Parks Operations Specialist at City of Albany, OR

About the Department

Do you take pride in maintaining beautiful, safe, and welcoming spaces for your community? The City of Albany is seeking a skilled and motivated Parks Operations Specialist to join our Parks & Open Space team. This position plays a key role in keeping our parks, trails, and recreational areas in top condition while supporting the community events and programs that make Albany such a vibrant place to live.

In this role, you’ll take the lead on major park operations for community-wide events like River Rhythms and the Northwest Art & Air Festival—planning logistics, coordinating with vendors and staff, and ensuring everything runs smoothly. You’ll also serve as the department’s point person for the OpenGov asset management system, helping track maintenance activities, report park conditions, and optimize data to support strategic decisions.

Beyond daily park and facility maintenance, you’ll lead the Adopt-A-Park program—building strong relationships with volunteers, coordinating projects, and celebrating community contributions that keep our parks thriving.

This position is ideal for someone who enjoys a balance of hands-on outdoor work, community engagement, and project coordination. If you’re organized, dependable, and passionate about maintaining spaces where people gather, play, and connect, we’d love to have you on our team.

GENERAL PURPOSE
Performs a variety of skilled and semi-skilled tasks in the care, maintenance, and repair of City parks, open spaces, recreational facilities, and related infrastructure. This position ensures that parks and grounds are safe, clean, and attractive for public use by carrying out landscape maintenance, equipment upkeep, facility repairs, and seasonal operations. This position serves as the Parks Division lead for community wide special events, OpenGov asset management, and Adopt-A-Park. Work is performed independently and as part of a team, with a focus on delivering high-quality service and maintaining community assets.

Position Duties

The duties listed are intended only as illustrative examples of the various types of work that may be performed by individuals in this classification. Any of the following duties may be performed. These examples are not necessarily performed by all incumbents and do not include all specific essential functions and responsibilities the incumbent may be expected to perform.

1. Plan and coordinate park operations and logistics for large-scale community events such as River Rhythms, Northwest Art & Fair Festival, and other events as needed to include planning, contracting, site preparation, infrastructure placement, crowd flow, and on-site operations.
2. Serve as the primary on-site point of contact during events to coordinate with full-time recreation staff, seasonal employees, vendors, other City Departments.
3. Problem solve effectively when working in dynamic environments. 
4. Serve as the point of contact for the department’s asset management system (OpenGov), including data entry, reporting, troubleshooting, and system optimization. Works with City’s GIS and IT teams as needed to accomplish goals. 
5. Coordinate with staff to ensure accurate and timely reporting of maintenance activities, inspections, and asset conditions.
6. Train and support staff in using the asset management system effectively.
7. Provide director with data to support departmental and City strategic planning along with budget recommendations. 
8. Serve as the primary liaison for the Adopt-A-Park program, building strong relationships with the program’s volunteer leads, Urban Forester, and Resource Development Coordinator.  
9. Provide training, guidance, and resources for the Adopt-A-Park program.
10. Assist in the development of appropriate projects that support department needs; may serve on-site as needed.
11. Track and report volunteer hours, accomplishments, and impacts.
12. Coordinate with Marketing Specialist to park activities are being advertised and recognized effectively. 
13. Perform a variety of skilled and semi-skilled tasks in the maintenance, repair, and improvement of parks, trails, playgrounds, athletic fields, open spaces, and related facilities.
14. Operate and maintain equipment, tools, and vehicles used in park maintenance.
15. Monitor park conditions and address safety hazards, vandalism, and general upkeep.
16. Ensure compliance with park policies, permits, and safety regulations during events.
17. Represents the City of Albany by responding to the public, citizens, its employees, and others in a prompt, professional, and courteous manner while continuously maintaining a positive customer service demeanor. Regards everyone, internal and external, as a customer and delivers the best service possible in a respectful and patient manner.
18. Works to create a high-performance work culture by demonstrating a positive attitude and modeling the City’s mission, vision, and values. Conducts self with high integrity, proactive in conserving City resources, and seeks and incorporates customer feedback for ongoing performance improvement. Demonstrates continuous effort to improve operations, decrease turnaround times, streamline work processes, and work cooperatively and jointly to provide quality customer service.
19. Serves as a member of various City committees as assigned.
20. Assists other staff in the performance of their duties as assigned; and may provide training and orientation to newly assigned personnel.
21. Maintains regular job attendance and adherence to working hours.
22. Operates a motor vehicle safely and legally. 
23. Performs other related duties as required/assigned.

Minimum Qualifications

This is a non-supervisory position. Lead work/coordination of the work of others is not a typical function assigned to this position. Incumbents in this position may provide training and orientation to newly assigned personnel. May be responsible for coordinating the activities of temporary or seasonal staffing.

Other Qualifications

Education and Experience
Have a high school diploma or its equivalent and six years of experience in special event experience, asset management, landscape maintenance, landscape construction, grounds maintenance; experience leading the work of others; or an equivalent combination of education, training and experience that provides the required knowledge, skills, and abilities. 

Special Requirements

• This position requires:
  1. Possession of or ability to obtain a valid Oregon driver's license at the time of job placement.
  2. First Aid/CPR certification preferred, or ability to obtain within six months of placement. 
  3. The individual shall not pose a direct threat to the health or safety of themselves or others. 
  4. In accordance with Human Resources substance abuse policies, incumbents in this classification are subject to the City's Drug & Alcohol testing program.
     
