To watch those trying to escape this summer's heat enter the perpetually 50-degree ice center at the Mt. Lebanon Recreation Center is like seeing desert travelers find an oasis.

For the center's facilities manager, however, such chilling out is just another day at the office.

"We have a refrigeration system that maintains ice and the indoor temperature and a separate air-conditioning unit for the community center," Robert D. Hlebinsky said.

"In 2005, we replaced the refrigeration system and added de-humidification. Prior to that, we had to balance humidity with air temperature, so the rink temperature was in the 60s, which puts more pressure on the refrigeration system to keep it at 50 degrees, which is not energy efficient. Today, we can keep the air temperature cooler and drier."

He also admits his work follows him home.

"We keep the house pretty cool in winter because my wife and I are used to it. 'Are you trying to freeze us out?' ask the kids when they come home," he said.

Mr. Hlebinsky, 55, of Mt. Lebanon, said the two-floor, 60,000-square-foot recreation center at 900 Cedar Blvd. is made up of an outdoor Olympic-sized swimming pool; a community center for classes, meetings, parties and more; and a year-round, indoor ice center with a 200-foot-by-85-foot main rink and an 80-foot-by-60-foot studio rink. The center is open to anyone.

Mr. Hlebinsky did not learn to skate until his senior year at Laurel Highlands High School in Uniontown after an injury sidelined him from football.

He honed his skills during pickup hockey games at the Rostraver Ice Garden and the Nevin Ice Arena, both in Westmoreland County.

But it was at Penn State University where he "fell in love with skating and hockey" as a volunteer with youth hockey programs and assisting at skating programs for the Special Olympics.

Deciding he preferred skating, he dropped his computer science major.

"At that time, there were big rooms where punch cards for computer programs were printed," Mr. Hlebinsky said. "I thought this was the future.

"But the aspect of working with people appealed to me more.".

As a recreation management major, he interned for Citiparks at the Schenley Park ice rink, instructing skaters, conducting street hockey clinics and writing an operations manual.

In December 1976, he was hired for Mt. Lebanon's new $4.4 million recreation center, which opened one month later. He had a big job to build a base of skaters.

"At that time, hockey was relatively new in Pittsburgh," he said of the years before the famed "Miracle on Ice" Olympics championship, the arrival of Mario Lemieux and the back-to-back Stanley Cup victories.

To generate revenue, the ice center welcomed boxing matches, circuses and car shows.

But as professional skating successes climbed, so did local interest. Besides public skating, the rinks hosted hockey clinics, high school hockey games, Penguins training camps, national figure skating competitions and Russian and Czechoslovakian national teams, Special Olympics events and more.

In the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks, mediocre Olympic and Penguins hockey teams, and competition from newly built indoor skating rinks, a downturn in business led municipal commissioners to contemplate the facility's future.

Deemed a community resource worth keeping -- but with costs reined in -- there were budget cuts and staff reductions.

But brighter days followed.

"Revenues increased with a new skating renaissance," Mr. Hlebinsky said.

Today, the center's annual budget is about $1.2 million. While the rink covers itself, the community center, which never makes a profit, is usually budgeted at a $110,000 loss.

When the current budget was prepared months ago, the pool was projected as a $40,000 loss based on historical data.

Whether the pool turns a profit depends on the weather: Last year, it lost money while the prior year it broke even.

The center employs up to 100 people during the summer, including more than 30 part-time lifeguards from Memorial Day through Labor Day. There are also part-time skating teachers, skate guards, cashiers and maintenance workers.

Besides Mr. Hlebinsky, the other full-time positions are ice center assistant manager David Hornack, two building superintendents and a secretary.

With Mr. Hornack handling most of the hands-on hockey duties, Mr. Hlebinsky spends most of his time on administrative tasks.

It's ironic that the people person who turned away from computers now spends most of his day with his face to a screen.

Still, he said, "I'll get a 5 a.m. phone call that the Zamboni [ice resurfacing machine] is dead on the ice. "So, I still get my hands dirty," he said.

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