Blending Confidence with Proud Heritage

There is a simple way to determine if all audio-visual systems are “go” at Climate Pledge Arena for a Kraken game or any of the myriad events that fill up the yearly calendar. Just get a look at Mari Ruiz-Acosta or any member of her full-time team.

“What I like to say is, if you see me or my team members walking around calmly during an event, we have done our jobs correctly,” said Ruiz-Acosta, director of AV operations for the Kraken home arena. “All of our stress should be leading up to the event. That's when we're getting the systems ready, troubleshooting, and ensuring everything is working properly for the part-time AV technicians, who arrive eight hours before an event to load content and conduct rehearsals. The technicians also flag issues for us. Our biggest moments are pre-event. If we look calm and we're actually enjoying the game, that is a good thing.”

Things do malfunction, of course, sometimes “45 minutes before arena doors or even during a game.” A contributing factor is that many AV systems are reset before a major event run, including more than 28,000 square feet of visual signage.

Ruiz-Acosta joined the Climate Pledge Arena team three weeks before the arena opened back in October 2021. She jumped right into long days and lots of troubleshooting. She loved every minute of it, even if 10 years before, she didn’t know what “broadcast engineering” even meant.

“It's a world I had no idea existed, which is essentially behind the scenes of sports,” said Ruiz-Acosta, who was born and raised in Oakland, CA. “I quickly fell in love with the industry, starting in college. After going to community college in Santa Barbara, I finished my schooling at St. Mary’s College [in the Bay Area]. I came across a camera position to film the online stream of men’s basketball games. I’m a big sports person. I thought, Why not? I need some extra cash in college, right?”

Ruiz-Acosta learned the camera work on the fly, no doubt helped by her early childhood as a basketball fan, when her brother and his girlfriend, a future college player, invited her to shoot some hoops at their family home. Ruiz-Acosta went on to play basketball at Skyline High in her hometown of Oakland.

Turning Point Disguised as ‘Predicament’

The camera work and close interaction with the Division I men’s basketball program put Ruiz-Acosta in what she thought was a “predicament,” but instead was a turning point to which she was attuned. She was “gearing up to be a business major” when she realized St. Mary’s offered a well-respected video and audio production track for communication/media majors.

“I shared my predicament with my school advisor and my [camera job] supervisor,” said Ruiz-Acosta. “As cliché as it sounds, their words, ‘go with your gut,’ really stuck with me. I decided to make the switch [to a new major]. I remember my advisor telling me, ‘The decision doesn't matter, just make it and run with it. Be confident in your decision.’ I’ve carried that with me. There are many times when we second-guess ourselves, both in our personal and professional lives. I look to hold on to that confidence in my decisions as much as I can.”

Going with her gut led to dream production assistant roles with the MLB Oakland A’s (“my brothers and I went to Discount Wednesday games and ate ‘dollar dogs‘”) and the Golden State Warriors. Later, she landed a full-time AV game presentation position with the A’s. She was nearing 30 years old when she made another instinctive decision. She wanted to live in another part of the U.S. She had visited Seattle once and remembers it fondly. When the arena posted an AV engineering opening, she applied but didn’t hear back for months. There were dozens of arena jobs to fill, but Ruiz-Acosta’s credentials stood out when the AV job search became active. The first phone call went well, and Ruiz-Acosta was soon traveling to Seattle for in-person interviews and meetings.

“It was at a very strange point in my life because I was ready to do something new and live somewhere else,” said Ruiz-Acosta. “But I had a very deep connection to Oakland, and to the A’s job, having spent so much time and energy invested in it.”

“Mari [pronounced Mah-rree by rolling the r’s] was my ideal candidate and the ideal person,” said Dave Curry, vice president of technology at Climate Pledge Arena. “We have plenty of moments that feel like emergencies, such as power outages or equipment failures or changes in programming. However, Mari remains calm as a leader. That's really important. It's something I learned a long time ago. People look up to the leader, especially the younger staff members. They take their cues from the leader. When they see Mari is calm and confident and clear in thought during a stressful time, they have a better opportunity to remain calm and productive themselves.”

Connection Beyond the Job

The hard-to-leave connection to Oakland and the Bay Area resoundingly included being the youngest among two older brothers and two older sisters. Leaving her dad wouldn’t be easy. The youngest daughter and father have always been close, a relationship that endured and grew intensely deeper when Ruiz-Acosta’s mother died of cancer when the AV director was eight years old.

“My dad had a bit of a hard time with it at first,” said Ruiz-Acosta, who called her father and two sisters via Zoom [due to Covid] about being a candidate for the Seattle job. “I'm the baby. I don't think they believed I would take it if offered and that I would actually leave, full transparency.”

When Ruiz-Acosta traveled up to the PNW, she met her future colleagues and knew what her heart was lobbying for: “After I had met people and officially got the job offer, I went down to Pike Place Market to get some dinner and make a decision. I called my dad to say, ”I'm going to take it and sign the offer letter today.” It was a proud moment for him, as my dad will tell you, but a tough moment emotionally for him. My sisters and brothers have never moved away.”

Honoring Her Hispanic Heritage

Ruiz-Acosta might have moved a couple of hours away from her family by plane, but she will never sever her ties to her roots. Her late mother was of Mexican descent, while her father is an immigrant from El Salvador who rose to become the executive director of a local nonprofit organization that operates several centers focused on early childhood development, at-risk youth programs, and senior citizen services. He visits family in El Salvador each year and took a young ‘Marisela Xchel” a few times during early school age. Ruiz-Acosta traveled to her dad’s homeland this summer for the first time in more than 20 years.

“I'm very, very, very proud of both of my parents’ backgrounds,” said Ruiz-Acosta, who travels to Mexico regularly. “I went back to El Salvador in February ... it’s been almost 20 years. It was really amazing seeing my cousin, who is the same age as me, and remembering the times we had when we were younger.”

Starting when the cancer compromised her mother, Ruiz-Acosta was in part raised by her maternal grandmother, who cared for her and was her biggest fan at youth and high school basketball games.

“I wouldn't be the person I am today if I didn't grow up on her chicken mole and tacos,” said Ruiz-Acosta, smiling ear to ear. “I actually had another job offer in LA, where my grandmother lives, at the time I was offered a role with the arena. It made the decision that much harder. Her advice, “do whatever is best for you as a person and your future,” really helped. She knew I needed to be somewhere unfamiliar to grow as a person. She was right, and I will always be grateful to her for that.”

Now about that full name: Marisela Xchel Ruiz-Acosta. The AV professional is proud to explain her family history via her full name.

“Marisela is essentially means ocean and sky. ‘Mar’ in Spanish is ‘ocean’ and ‘cielo’ is ‘sky.’ My middle name, Xchel, is pronounced as if there's an I or E at the beginning. There's only one spelling of it, but the name originates from Mayan culture, specifically Ixchel, the Mayan goddess of healing and fertility. My mom really, really loved the name. As for my last name, Ruiz is from my dad’s family, and Acosta is from my mom’s side. I feel like every time I explain the origin of my name, I am speaking up for my family and heritage.”