{"id":8649,"date":"2025-12-10T15:34:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T21:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omahanebraska.com\/blog\/?p=8649"},"modified":"2025-12-10T20:23:48","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T02:23:48","slug":"omaha-interview-katie-bassett-vice-president-of-parks-meca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omahanebraska.com\/blog\/omaha-interview-katie-bassett-vice-president-of-parks-meca\/","title":{"rendered":"Omaha Interview: Katie Bassett, Vice President of Parks, MECA"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Katie Bassett holds the Rising Star Award from NEBRASKAland Foundation for the Riverfront<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This is OmahaNebraska.com with…<\/strong><\/p>\n

Katie Bassett. I’m the Vice President of Parks for MECA.<\/p>\n

Please tell me a little bit about what you do at MECA and then about the Riverfront and the award.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Absolutely. I help support the teams that maintain the space, secure it, activate it, and really make the Riverfront the vibrant place that it is. I also oversaw the design and construction of the Riverfront from MECA. So really, I’m a facilitator and supporter of everyone who’s worked here.<\/p>\n

That’s quite a job.<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, it’s been fun. We’re really honored to be curators of such a destination place in Omaha and a place where everyone feels welcome and everyone feels like they can come here and find something for them here, whether that is a playground or the performance space or an event that we’re putting on.<\/p>\n

So many wonderful things to do down here and then across the city.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, definitely, definitely.<\/p>\n

Is there a question you would have liked me to ask that I didn’t?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I would say we’re honored to get this award here. Just being kind of that place that people recognize for the state of Nebraska, a place that visitors come here and probably didn’t know that it was here but are surprised and impressed once they get here, and it’s something that they remember for the state of Nebraska and for the city of Omaha. We’re a beautiful park space with also a highly activated park space. We\u2019re working on our end-of-year wrap up, and our events team put on over 700 free events this year. We’re seeing millions of visitors on an annual basis. So we’re happy to activate in the heart of downtown Omaha and are honored to receive this award.<\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Riverfront
\nhttps:\/\/theriverfrontomaha.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is OmahaNebraska.com with… Katie Bassett. I’m the Vice President of Parks for MECA. Please tell me a little bit about what you do at MECA and then about the Riverfront and the award. Absolutely. I help support the teams that maintain the space, secure it, activate it, and really make the Riverfront the vibrant … Continue reading Omaha Interview: Katie Bassett, Vice President of Parks, MECA<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[331,838,837],"class_list":["post-8649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-omaha","tag-meca","tag-rising-star-award","tag-riverfront"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omahanebraska.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omahanebraska.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omahanebraska.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omahanebraska.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omahanebraska.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8649"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.omahanebraska.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8653,"href":"https:\/\/www.omahanebraska.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8649\/revisions\/8653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omahanebraska.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omahanebraska.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omahanebraska.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}