Senior Center Director (Recreation Specialist, Grade 21)
Montgomery County Government, Silver Spring, Maryland, United States, 20900
About The Position
The salary range above represents this position’s earning potential. The anticipated hiring range for this position will
$70,556 - $99,236 , based on the candidate’s qualifications and experience.
Who We Are Montgomery County Department of Recreation is a nationally recognized and award-winning agency with a mission to provide high quality, diverse, and accessible community-based programs, activities, and services that serve the recreation and leisure needs of the Montgomery County community. The department manages 39 facilities including recreation centers, senior centers, and indoor and outdoor aquatic facilities and provides thousands of programs such as out-of-school activities, aquatics, classes, youth and adult sports programs and leagues, senior programs, and therapeutic recreation. Recreation is committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals and values diverse perspectives, lived experiences, and cultures. Recreation encourages BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color), immigrants, women, LGBTQIA+, individuals with disabilities, and veterans to apply.
Who We Are Looking For The Department seeks a dynamic, experienced, and energetic Recreation Specialist to perform full-time work in support of Senior(55+) programming to help older residents thrive and age in place. Work in this position includes ensuring our senior centers and/or facilities are full of innovative, state‑of‑the‑art and diverse culturally responsive trend‑setting programs for adults 55 and better. Successful candidates will have knowledge skills and abilities for organizing, developing, planning, scheduling, promoting, contract oversight, budget tracking and evaluating a full range of instructional and volunteer‑led classes, sports, fitness and wellness programs, lifetime leisure activities, as well as special events in diverse community settings. Successful candidates will also demonstrate broad individual responsibility executing general facility oversight, cleanliness, care, and ground cleaning.
The Recreation Specialist will play a crucial role in creating a welcoming environment to all that promotes active participation and enhances the quality of life for our diverse senior community.
What You’ll Be Doing As the Recreation Specialist (Senior Center), you will have experience and demonstrate the ability to:
Lead Programs & Events – Plan, manage, and evaluate recreational programs and large scale events for a diverse older adult community.
Community Engagement & Inclusion – Build positive relationships (internally & externally) and ensure programs are culturally inclusive, equitable, responsive and welcoming to all older adults wishing to attend.
Program Development & Evaluation – Set center and team goals, manage budgets, evaluate outcome success, and use viable data for strategic program planning and continuous improvement.
Staff, Volunteer & Contractor Oversight – Recruit, train, coach, schedule, lead, and evaluate seasonal staff, volunteers and contractors.
Administrative & Software Management – Oversee program scheduling, promoting, registering, and operations using recreation approved software (e.g. VSI, Outlook, etc.)
Financial & Compliance Management – Handle revenue collection, cash management, purchasing inventory and supplies, safeguarding personal information, and enforcing county policies and procedures.
Marketing & Communication – Promote programs through newsletters, calendars, flyers, and digital media boards; collaborate with colleagues within the department and ensure public outreach guidelines are followed.
Community Partnership & Nutrition Program – Maintain a positive relationship with community organizations and partners and ensuring all collaborations have a formalized agreement. Oversee a lunch time congregate meal program in partnership with DHHS. Ensure all food safety regulations and procedures are met.
To be a successful Recreation Specialist (Senior Center), you must:
Experience working in cross-cultural environments or a commitment to improving cultural competency.
Strong verbal and written communication skills with excellent organizational abilities and attention to details.
Proven experience in recreation program planning and facilities management for older adults.
Maintaining stability amongst seasonal employees by modelling desired behaviours through consistent and positive work ethic, and by advocating on behalf of the management team.
Budgeting and fiscal management expertise.
Exceptional customer service and interpersonal skills.
Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite and recreation software systems.
Unionized Employees As a leader/organizer of unionized employees, this position has responsibility for:
Foster a positive and productive labor relations environment by building trust and cooperation with staff.
Lead by example, setting a strong work ethic and creating a supportive positive environment for seasonal employees and volunteers.
Provide guidance, motivation, and clear direction to staff, ensuring clarity of goals and projects.
Important Things To Know
Candidates must successfully complete a background investigation and a medical exam with drug screening prior to appointment.
This role requires flexibility to work non-traditional hours, including mornings, evenings, weekends, and holidays. Occasional outdoor work in varying weather conditions and physical demands may be required.
The Recreation Specialist may be asked to provide coverage and support across multiple programs during operating hours.
Montgomery County Recreation is committed to providing enriching programs that engage our community. If you are passionate about supporting and enriching the lives of older adults, this is the opportunity for you!
Minimum Qualifications Experience:
Two (2) years of progressively responsible recreational specialist work involving planning, organizing, supervising and implementing an area-wide, county-wide or special interest recreation program.
Education:
Graduation from an accredited college or university with a Bachelor’s Degree.
Equivalency:
An equivalent combination of education, experience and training may be substituted.