     

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

Knowledge of: all aspects of park program coordination including special events, volunteer programs, park maintenance and operations including asset management, horticulture, arboriculture, turf care, irrigation, natural area maintenance, sport fields, and facilities maintenance, which includes concrete work, painting, carpentry, and plumbing; computer use, tools, materials, methods, equipment, and practices which pertain to park maintenance activities; operating and mechanical characteristics of a full range of grounds maintenance equipment; reading landscape blueprints and specifications; and proper and safe application of fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. Basic knowledge of computer word processing and spreadsheet software and of modern office practices and procedures including business English, grammar, spelling, composition, and math

Skill in: operation of non-commercial tractors, non-commercial trucks, steam cleaners, chippers, blowers, various mowers and other specialized equipment.

Ability to: operate a variety of tools and equipment; plan and implement maintenance; provide guidance and training for subordinate workers; operate computers for data entry; operate small office equipment, including copy machines or multi-line telephone systems; operate and maintain lawnmowers, weed eaters, sprinklers, and other light equipment; walk and stand for long periods of time; perform strenuous physical labor under adverse field conditions; communicate effectively, verbally and in writing; understand and carry out written and oral instructions; and establish and maintain effective working relationships with employees, other departments, and the public.


The work environment is regularly outdoors in outside weather conditions. The employee frequently works near moving mechanical parts and is frequently exposed to wet and/or humid conditions and vibration. The employee frequently works in utility excavations and occasionally enters confined spaces. The noise level in the work environment is occasionally loud. May be required to be on-call and work weekends, holidays, and evenings. 

Physical Demands
The factors described herein are representative of, but not all-inclusive of, those that must be met by an individual to successfully perform the job.  Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. Detailed information may be available in a supplemental Job Task Analysis document.

The work is medium work which lifting up to 55 pounds occasionally, carrying up to 55 pounds occasionally, and pushing and pulling up to 100 pounds occasionally Additionally, the following physical abilities are required:

• Balancing: sufficient to maintain body equilibrium to prevent falling while walking, standing or crouching on narrow, slippery, or erratically moving surfaces. The amount of balancing exceeds that needed for ordinary locomotion and maintenance of body equilibrium.
• Climbing: sufficient to ascend or descend ladders, stairs, scaffolding, ramps, poles and the like, using feet and legs and/or hands and arms. Body agility is emphasized.
• Crawling: sufficient to move about on hands and knees or hands and feet.
• Crouching: sufficient to bend the body downward and forward by bending leg and spine.
• Feeling: sufficient to perceive attributes of objects, such as size, shape, temperature or texture by touching with skin, particularly that of fingertips.
• Fingering: sufficient to pick, pinch, type, or otherwise work, primarily with fingers rather than with the whole hand as in handling.
• Grasping: sufficient to apply pressure to an object with the fingers and palm.
• Handling: sufficient to pick, hold, or otherwise work, primarily with the whole hand.
• Hearing: sufficient to perceive the nature of sounds at normal speaking levels with or without correction. Ability to receive detailed information through oral communication, and to make the discrimination in sound. 
• Kneeling: sufficient to bend legs at knee to come to a rest on knee or knees. 
• Lifting: sufficient to raise objects from a lower to a higher position or moving objects horizontally from position-to-position. Occurs to a considerable degree and requires substantial use of upper extremities and back muscles. 
• Mental Acuity: sufficient to make rational decisions through sound logic and deductive methods.
• Pulling: sufficient to use upper extremities to exert force in order to draw, haul or tug objects in a sustained motion.
• Pushing: sufficient to use upper extremities to press against something with steady force in order to thrust forward, downward or outward.
• Reaching: sufficient to extend hand(s) and arm(s) in any direction.
• Repetitive Motion: Substantial movements (motions) of the wrist, hands, and/or fingers.
• Speaking: sufficient to express or exchange ideas by means of the spoken word including the ability to convey detailed or important spoken instructions to other workers accurately and concisely.
• Standing: Particularly for sustained periods of time. 
• Stooping: sufficient to bend body downward and forward by bending spine at the waist. Occurs to a considerable degree and requires full motion of the lower extremities and back muscles. 
• Talking: sufficient to express or exchange ideas by means of the spoken word including those activities in which they must convey detailed or important spoken instructions to other workers accurately, loudly, or quickly.
• Visual Acuity: sufficient to observe violations of codes, to effectively operate standard office equipment; ability to read and write reports, correspondence, instructions, drawings, etc.; and to operate motor vehicles and/or heavy equipment, by both day and night.
• Walking: sufficient to move about on foot to accomplish tasks, particularly for long distances or move from one work site to another.

Tools & Equipment Used
In the performance of job duties, the employee will use motorized vehicles and equipment, including non-commercial dump trucks, pickup trucks, utility trucks, backhoes, forklifts, and vacuum excavation equipment; saws; pumps; compressors; generators; common hand and power tools; shovels; wrenches; detection devices; phone; copiers; computers; database programs; and other related tools and equipment.

Safety Equipment: 
This is not an exhaustive list. Hearing protection (including earmuffs), safety glasses, steel toed boots, gloves (nitrile, latex, leather), hardhat, knee pads, respirators and dust masks, traffic cones, safety vest, fall-restraint equipment when required. Develops safe work habits and contributes to the safety of self, co-workers, and the public.

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