Jim Mery

Jim Mery started his career as a Landscape Architect for the San Antonio Parks & Recreation Department from 1984-1993, providing project management and design for the development of $18 million of park development and capital improvements for the City of San Antonio.

Notable design projects included Schnabel Park Pavilion, project management on Eisenhower Park Development, Mission Del Lago golf course and Wolff Municipal Baseball Stadium. When the construction was being completed at Wolff Municipal Stadium, Jim saw the potential for excellence beyond the design and construction phase in which he was entrusted as a landscape architect and volunteered to act as Temporary Facility Manager.

After completing his facility manager duties, he changed his career path and became the Stadium Manager in 1993. At which time he then developed and formulated all the stadium operating procedures including booking, marketing, contracting, event management and fiscal operations.

In 1997, Wolff Stadium became part of the Alamodome Department.  In 2002,  Jim was appointed as Acting Operations Manager at the Alamodome and then in 2003 promoted to Operations Manager of the Alamodome.   In addition, he facilitated many large convention meetings at the Alamodome for our city.  As a respected facility manager, Jim was given the title of the “Alamodome Guy”; a term of endearment given by many of his peers and colleagues.

In 2005, Jim was promoted to the Alamodome to Facility Manager and eventually moved up to Assistant Director of the Convention, Sports, and Entertainment Facilities. This entity was a combined City Department with oversight of facility management of the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, Alamodome, Lila Cockrell Theatre and Municipal Auditorium. He also had contract oversight of Wolff Municipal Stadium.

During his tenure at the Alamodome, Jim was made project manager coordinating the many City Departments and outside agencies involved in coordinating the 2002 -2012 Alamobowl, 2002 and 2010 NCAA Women’s Final Four Basketball Tournaments, the 2003 and 2007 NCAA Men’s South Regional Basketball Tournaments, the 2004 and 2008 NCAA Men’s Final Fours and the ESPN Global X Games.  Simultaneously he was part of the Alamodome team which designed and implemented the $1 million new portable turf system for the Alamodome which was the one and only system of its kind in the world until college universities and Cowboys AT&T Stadium also used the design in their new stadiums.

In 2012, Jim was promoted as the Interim Director of Downtown Operations Department in charge of the San Antonio River Walk Operations, River Walk Contracts, City Parking Facilities and Operations, and many of the Downtown Contracts.  Then in 2015, Downtown Operations became Center City Development and Operations and Jim was promoted to Deputy Director of the many operations involved with Downtown San Antonio.

In 2017, Jim was instrumental as one of the project managers to successfully get the new designed River Walk Barges successfully designed and constructed and operating in a very short time frame of 24 months.  In 2018, Jim represented the City of San Antonio and help the NCAA manage the successful implementation of the 2018 Men’s Final Four Basketball Championship Music Festival held on the exterior grounds of the Convention Center.

A native of San Antonio, Jim is actively involved in his community and sits as the Senior Vice President of the Fiesta San Antonio Commission Executive Committee and leads many committees for the successfully implementation of the annual Fiesta San Antonio.  Jim is married to Sharon for 34 years and they have three children, Stephen, a graduate of Texas A&M University, Tara, a graduate of University of Texas, and Michelle, a  graduate of Texas State University.  Jim biggest job continues to be supportive of their children to assure their continued success, traveling the globe with Sharon and spending as much time with his 18-month-old grandson, Thomas Von Mery,