or collaborating with local art groups.
“Those are the kind of things that if you were talking to a traditional racetrack person, they’ll say, ‘Well, what’s that have to do with racing?’ Boles said. “But with Allison, she thinks, ‘OK, what’s that have to do with community?’”
Former Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick also used “crazy” to describe the ideas he’d pitch to Melangton when the two worked together at the Indiana Sports Corp.
“She reinforced my confidence in people,” Swarbrick said. “I never asked her to do something or gave her a tough assignment that she didn’t fail to execute brilliantly, and that gives you confidence to do that with other people more often. Instead of saying, ‘Guys, Jack’s crazy, we won’t get this done.’ She was quick to say, ‘We’re going to pull it off.’ And everybody rallied around her.”
“We’re all human and sometimes let things slide by the cracks, but not Allison,” Miles added. “She’s the closest thing to 100%.”
Melangton thrives in a male-dominated field with hard work, forgiveness
Her father, Norman, who was an alternate on the U.S men’s Olympic ski jumping team, taught his two daughters how to ski when Allison was 4 years old. Allison and her older sister, Lynn, at their father’s command, sidestepped up the hill near the home on which they skied.
“It took forever — 45 minutes to go up and a minute and a half to ski down,” Melangton recalled. “But my dad was teaching us hard work. You’re laying the foundation, strengthening your legs, learning all the basics and we’re going to get a really thrilling minute and a half ride down. Then you’re going to start the work again.
“And it was sort of like that in life. When you put in the work, there’s a reward. And the rewards don’t come easy.”
Melangton never competed in the Olympics, but she worked nine, including six as an associate producer for NBC’s gymnastics broadcast. Melangton won five Emmy Awards with NBC — her minute and a half downhill.
Melangton worked with USA Gymnastics from 1983 to 1994. She spent the following 14 years as senior vice president of Indiana Sports Corp. She was president of ISC from 2012 to 2014.
Swarbrick was the frontrunner to lead the Super Bowl Host Committee when it was time to select a president in 2008. He took the athletic director role at Notre Dame instead. When the board asked Swarbrick who should lead, he had one answer: Melangton.
Melangton wasn’t one to shine the light on herself. The board had doubts about her ability. Swarbrick insisted they trust him. Allison was the person.
Swarbrick was right. With Melangton at the helm, Super Bowl 46 welcomed more than one million people to Indianapolis. Still, a woman leading in a male-dominated sport didn’t sit right with some. And it still doesn’t.
A man once walked up to Melangton at a funeral and said, “Are you that lady running the Super Bowl? It’s just crazy to me that they hired a woman.”
Melangton used to take rude comments from men as personal attacks. Now, she views it as an opportunity to provide insight into the job and educate peers and strangers on life at the Speedway.
“She’s the proverbial iron fist in a silk glove,” former ISC president Sandy Knapp said. “Allison has been able to hold these jobs filled by men and do it without creating animosity and in a kind and gentle way. Until you get to know Allison, she looks like a sweet, young nice girl, but she’s about business.”
Her mother, Ellie, was a gracious homemaker, one with no grudge in her heart. Norman, a car dealership owner, was also loving but fiery. He taught Melangton not to forget what defines her, no matter what she does. At the root of Melangton’s identity is her faith. Out of that, she’s able to extend forgiveness to men who may diminish her.
Melangton decided in her mid-20s she’d assume everyone has positive intent. If there had been a relational issue, anger would have had no place to brew, as Melangton was quick to solve problems. A pastor once told Melangton, “It’s hard to be angry at a person you’re praying for.” Prayer became her weapon, a source of protection from varying opinions about her ability to execute.
“I think when you’re younger, forgiving others feels like you’re giving up something you shouldn’t give up,” Melangton said. “But I actually believe forgiving is the thing that sets you free and people can get hardened by unforgiveness. And I think it’s important always to protect your heart to make sure it remains tender.”
Melangton becomes ‘best in the business’
Melangton called her 20s her “biggest growing period.”
Melangton put an ad in IndyStar with hopes of finding a roommate. She had just graduated from Colorado State with a bachelor’s in commercial sports administration in 1983 and was set to start a job at USA Gymnastics.
A woman named Sue Thompson reached out. The two spoke for three minutes. Thompson sent Melangton a key, and Melangton began the 16-hour drive from Colorado State to Indianapolis with her Rand McNally road atlas.
“I remember sitting down in my room in the dark, because there’s no lamp in the room, and hoping this works out,” Melangton said. “But I felt like I was doing the right thing and in the right place, and that she was not going to be a serial killer.”
Melangton was in the right place. And Thompson wasn’t a serial killer.