Preferred Criteria, Interview Preferences
Extensive experience in developing and managing high-volume recreation programs for older adults (55+), including program creation, data entry, evaluation, and facility bookings.
Demonstrated ability to hire, train, manage, schedule, coach, supervise, and evaluate contractors, staff, and/or volunteers, with several years of leadership experience in these areas.
Flexibility to work a varying schedule based on seasonal and departmental needs, including early mornings, late evenings, weekends, and holidays as required.
Proven recreation experience serving a diverse older adult population, including planning, organizing, and implementing classes, activities, and events for individuals from various cultural backgrounds.
Multilingual skills are highly desirable; proficiency in languages other than English is considered an asset.
Important Information The Office of Human Resources (OHR) reviews the minimum qualifications of all applicants, irrespective of whether the candidate has previously been found to have met the minimum requirements for the job or been temporarily promoted to the same position. This evaluation is based solely on the information contained in the application/resume submitted for this specific position.
Montgomery County Government (MCG) is an equal opportunity employer, committed to workforce diversity. Accordingly, as it relates to employment opportunities, the County will provide reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, in accordance with the law. Applicants requiring reasonable accommodation for any part of the application and hiring process should email OHR at Hiring@montgomerycountymd.gov. Individual determinations on requests for reasonable accommodation will be made in accordance with all applicable laws.
MCG also provides hiring preference to certain categories of veterans and veterans/persons with a disability. For more information and to claim employment preference, refer to the Careers webpage on Hiring Preference.
All applicants will respond to a series of questions related to their education, relevant experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities required to minimally perform the job. The applicant's responses in conjunction with their resume and all other information provided in the employment application process will be evaluated to determine the minimum qualifications and preferred criteria or interview preference status. Based on the results, the highest qualified applicants will be placed on an Eligible List and may be considered for an interview. Employees meeting minimum qualifications who are the same grade will be placed on the Eligible List as a "Lateral Transfer" candidate and may be considered for an interview.
This will establish an Eligible List that may be used to fill both current and future vacancies.
If selected for consideration for this position, you may be required to provide evidence that you possess the knowledge, skills, and abilities indicated on your resume.
Montgomery County Ethics Law: Except as provided by law or regulation, the County's "Public Employees" (which does not include employees of the Sheriff's office) are subject to the County's ethics law including the requirements to obtain advanced approval of any outside employment and the prohibitions on certain outside employment. The outside employment requirements of the ethics law can be found at 19A-12 of the County Code. Additional information about outside employment can be obtained from the Ethics Commission website.
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$70,556 - $99,236 , based on the candidate’s qualifications and experience.
Who We Are Montgomery County Department of Recreation is a nationally recognized and award-winning agency with a mission to provide high quality, diverse, and accessible community-based programs, activities, and services that serve the recreation and leisure needs of the Montgomery County community. The department manages 39 facilities including recreation centers, senior centers, and indoor and outdoor aquatic facilities and provides thousands of programs such as out-of-school activities, aquatics, classes, youth and adult sports programs and leagues, senior programs, and therapeutic recreation. Recreation is committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals and values diverse perspectives, lived experiences, and cultures. Recreation encourages BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color), immigrants, women, LGBTQIA+, individuals with disabilities, and veterans to apply.
Who We Are Looking For The Department seeks a dynamic, experienced, and energetic Recreation Specialist to perform full-time work in support of Senior(55+) programming to help older residents thrive and age in place. Work in this position includes ensuring our senior centers and/or facilities are full of innovative, state‑of‑the‑art and diverse culturally responsive trend‑setting programs for adults 55 and better. Successful candidates will have knowledge skills and abilities for organizing, developing, planning, scheduling, promoting, contract oversight, budget tracking and evaluating a full range of instructional and volunteer‑led classes, sports, fitness and wellness programs, lifetime leisure activities, as well as special events in diverse community settings. Successful candidates will also demonstrate broad individual responsibility executing general facility oversight, cleanliness, care, and ground cleaning.
The Recreation Specialist will play a crucial role in creating a welcoming environment to all that promotes active participation and enhances the quality of life for our diverse senior community.
What You’ll Be Doing As the Recreation Specialist (Senior Center), you will have experience and demonstrate the ability to:
Lead Programs & Events – Plan, manage, and evaluate recreational programs and large scale events for a diverse older adult community.
Community Engagement & Inclusion – Build positive relationships (internally & externally) and ensure programs are culturally inclusive, equitable, responsive and welcoming to all older adults wishing to attend.
Program Development & Evaluation – Set center and team goals, manage budgets, evaluate outcome success, and use viable data for strategic program planning and continuous improvement.
Staff, Volunteer & Contractor Oversight – Recruit, train, coach, schedule, lead, and evaluate seasonal staff, volunteers and contractors.
Administrative & Software Management – Oversee program scheduling, promoting, registering, and operations using recreation approved software (e.g. VSI, Outlook, etc.)
