New executive director is driven to get people to Visit Perrysburg

Josh Johnson is taking a career leap, from preparing parks programs in a northwest Ohio village to pumping up Visit Perrysburg, which has one of the largest farmers markets in the state.

The 37-year-old from Archbold, Ohio, took over the executive director job for Visit Perrysburg this week.

For the village, Mr. Johnson was the recreation program specialist in charge of events, programs, classes, youth and adult athletics, sponsorships, and seasonal employees. With Visit Perrysburg, he’ll be overseeing major events for the city, including the weekly farmers market and the holiday parade.

“Perrysburg has that small-town feel when you come downtown. It kind of reminds me of Archbold, in the sense of downtown. But, then the outside of downtown, you have everything that you could need,” Mr. Johnson said. “When people visit here, it’s an easy sell.”

“For me to have the opportunity, to come and do this and promote Perrysburg, it was just something I couldn’t pass up,” he said.

Sports has been a huge part of his life. He played baseball — outfield and pitcher — at the University of Toledo. At Archbold, he was a standout baseball and basketball player, graduating in 2006.

After college graduation, Mr. Johnson worked with his dad at the family business, making burial vaults, before joining parks and recreation in 2018. His bachelor’s degree is in sports administration.

He and his wife, Cara, and their two sons, Hayes, 3, and Jett, almost 2, live in Toledo. The couple briefly lived at Levis Commons and Mr. Johnson said his wife is anxious to move back to Perrysburg. She is a teacher in the Oregon school district.

They picked Toledo as a home base, so each would have about a 45-minute drive to work, when he was in Archbold and she in Oregon.

Because of the driving and random hours with the parks — sometimes he would be working a program until 10 p.m. — Mr. Johnson started looking for a new job.

“I obviously loved what I was doing in Archbold, being an Archbold grad, born and raised. But when I started having kids and the lifestyle changed, I started looking,” Mr. Johnson said.

He thought the Visit Perrysburg position would be a bigger stage for things he was already doing with the parks department.

Over the last few years in Archbold, Mr. Johnson led an effort to bring a concert and beer sales to the “church town.” He’d like to see a bigger concert version of the village’s Route 66 Bash in Perrysburg.

“You bring a big-name person in, you’re bringing people from all over. And then they’re going stay in the hotels, they’re going to go to Inside the Five, they’re going to go to Levis Commons,” Mr. Johnson said.

Visit Perrysburg has several events throughout the year, including Hearts the Arts, an Aug. 16-18 festival that is moving from Levis Commons to Louisiana Avenue, an Ohio State-Michigan tailgate party the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and a Dec. 8 holiday parade.

Thursday’s farmers market, however, is the crown jewel of Visit Perrysburg. Mr. Johnson said he’s been going to the market — which had record attendance of 5,000 earlier this month — over the last few weeks to get his feet wet.

“It’s absolutely crazy,” he said. “It’s amazing what they’ve grown, and what this has become.”

“That was one of the first questions that I did ask, do we want to grow this?” Mr. Johnson said. “We want this to be the premier farmers market in the state of Ohio, and if that means we have an opportunity to grow it and make it bigger and better, we’re always going to look at that.”

Any plans to expand the farmers market will most likely wait until after the 2025 uptown revitalization project, he said.

Mr. Johnson said Perrysburg has more to showcase than its uptown area. There’s Fort Meigs, Levis Commons, and several parks.

“My job is to bring different events to different locations to show off everything that we have to offer,” he said.

Gerri Walczak, president of the Visit Perrysburg board, said Mr. Johnson brings a young vibe to the organization.

“There’s just something about Josh. He’s just got that ‘it’ factor and I think Perrysburg could really use that,” Ms. Walczak said. “We want to get a younger crowd interested in Perrysburg.

“We also want to bring more tourism to the area, that is our number one idea,” she said.

Councilman Mark Weber has been filling in as Visit Perrysburg director since Christine Best left in February.

“I hope he likes it. Coming from Archbold, it’s a little different dynamic here Perrysburg,” Mr. Weber said of Mr. Johnson. “I think he’s going to do just great.”

Mr. Johnson will be paid $75,000 annually.

Contact Debbie Rogers at

drogers@theblade.com.