After Carol Pollock was recruited to work in sales for a new arena in her home state of Illinois, she discovered an intense love for the industry. Her breadth of work has included managing a performing arts center, a theater and an auditorium in Pensacola, Fla., and serving as the booking manager for the AT&T Center (the home of the San Antonio Spurs) and the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. After spending much of her career in the South, she moved back to the Midwest in September to become the new executive director of the Hoyt Sherman Place Foundation. Not only is she adjusting to the cooler weather, but she’s also making the transition from handling bookings for a 65,000-seat arena to overseeing a much smaller, 1,251-seat theater.

What was your first job in the entertainment business?

I worked in advertising at a radio station in Illinois early in my adult life. Through that job, I got to know the man who was building the new 10,000-seat Metro Center in Rockford, and he asked me to come work for him.

What was your first impression of the industry?

In this business, you either love it and you get that fire in your belly to stay in it, or you get out because the hours are long and you work weekends and holidays. It’s like having 200 parties a year. You stay up until 2 a.m. while the last of the equipment is loaded onto a truck and then turn around and start on the next party.

What did you find that you loved about it?

There is a profound joy in being in the entertainment business. It’s so much fun to open the doors for an event and watch the people walk in so excited. Then when the house lights go down and the music comes up, I just never tire of that feeling. Sometimes it overwhelms me and I get tears in my eyes and I think, “I love this job.”

Have you met interesting performers in your career?

I’ve met a lot of entertainers over the years. Some have been absolutely delightful and others who I thought would be really delightful were not. Country artists are just very nice, down-to-earth people. Reba McEntire is one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. The only time I can remember being really nervous about meeting someone was with Elton John. I can remember standing outside his dressing room waiting for him to do a photo shoot, and my heart was racing and I thought, “I’ve become a groupie.” I’ve never felt that way before and never felt that way since.

How did you hear about this job?

I was in San Antonio working as booking manager for the Alamodome when I got a call from Steve Peters, who owns Compass (Facility Management in Ames, which assumed management of Hoyt Sherman Place on June 1). I had known Steve for years. He called and said, “I have a property I need you to manage.” Knowing how cold winters were in the Midwest, I thought, why would I want to move to Iowa? But when I started doing some research about Hoyt Sherman Place, I thought it was a magnificent and intriguing place.

What factored into your decision to come here?

As I did some soul searching, I determined that the type of work I had enjoyed the most was when I was running a performing arts theater. Plus I decided that I really had nothing else to prove. I had been at live theaters, I’ve organized arenas, I’ve worked at a 65,000-seat stadium. Now at this point in my life, I just wanted to choose what I wanted to do based on what would give me the biggest joy. And after being the booking person at my last couple of jobs, I realized that I missed making the decisions and being the person in charge.

What excites you about this job?

I embrace challenges. I tend to get bored if there aren’t constant challenges in front of me. It’s how I’ve always been. And I am happiest when I have more to do than what I think I could possibly get done in a lifetime. Here, I have so many balls here to keep in the air, with the (Des Moines) Women’s Club, the foundation and the long-range planning, the programming and the budget. It’s such an incredible fit for me.

What do you do outside work?

I’m an avid reader, and I love to go to sporting events, especially hockey games. I put a hockey team in Pensacola and really got hooked. I love to travel, go to dinner with friends and play Texas hold ’em poker. I used to play with eight ladies in San Antonio once a month and we had a ball. I was thinking about even having games here in the gallery once in a while. And I hate to admit it, but I’m really good at shopping. When I moved here, I said, “I have to buy winter clothes, oh what a problem!”

-Sharon Baltes