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05/25/2022 08:30 AMEast Haven was a perfect place for Frank Butler, Sr., to grow up. He fell in love with and played youth hockey from ages 4 to 13, he ended up working for the town in the Recreation Department, and he raised his three children in East Haven.
After 29 years working for the East Haven Recreation Department, be retired this past February as lead maintainer, to take charge of the management team at Ingalls Rink at Yale University.
When Frank talks about the past three decades serving the town, he can’t help but remember his start at the Rec Department.
“I got started part-time as a rink monitor, to supplement my income at the time, and it turned into a career,” recalls Frank.
After that, he worked his way up to a full-time position as a rink maintainer around 1995, and by 2009 he was promoted to a lead man for the Recreation Department.
As Frank’s responsibilities grew, so did the number of people he supervised, which changed through time and by the season.
As a lead man, Frank had three ice rink helpers under him “and at the Recreation Department we had the lifeguards, day camp, and pool workers to coordinate when those were open,” says Frank. “It was a good amount of people.”
Handling lifeguard and beach supervisor schedules each summer season at the East Haven Town Beach—and managing the payroll—were all part of his duties, at which Frank excelled.
“It was a lot of fun,” he says, having enjoyed his role in the background helping the town’s people enjoy themselves without having to think much about the smooth operation of the Recreation Department’s seasonal and year-round offerings.
One of the perks associated with managing the town beach included the nearby Sandpiper Restaurant, which Frank says he enjoyed.
“I had a few lunches there over the years,” he says with a laugh.
While the recreational assets of the town—the beach, ice rink, and pool—required regular effort to keep them in top shape for the public, Frank admits that the most challenging aspect of his work as a lead maintainer was related to scheduling.
“Scheduling employees and groups were most challenging,” says Frank. “And then if there was snow and things got canceled you had to find an opening for make-up games. The ice rink was pretty packed. There wasn’t a whole lot of time when the rink was not used. We were pretty much going from 2 o’clock in the afternoon ‘til 10 or 11 o’clock at night, every [week]day.”
“And then Saturday it was from 8 o’clock in the morning to 10 o’clock at night and the same thing on Sunday,” adds Frank.
The East Haven Veterans Memorial Ice Rink on Hudson Street is currently under reconstruction. With a $5.35 million restoration price tag, completion is expected this October despite contractor problems and delays.
Both the ice rink and the pool have been fixtures of the town for nearly half a century.
“The rink first opened in 1973,” notes Frank, “and the town pool was built around the same year.”
Frank has three children who attended the East Haven Schools, and each of them, like their father, enjoyed the game of hockey as children.
“My son played youth hockey, and both my daughters were pom-pom cheerleaders for the hockey team,” Frank says, adding, “I was lucky. All three of my children grew up in the ice rink.”
With Frank’s retirement from the East Haven Recreation Department, the town’s loss is Yale University’s gain.
“I retired from East Haven to go to Ingalls Rink,” Frank says after he learned about the job opening from his daughter Nikki’s boyfriend, Al.
After a bit of urging by Al, Frank applied for the Yale job and fewer than two months later he was welcomed to the university with open arms.
“From when my son was about four, to just before COVID, every year we would go to Ingalls Rink to watch the finals,” explains Frank. “So now, here I am, standing there looking around saying, ‘Now I’m working here.’ Who would have even thought that would have happened? I never thought I’d end up working at [Ingalls] rink.”
This gift of second-career employment is the ideal fit for Frank since his love of hockey is now perfectly matched with his love of managing a skating rink.
“The reason I left East Haven was to work at Yale,” Frank admits, adding, “How do you not take a job a Yale University? It’s Yale.”
On top of that, The David S. Ingalls Rink—referred to through the years by the nickname the Yale Whale because of the distinctive form of the building’s design—is a revered building of mid-century modern architecture by the prominent architect Eero Saarinen, which Frank says he learning to appreciate.
“I’m learning so much history about the Ingalls Rink because I’m so new to it,” Frank says. “I’ve been lucky. Hockey has been my passion since I was four or five years old, and now I’m at Ingalls Rink. I look at my life and I say, ‘I’ve been lucky.’ Life is about being in the right place at the right time.”
When not working, one of Frank’s volunteer efforts is his service to East Haven Youth Hockey, where he has long served as their vice-president.
At home, Frank is looking forward to his upcoming marriage to his fiancé, Sharon, and he enjoys the closeness of his three children: son Frank, Jr., and daughters Megan and Nikki.
While Frank says he feels his entire life and career with the town of East Haven were both great fun and a blessing, he’s now fully committed to completing the rest of his career around the ice at Yale.
And if you told Frank 29 years ago, when he first began working for the Town of East Haven, that he would one day end up in charge of Ingalls Rink at prestigious Yale University, he says, “Who would not have believed it?”