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From student to leader, Elizabeth Coogan’s inspiring journey in Turfgrass Management at Rutgers.
Getting to know
Elizabeth Coogan
Was: Assistant Superintendent,
Metuchen Golf & Country Club
Is: Program Coordinator,
Rutgers Professional Golf Turf Management Program
Article by Howard Richman,
GCM associate editor
Her office in Room 107 at the Office of Continuing Education at Rutgers University seems exactly where Liz Coogan belongs. Sure, it’s right next to the copier, which is convenient. But it’s more about where Coogan has spent much of her life in this industry, who started as a student assisting graduate students with field trials and greenhouse studies while working for the renowned Bingru Huang, Ph.D. Huang, who was inducted into the New Jersey Turfgrass Association Hall of Fame eight years ago, provided the inspiration for Coogan to grow and find her niche. “I did an undergraduate work study assignment for her. I worked in a lab, helping her grad students, taking data samples. I thought, ‘This is fantastic. Amazing.’ It was nice to see a woman (Huang) in management,” Coogan says.
Huang says, “At the time, she was one of a few female students, if not the only one, majoring in turfgrass science. She was a dedicated worker. Liz is also very smart, one of the top students in her class.”
Coogan continues to soar. In April, she started her job as program coordinator in Rutgers’ Professional Golf Turf Management Program. Coogan arrived there after spending five years as an assistant superintendent at Metuchen Golf & Country Club in Edison, N.J., where GCSAA Class A superintendent Jason Osterhoudt saw her grow. “She was always joyful and made sure things got done,” says Osterhoudt, a 26-year association member. “I’m always trying to push people forward, move on up. What she’s doing is a good fit for her.” The south New Jersey product earned a bachelor’s degree in plant science at Rutgers. She spent time there mowing and recording data for Jim Murphy, Ph.D., in the plant biology department and, later, worked for turf research farm supervisor Joe Clark. While she was finishing school, Coogan was an assistant-in-training at TPC Jasna Polana in Princeton, N.J.
Twice (2015 and 2016) she interned at Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield, N.J., and was part of the team for the PGA eight years ago under Mark Kuhns, CGCS, who currently looks up to Coogan. “I teach for her,” says Kuhns, GCSAA president in 2009 and 44-year association member who is an instructor in the golf turf management program and is business development manager at Ceres Turf. “She’s just very smart. When questions were being asked, she had the answers for the other interns. I’m very proud of her.”
Coogan contemplated her future while at Metuchen. “With Jason, it was nice to be part of an established golf course. At the time, I was thinking I’d go on to be a super,” she says.
Life intervened. “In the last five years, I got married, became a stepmom, bought a house. Sometimes priorities change,” says Coogan, whose husband, Dan, is a field researcher at Rutgers’ Horticulture Research Farm II.
Being at Rutgers, though, isn’t a monumental change for her. Truly, it is so much more. “It’s like coming home,” Coogan says.
Q & A with Elizabeth Coogan
Q: What was the oddest thing you saw on the course during your years as an assistant superintendent?
A: The weirdest thing to see was smoldering trees after being struck by lightning. Happened multiple times on multiple golf courses I’ve worked on. That, and it was always strange to find fish in the middle of the fairways with no water source nearby.
Q: When you got your first job after college, what was your first major purchase?
A: My own car. For years I was fortunate enough to have use of my brother’s hand-me-down car, but when I bought a vehicle for me that I was solely responsible for, it felt great.
Q: Describe yourself in one word.
A: Happy.
Reprinted by permission of the GCSAA.
(View the original article in the GCM online magazine September 2024 issue)