Member Spotlight

Pat White

Director of Parks and Recreation for the City of Fairhope, AL

Making Progress for His Community

ATA member Pat White is the Director of Parks and Recreation for the City of Fairhope, Alabama. He developed a passion for sports field work during a summer job in high school. In furtherance of this career, he attended the University of Montevallo and Coastal Alabama Community College.

Following his education, Pat spent 12 seasons as a groundskeeper in Minor League Baseball with the Birmingham Barons and Mobile BayBears. He has twenty years’ experience as a Sports Field Consultant to numerous high school and collegiate programs. Among his other accomplishments, Pat headed up construction of the playing surface at Hank Aaron Stadium in Mobile. He worked the first South Eastern Conference Baseball Tournament held at the Hoover Met Fields.

“I have been fortunate to meet many great players and managers during my career, including Hank Aaron, Ozzie Smith, Tony Gwynn, Jake Peavy, Paul Goldschmidt, Bruce Bochy, Terry Francona,” says Pat. “My Lord and Savior is and has been my rock throughout my life. The many friends I made through the ATA and the places I have worked have impacted my career in so many positive ways! Some of the best advice I hold to is ‘Wake up every day with the intent to make a positive impact on whatever tasks you are faced with. Start everyday by making up your bed, because it is the little things that add up.’”

Working with people that are committed every day to making a difference and taking pride in their work makes your job so much more meaningful, according to Pat. “The downside of this work is that it can sometimes be difficult to keep up the morale of the staff. More people have become increasingly harder to please, and they choose social media to voice their grievances.”

Pat enjoys working with coaches to improve their sports fields. He also enjoys anything to do with the outdoors. A member of the Alabama Turfgrass Association, as well as the Alabama Recreation and Parks Association (ARPA), and the National Parks and Recreation Association (NRPA), White was also the 2009 ATA President and winner of the 1996 Sports Turf Managers Association (STMA) Sports Field of the Year –Hoover Met.

Pat is married to Ashley, his wife of 30 years in May. Ashley is a former teacher, CEO of the house, and small business owner. They have a son, Solon, who at 23 is a recent graduate of Springhill College in Mobile where he played four years of baseball for the Badgers. He is employed with Container Maintenance Corporation in Mobile and an assistant baseball coach at St. Michael Catholic High School in Fairhope. He is engaged to Hannah. Pat and Ashley’s daughter, McKinley (20), is a ballerina at the Houston Ballet in Texas. She is a former ballerina with Mobile Ballet and was the Lagnaippe Magazine Dancer of the Year in 2022. She is a graduate of Baldwin County Virtual School.

In the future Pat plans to continue to make progress for his community in whatever capacity he is afforded at that time. “I want to be reflecting back on all of the projects and changes for the betterment of the Fairhope community and all the great people and teamwork it took to accomplish them.”

Pat says, “I have grown and learned so much in my career by being involved in the ATA. I made so many lifelong friends and contacts along the way that have made an impact on me and my career. At 25 years old, I was tasked with overseeing the construction and operations of a professional baseball stadium and I leaned on the contacts and resources that I had through the ATA to see me through challenges I didn’t have the answers to. Dr. Dave Han at Auburn University has been a tremendous resource for me over the years, and I am truly grateful for our friendship. It is not possible to know everything in our industry of managing turfgrass because the industry is ever-evolving. You need to know how to humble yourself when necessary and know who you are going to reach out to because those that refuse to adjust are those that fall behind.”