A park superintendent may have a wide or narrow range of responsibilities, depending on the size of a park system and its supervising authority. Many park superintendents have an associate’s or even a bachelor’s degree in management, while others try to stand out by gaining on-the-job experience. Perhaps the best way to get the park superintendent job you want is to combine your education and experience.
Many park superintendents have a mix of responsibilities that require them to be a manager, activities director, maintenance supervisor, and public relations manager all at the same time. This person is in charge of overseeing all park employees, including maintenance crews and any wardens employed by the supervising authority. Those who want to work as a park superintendent should be prepared to organize schedules, assign individual responsibilities, and conduct regular performance evaluations.
A system of parks within a region may need to be managed in some cases, such as with state or federal park superintendents. This includes ensuring that safety and cleanliness are maintained, as well as the natural resource integrity of each park. At this level of the system’s hierarchy, a small group of park rangers will be directly beneath a park supervisor, each responsible for a different park or section of a park. A park superintendent may be responsible for several rangers and parks spread across a large geographic area. Others, such as Yosemite National Forest, which employs dozens of park rangers and maintenance workers, are responsible for a single park.
Similar responsibilities apply to becoming a park superintendent at a more local level, such as for a city or county government. The parks in the system, on the other hand, are more likely to be geographically concentrated. A city park supervisor will be in charge of the upkeep and staffing of parks within the city’s boundaries. A county parks superintendent, on the other hand, may have a similar number of parks to manage, but they are spread out across an entire county.
Getting a master’s degree in wildlife management, recreation management, or even public administration can help you become a park superintendent. Others, on the other hand, work their way up through the ranks of a specific park system until hard work and attrition pay off. Whatever path you take to becoming a park superintendent, you’ll need to be able to manage and train a diverse group of employees. You could be teaching a young worker to operate a backhoe or riding mower one day and then hiring and training a community pool manager the next. You could be organizing volunteers for a cultural performance the next day, then checking in with construction crews working on a new park renovation the next.