Melangton worked at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. It was the first of nine for Melangton. Melangton managed the 1991 World Artistic Gymnastics Championship. Indiana had a measles outbreak during the event, and Melangton and her team had to inoculate the athletes. Melangton saw for the first time Indianapolis’ ability to unite amid trial to ensure athletes and fans had a safe experience.
The young woman from Maine also met mentors like Knapp and Swarbrick, who was a general counsel for USA Gymnastics from 1984 to 2008. Melangton credited Knapp and Swarbrick for teaching her how to operate with confidence. Melangton learned to respond, not react. To recognize “when I think something is a 10, it’s actually a three and I can solve it differently,” she said.
Melangton’s first decade in Indianapolis laid the groundwork needed for her to excel at ISC and Penske. Now, to Sandy, “she’s one of the best in the business.” It’s Melangton’s integrity and character that allow Knapp to crown her mentee as such.
Knapp and Melangton sat at a sidewalk table in downtown Indianapolis to discuss Melangton’s possible move to Penske in 2014. Melangton was concerned with how her departure would affect employees at ISC and wanted to leave it in “good shape,” Knapp said.
Melangton looked out the second-floor window inside the IMS Pagoda on a rainy Fast Friday and felt burdened by the thought of someone getting struck by lightning. The thought of one person dying among the 300,000-plus people present on race day also runs through her mind.
Processing the idea that tragedy can occur and someone could get hurt is the hardest part of the job for Melangton. But her concern also reveals the nature of her heart. There’s a selflessness to Melangton.
A selflessness that prompts her to pick up a young woman and her infant child off the street on a cold day after their car got stuck. A selflessness that allows her to wait with a young man who couldn’t find his family during the Grand Prix on May 8 or jump on a golf cart at midnight and help two women who couldn’t find their car after the Rolling Stones concert in 2015.
Eleven years apart, and multiple awards later, not much has changed. In humility, Melangton still values others above herself. Melangton called herself an “HR nightmare” for Penske Entertainment chief talent officer Kristin Weeden because she loves to hug people.
“As someone who started just four years ago, she has been someone I can look to for a familial vibe. She cares about what’s going on professionally and personally,” Weeden said. “The best thing about being in proximity to Allison is you get to pick up on how she moves. She is well respected and it’s not just because of her resume — it’s because of the way she treats people. There’s an art to the way she impacts others.”
“She genuinely cares about everybody,” Miles added. “She will be the first person at the hospital and the last person to leave. There’s no finer person, no better event organizer and no better friend.”
Melangton has her hard moments, days when exhaustion takes a toll. But she’s mastered the balance of acknowledging her emotions while not letting them affect how she treats others.
“All of my co-workers have seen me cry at some point because I wear my heart on my sleeve. But it’s not often I have a bad day either because I love everybody so much,” Melangton said. “My faith in Christ pours into me, allowing me to pour into others. So inside, I feel like a little joy bomb all the time. I feel like my soul and spirit are full of joy, grace, kindness and a thirst to help others.
“What I always try to remember is that my physical body is one thing, and my soul and my spirit are something different. If I’m physically tired, I get rest and take care of my physical body. But that’s not what defines me or pushes me forward every day to love others and pour into this city. It’s the soul part of me.”
‘She wasn’t born here. But she’s definitely a Hoosier’
Melangton rises from her chair halfway into the hour-long conversation and walks roughly five feet to the shelf in the right corner of her office. She sifts through the files and takes out a multi-colored card.
Handwritten cards she’s received from friends and co-workers are Melangton’s favorite things in an office that features two of her five Emmy awards. The other three are at home.
“I have a bunch of cards and I save them because they mean a lot to me,” Melangton says, now making her way to the bulletin board adjacent to her desk. She’s in the zone, on a mission to find one from Weeden that made her laugh a few days prior.
It’s not on the bulletin board. Neither can Melangton find it in the cabinets she scoured. Weeden’s card is somewhere, Melangton has no doubt, but she chooses to end her minute-and-a-half search.
Melangton returns to her black office chair. Out of the multitude, a single card is in direct sight. It’s the one from the shelf, which Melangton placed on her desk between moving from the board to the drawers.
“I’ll never stop being grateful for you,” it reads in gold lettering.
One card speaks for a city.
“She definitely cares about Central Indiana,” Boles said. “She wasn’t raised here. She wasn’t born here. But she’s definitely a Hoosier. Our community is so much better off because of the time and effort and passion that Allison has put into it.”
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: How Penske’s Allison Melangton became ’best in business’: Stairway, hill workouts, road atlas
Reporting by Joshua Heron, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