Financial & Compliance Management – Handle revenue collection, cash management, purchasing inventory and supplies, safeguarding personal information, and enforcing county policies and procedures.
Marketing & Communication – Promote programs through newsletters, calendars, flyers, and digital media boards; collaborate with colleagues within the department and ensure public outreach guidelines are followed.
Community Partnership & Nutrition Program – Maintain a positive relationship with community organizations and partners and ensuring all collaborations have a formalized agreement. Oversee a lunch time congregate meal program in partnership with DHHS. Ensure all food safety regulations and procedures are met.
To be a successful Recreation Specialist (Senior Center), you must:
Experience working in cross-cultural environments or a commitment to improving cultural competency.
Strong verbal and written communication skills with excellent organizational abilities and attention to details.
Proven experience in recreation program planning and facilities management for older adults.
Maintaining stability amongst seasonal employees by modelling desired behaviours through consistent and positive work ethic, and by advocating on behalf of the management team.
Budgeting and fiscal management expertise.
Exceptional customer service and interpersonal skills.
Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite and recreation software systems.
Unionized Employees As a leader/organizer of unionized employees, this position has responsibility for:
Foster a positive and productive labor relations environment by building trust and cooperation with staff.
Lead by example, setting a strong work ethic and creating a supportive positive environment for seasonal employees and volunteers.
Provide guidance, motivation, and clear direction to staff, ensuring clarity of goals and projects.
Important Things To Know
Candidates must successfully complete a background investigation and a medical exam with drug screening prior to appointment.
This role requires flexibility to work non-traditional hours, including mornings, evenings, weekends, and holidays. Occasional outdoor work in varying weather conditions and physical demands may be required.
The Recreation Specialist may be asked to provide coverage and support across multiple programs during operating hours.
Montgomery County Recreation is committed to providing enriching programs that engage our community. If you are passionate about supporting and enriching the lives of older adults, this is the opportunity for you!
Minimum Qualifications Experience:
Two (2) years of progressively responsible recreational specialist work involving planning, organizing, supervising and implementing an area-wide, county-wide or special interest recreation program.
Education:
Graduation from an accredited college or university with a Bachelor’s Degree.
Equivalency:
An equivalent combination of education, experience and training may be substituted.
Preferred Criteria, Interview Preferences
Extensive experience in developing and managing high-volume recreation programs for older adults (55+), including program creation, data entry, evaluation, and facility bookings.
Demonstrated ability to hire, train, manage, schedule, coach, supervise, and evaluate contractors, staff, and/or volunteers, with several years of leadership experience in these areas.
Flexibility to work a varying schedule based on seasonal and departmental needs, including early mornings, late evenings, weekends, and holidays as required.
Proven recreation experience serving a diverse older adult population, including planning, organizing, and implementing classes, activities, and events for individuals from various cultural backgrounds.
Multilingual skills are highly desirable; proficiency in languages other than English is considered an asset.
Important Information The Office of Human Resources (OHR) reviews the minimum qualifications of all applicants, irrespective of whether the candidate has previously been found to have met the minimum requirements for the job or been temporarily promoted to the same position. This evaluation is based solely on the information contained in the application/resume submitted for this specific position.
Montgomery County Government (MCG) is an equal opportunity employer, committed to workforce diversity. Accordingly, as it relates to employment opportunities, the County will provide reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, in accordance with the law. Applicants requiring reasonable accommodation for any part of the application and hiring process should email OHR at Hiring@montgomerycountymd.gov. Individual determinations on requests for reasonable accommodation will be made in accordance with all applicable laws.
MCG also provides hiring preference to certain categories of veterans and veterans/persons with a disability. For more information and to claim employment preference, refer to the Careers webpage on Hiring Preference.
All applicants will respond to a series of questions related to their education, relevant experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities required to minimally perform the job. The applicant's responses in conjunction with their resume and all other information provided in the employment application process will be evaluated to determine the minimum qualifications and preferred criteria or interview preference status. Based on the results, the highest qualified applicants will be placed on an Eligible List and may be considered for an interview. Employees meeting minimum qualifications who are the same grade will be placed on the Eligible List as a "Lateral Transfer" candidate and may be considered for an interview.
This will establish an Eligible List that may be used to fill both current and future vacancies.
If selected for consideration for this position, you may be required to provide evidence that you possess the knowledge, skills, and abilities indicated on your resume.
Montgomery County Ethics Law: Except as provided by law or regulation, the County's "Public Employees" (which does not include employees of the Sheriff's office) are subject to the County's ethics law including the requirements to obtain advanced approval of any outside employment and the prohibitions on certain outside employment. The outside employment requirements of the ethics law can be found at 19A-12 of the County Code. Additional information about outside employment can be obtained from the Ethics Commission website.
#J-18808-Ljbffr