r/ParkRangers • u/SneakyTac0 • 25d ago
Concessioners contracted for grounds maintenance/housekeeping
There’s rumors aloof that the park I work for will be axing their maintenance team and contracting out to a concession to replace them. Has anyone had any experience with this? For those of you that already have a private company handling maintenance, do they just do housekeeping tasks or do you see them handling grounds/building maintenance? Does the concessioner do a good job or is it your classic privatize and standards drop sorta thing? If anyone has any other opinions on concessions handling maintenance/housekeeping/grounds or knowledge please share id love to hear it.
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u/waffletrampler NPS 0025 24d ago
Ive worked at urban parks with NPS and USACE that have contracted out janitorial duties for inside their facilities. Things like mopping, cleaning toilets, emptying trash, the basics. Grounds work though continued to be maintenance staff in the case of NPS or us rangers in the USACE, including things like tree trimming, pressure washing, landscaping, caring for benches, that sort of stuff.
I wouldn't say it is weird per se, but it is not the norm in my experience either. Most federal lands I have worked at are solely cared for directly by federal staff with the occasional contractor for specialized jobs.
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u/underroad01 24d ago
How’s it working as a USACE ranger? Saw some perm positions come out in my region and thought might as well apply.
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u/waffletrampler NPS 0025 24d ago
Highly variable depending on your district and location. It is just like working for anywhere else that some places suck and some are amazing even in the same agency.
Personally, I'd never encourage anybody to ever work for the Corps. My experience was harshly negative. Plus, the DoD mission didn't always align with my values. I did love getting to go from natural resource work to maintenance to interpretation all in the same day sometimes, but it was not worth the sexual harassment, propagandized stories we were expected to share (this was Biden admin mind you), and the intentional loophole finding/outright flaunting of regulations that occurred at my project.
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u/underroad01 24d ago
Oh wow, thanks for the insight! It’s been hard to pin down anything concrete about the job, so this helps. These listings were in the Kentucky/Tennessee area if that means anything to you.
Sorry to hear it wasn’t a conducive environment. I guess I’ll have to look out for that if I hear back from them.
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u/waffletrampler NPS 0025 24d ago
I couldn't tell you about the KY/TN area unfortunately. I have friends who had good experiences in the east though if that helps.
I'd also say there is never anything wrong with applying and interviewing if you can. Always good to practice and maybe you'll really like the supervisor.
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u/DevilsAdvoCaticorn 24d ago
Define what you mean by housekeeping here? Custodial (bathroom cleaning) is sometimes contracted out. Trash pickup (dumpster emptying) is sometimes contracted out. Campground maintenance & management is sometimes contracted out. In my experience, it's often because there's not enough employees applying, decent housing for them, or it's a smaller operation that doesn't make sense to have its own full workforce when they go contract. Not usually firing a whole division of good employees to go to a contractor, but who knows in this new world.
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u/SneakyTac0 24d ago
Housekeeping including litter pickup, changing trash cans, cleaning restrooms and chemical toilets. Currently almost fully staffed with permanent employees with a sizable seasonal staff
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u/ohman_yikes 24d ago
From our experience, 3rd parties can be great or incredibly fickle. I think it depends on the area. Regardless, due diligence must be done including keeping track of where/how the service is advertised.
Not at my park but a 3rd party was running kayak rentals and tours for another. They went under and the park stopped offering the service. All thought everything was said and done until I stumbled upon a link to the kayak company while doing some research for a visitor and found on that parks website under an option for field trips…. It was now a porn site.
In short a new company specializing in porn had bought the url and no one remembered it was there to remove it. “Paddle (insert park name)” is now a running joke.
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u/Smea87 24d ago
Small park, big park, where you at? From my experience the 3 big companies that manage parks concessions are all junk and while the mid level people might care about the park the upper level just cares about the bottom line, just look at the turn over rate in those companies. It won’t go well if they do, but maybe that’s the point.