• Dan Logan has been the executive director of our local YMCA for 15 years, and 25 years before that running the YMCA in Kansas City (his whole career
has been with the YMCA).
• He is in a wheelchair from a terrible accident and is almost legally
blind and still he just pushes through his challenges without feeling
sorry for himself or making allowances for his disabilities. He is a
great man and an inspiration to his loyal staff.
• He is a big-time human rights activist and has been since the 60's.
He is a very fair boss, very thoughtful, and at the same time he has a
good head for numbers.
• He is responsible for the Ross Road overhaul. He even had something to
say about the space in the locker rooms, so people had more privacy
when they change. And when it seemed like construction would never
end, and staff was so sick of working n cramped portables, he held the
staff retreat at Half Moon Bay.
• He is extremely well-read in politics and law.
• He makes a mean beef stroganoff from a well-guarded secret recipe.
• He started the Fun Run in Palo Alto, which has become a favorite town
tradition. One year, before his accident, he completed the course on
rollerblades.
• He is an Eagle Scout (for his ES project he met a very significant
fundraising goal).
• A pet peeve: he eats sunflower seeds, loudly. Once he was kicked out
of a movie theater for the loud crunching.
• He is much loved and will be much missed!
The outlook wasn’t brilliant for
the Ross Road Family Y;
The score stood fifteen nothing for the years that had gone by
Since everybody’s favorite candidate was put in charge,
But now a silence fell upon the membership-at-large.
It seems the Y’s director was announcing his intention
To take a long retirement, according to convention
“There must be something,” staff bewailed, “to make
Dan Logan stay
For even just a couple months, for even one more day.”
His brand of management is rare; it doesn’t grow on trees.
A one-man diplomatic corps with multiple degrees,
He fought for human rights, when human rights were just a dream.
From here to Kansas City Dan established his regime
Of rampant staff empowerment; a Greek democracy.
A visionary leader, he would question policy.
The details he could summon! The numbers he could crunch!
“The numbers of sunflower seeds that he’s been known to munch!”
The man who sought to redesign the Ross facility
Ruled both the roost and portables with sensitivity
For while construction limped along, the end still out of reach,
Dan Logan planned a staff retreat and held it at the beach.
When planning indoor spaces, like locker rooms, he’d make it
More comfortable to pass your neighbor dripping wet and naked.
A fairer man you will not find, nor one who’s better read
In government and politics; his knowledge is widespread.
We laud the man who put the fun back into family runs
The man who earned his Eagle badge for raising countless funds
Who rode in the May Fete Parade promoting roller hockey
On rollerblades, yet none of this has made Dan Logan cocky
There comes a time when Heaven’s stars must dim their fiery glow
(Dan Logan’s shines around the world, wherever he may go)
But how to capture his success for lo, these forty years
And all of them in service to the place he holds most dear
And bottle this concoction for the good of humankind?
If asked to share his formula, Dan Logan wouldn’t mind
Unlike his one for stroganoff, he’d share this recipe,
It’s one part courage, two parts nerve, for each adversity.
The only thing that we can try to make Dan Logan stay
For even one more afternoon, for part of one more day,
Is tell him there’s a crisis and we don’t know what to do.
That crisis is he’s leaving us and we don’t want him to!
Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there’s no joy on Ross Road, for Dan Logan has snuck out.