Growing up in the Bay Area of California, Denise Watkins was miles from her current vocation as owner of the National Lacrosse League’s Vancouver Stealth.
Born in 1959, the self-confessed “math geek,” whose father had a PhD in chemistry, headed straight to the University of California, Irvine, after high school to study mathematics.
After graduation, Watkins was hired by a company in Silicon Valley called Stanford Telecommunications. The company primarily handled military contracts, working on technology that would soon give rise to civilian gadgets such as the cellular phone. But it was the 1980s, and Watkins was in an industry that was – and still is – dominated by men.
“I was the sole female engineer,” she said. “I would definitely consider myself a bit of a trailblazer. There were not a lot of women in the field at that time.”
Not only was Watkins immersed in the world of information technology, but she also spent a lot of time working with military officials, which meant that in professional settings she was usually surrounded by men.
“I was pretty much working in one of the worst Old Boys networks you could imagine,” she said.
“So my response was to show them that I could do as much or more than anybody else, and that I was as good as one of the boys or better.”
Watkins said she often faced behaviour that would today fall under the category of “inappropriate sexual harassment” and was the target of sexist comments, such as being introduced by the company vice-president to a major client as the “token female software engineer.” Yet she thrived, and by 25 she was a hiring manager – though still paid less than her counterparts.
“I enjoyed the work, and it was challenging,” she said. “And after a while you just kind of go, ‘It is what it is.’ And I went up the ladder pretty fast because I worked hard.”
Watkins worked for Stanford Telecommunications for 19 years before leaving the job in 2000 to raise her children while her husband continued his career.
Based in the Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, area, Watkins and her husband enrolled their kids in a number of sports. Her son, C.J., signed up for field lacrosse in the third grade. Watkins and her family already had season tickets to the National Hockey League’s San Jose Sharks, and then a National Lacrosse League (NLL) indoor team, the San Jose Stealth, moved into the same arena in 2004. Watkins said getting season tickets to the Stealth was an easy decision given her son’s involvement in the sport.
“Honestly, we were somewhat clueless about indoor versus field,” she said. “We became fans right away; we were like, ‘This is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Where is everybody?’”
While Watkins and her family were enjoying the games, the team was struggling financially in a sports-saturated market that had many professional hockey, football and baseball teams already. Watkins, who had run the Primal Quest adventure racing organization for a number of years with her husband, decided to buy the team with a group of investors in 2007. By 2009, Watkins had realized they were spinning their wheels in the San Jose area and needed to look elsewhere for a more suitable location for the team.
“We barely got coverage in the local papers,” she said. “We were fighting just to get our box score put in there.”
Watkins started looking at different arenas across North America before moving the team to Everett, Washington. One of the things the Stealth first did after the move was to reach out to the local youth lacrosse community, something that proved fruitful in the long term, Watkins said.
“It was a good move for us; it helped cut our costs and definitely increased attendance,” she said. “We more than doubled our attendance by moving from San Jose.”
The Stealth stayed in Everett for four years, but Watkins said things still could have been better for the franchise. While it lost the NLL championship that first year in Everett in 2011 and returned to the finals in 2013, the Seattle Times barely covered the team. Grabbing a foothold in another competitive sports market – which included a pro football team, a baseball team and a healthy college market – started to look like a hopeless challenge, said Watkins.
“After four years I didn’t feel like we were going to grow that much because we just weren’t getting the news coverage. We invited them and we tried to get them there.”
During the 2013 season when the team made the Champion’s Cup again, the arena in Everett wasn’t available, so the Stealth hosted the championship at the Langley Events Centre (LEC). Watkins said the B.C. fans came out in droves, planting the seed for another move, even though it wasn’t something she was looking into. Watkins said the LEC staff approached her about moving the squad north.
“My first reaction was ‘No, I don’t want to move the team again.’ But one of the things that they said was that they were willing to be a real partner. One of the problems I’ve had with the two previous buildings was we were a renter, we were a tenant.”
The Everett Stealth officially became the Vancouver Stealth to start the 2014 season. Watkins, who splits her time between Langley and California during the season, has earned a reputation as one of the league’s most trusted owners. Doug Locker, the team’s president and general manager, said she’s one of the most passionately commited people he’s ever worked for.
“She is extremely loyal and very hands-on and tactical in her approach,” he added. “Her leaderships style breeds a strong sense of loyalty for those who work with and for her. She makes those around her better by empowering them in carrying out their jobs.”
The team is coming to the end of its fourth season in Vancouver. Watkins said there are no plans to move again, given the LEC and its anchor tenant, the Western Hockey League’s Vancouver Giants, have generously helped with marketing and sharing the spotlight.
“Hockey and lacrosse go hand in hand,” she said. “So there’s been great crossover in terms of the fans.” •
