Scott Kratz · 2017 Spark Award Winner

You could say Scott Kratz is bi-coastal, a good balance of fourth generation Californian and Yankee. Born in Berkeley but raised in Connecticut, he went back out west for college at Pomona, spent 14 years working in museums in Southern California and then, in 2006, came to Washington for a position as Vice President for Education at the National Building Museum here. Moving to Capitol Hill and becoming Executive Director of the Eleventh Street Bridge Park project have given him a sense of permanence. Scott says that the Hill is now home and that he fully expects to be here to see the Anacostia River clean, “fishable and swimmable,” and the park he has put so much energy into creating and promoting become a treasured part of our city.

When he was in high school Scott revealed his high energy and enthusiastic nature. He was both a leader – president of the student body – and a team player – goalie on the soccer team. On stage he portrayed a wide range of characters and in the classroom, under the guidance of “wonderful teachers,” he discovered a “love and a passion for history.” He found these disparate skills and interests coming together in museum work where he had the opportunity to do everything from fundraising and managing staff to wrestling with defining exactly what story the museum was trying to tell. At the Autry Museum of Western Heritage in particular he felt the challenge of balancing the “mythology of the old West” with a messier, more nuanced story. Under his leadership the museum created the only theater company in the country developing and producing plays by Native American writers.

In 2006 Scott and his wife, Lisa Mascaro, a journalist who covers Congress for the Los Angeles Times, moved cross country, to the Hill, where they found “a pretty magic place.” As they settled in, Scott asked what he thought was an innocent question of Harriet Tregoning, director of the D.C. Office of Planning. “What’s happening on the 11th Street bridges?” Hearing her idea of transforming the old freeway span into a park over the Anacostia River, he was hooked.

For two years, while working full time at the Building Museum, he was a volunteer for the Bridge Park project, holding over 200 meetings with “any group that would have me on the agenda,” telling people about the concept and listening to their hopes and concerns about it. By the time he signed on as Executive Director of the 11th Street Bridge Park project (a project of the Ward 8-based non-profit Building Bridges Across the River), Scott had a vision for far more than an outdoor walkway. He now sees the future park as a vital connector linking people from different parts of the city and offering them opportunities for education, recreation, enjoyment of the outdoors and – above all – community.