Job Description
DIRECTOR OF PARK EXPERIENCE
Land Acknowledgement
Waterfront Park is situated on the land of the Coast Salish peoples, who have resided here since time immemorial and continue to thrive. With respect and humility, we acknowledge the history of the waterfront, the dispossession of land from the Coast Salish people, and, most importantly, the strength and resilience of Native people and their culture through this history and to the present.
About Friends of Waterfront Park
Friends of Waterfront Park (Friends) is a 501c3 non-profit. Through a public-private partnership with the City of Seattle, Friends is leading fundraising and programming, deepening public
safety investments, and ensuring long-term stewardship of Waterfront Park now and for generations to come. The organization works closely with the City of Seattle, through Seattle Center, who provides park maintenance and public safety services. This model of a nonprofit managing and ensuring the success of a park is common across major U.S. cities, including Friends of the Highline and Brooklyn Bridge Parks Conservancy in New York, Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy in San Francisco, and Friends of the Underline in Miami.
Nearly 15 years in the making, Waterfront Park project represents a grand community vision for reimagining Seattle’s waterfront in the footprint of the old viaduct, a 1950’s infrastructure; creating a new kind of civic and cultural space. Seattle is a city known for innovation and Waterfront Park represents that spirit – it is so much more than simply a park. Waterfront Park is creating 20-acres of green space, inviting locals and visitors to reconnect with the water, the mountains, and each other. It will run from Belltown to Pioneer Square, and has a large urban footprint for programming, activation, and other park uses. Opening in 2025, Waterfront Park will serve as a
fresh cultural anchor for downtown, offering free public programming co-curated with communities from across the region.
Friends’ vision goes far beyond the park’s 20 acres. Alongside the City of Seattle, we envision a common space that is truly safe and welcoming to everyone; a space that is centered in equity. Friends has an opportunity and an inherent responsibility to disrupt patterns of exclusion and serve as a model for public spaces in Seattle and around the country. We have already made progress by working to establish strong community ties and trust and delivering BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) community led programs at Pier 62, the first piece of the park to open to the public.
Equity Commitment
Friends recognizes and acknowledges historic and existing systemic racism embedded in our city. We are committed to becoming an anti-racist organization by prioritizing racial equity within the organization and in the public spaces we operate.
Position Summary
The Role
The
Director of Park Experience ensures, through effective partnership and
leadership, that Waterfront Park is the highest and best functioning public
space in Seattle. They will work with a wide array of park partners to deliver
a visitor experience that feels inviting, pleasing, and safe—in every sense of
that word—to the enormously diverse user groups of the most significant civic
project in Seattle in the past 50 years.
Reporting
to the COO, the Director of Park Experience will be a member of Friends’
internal leadership team and hold critical relationships with Friends’ external
teams at Seattle’s Office of the Waterfront, Seattle Center, Evergreen
Treatment Services, Seattle Parks and Recreation, Downtown Seattle Association,
Alliance for Pioneer Square, Seattle Historic Waterfront Association, Seattle
Aquarium, Pike Place Market, Seattle DOT and a range of other institutional
partners with a stake in the success of Waterfront Park.
In addition to managing and maintaining key
stakeholder relationships and communication, the Director of Park Experience
will direct and collaborate with the team to ensure a high-quality park
experience. They will manage employees and contractors including park
ambassadors, social service outreach workers, department administrative staff,
transportation service providers, and facilities contracts.
Coming to Friends nine-months in advance of the
full opening of Waterfront Park, the Director of Park Experience will play a
central role in in the evolution of the park experience and will need to be a
flexible and creative problem solver, able to address emerging challenges and
opportunities as they occur. A service orientation will be critical as
Waterfront Park already is—and will become even more of—a complex ecosystem of
public and private institutional interests and partnerships that require
stewardship and care. Holding the values of partnership and collaboration, the
Director of Park Experience will collaborate in community-led placemaking.
Responsibilities
The new Director of Park Experience will play a
key role in realizing the dream of a park that welcomes all into an experience
of beauty, safety, healing, and innovation.
To that end, the new Director will hold critical responsibilities in:
Diversity,
Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion
·
Center, translate, and embed the Friends’
diversity, equity, accessibility and inclusion (DEAI) values and goals into all
aspects of park facility operations—from planning to physical design to program
strategies to serving all members of the public.
·
Ensure that all planning and implementation
efforts benefit, and are informed by, the individuals, partner organizations,
and communities that Friends seeks to serve.
·
Center DEAI goals and values when using Friends’
resources to hire and contract externally.
·
Participate in DEAI workshops and help lead
regular DEI discussions with staff, board, and partners.
·
Bring community-centric lens to the park
experience, utilizing the physical park space, staff resources, and
relationships to foster belonging and community creativity to the waterfront.
Park Experience
Leadership
·
In partnership with the City of Seattle, ensure
the park's Performance Standard guidelines are met.
·
Direct and elevate the evolving Standard
Operating Procedures for Friends of Waterfront.
·
Develop and manage a scaling annual operating
budgets ranging from $4-8million.
·
Supervise the Public Safety Manager to, in
partnership with Seattle Center’s Emergency Services Unit, direct and implement
a scalable Public Safety Plan for up to 150k patrons on one peak season day at
Waterfront Park.
·
Coordinate with the Community Impact and Programs
team to support event operations for larger scale events produced internally.
·
Ensure the Park Experience team delivers a Park Use
(facility rental) program that meets shared park values and earned revenue
goals.
·
Direct the work of units that are led by a
manager or supervisor in the following areas:
o
Guest Service Ambassadors: Comprised of all
regular and intermittent ambassadors and employees throughout Waterfront Park.
o
Facility
Rentals
o
Public
Safety
o
Park
Amenities
External
Partnerships
·
Serve as primary liaison to operations leads at
Office of the Waterfront, Seattle Center, and Seattle Parks and Recreation.
·
Develop and maintain collegial relationships and
share best practices with peer urban parks across North America.
·
Articulate and champion the fundamental vision of
a truly welcoming Waterfront Park and ensure that all park investments and
strategies manifest that vision.
·
Develop and direct evaluative strategies and integrate
all data collection efforts relative to operations and public safety efforts to
ensure continuous performance improvement.
Internal
Team Development
·
Lead a team with trust, retention and capitalizing
on and expanding existing capacity.
Develop the practical skills and experience needed to deliver on the
rigorous performance standards of Waterfront Park.
·
Ensure the team is values aligned, reflects and
is responsive to the wide range of needs and lived experiences of all the
visitors to the park.
·
Clearly communicate expectations to the Park
Experience team, conducting and documenting regular check-ins that include
positive and constructive feedback as a model for the entire organization.
·
Work with other directors at Friends, to
prioritize, coordinate, and respond efficiently to inter-departmental needs.
Qualities, Attributes, and Critical Competencies
Success in the Director of Park Experience
role will require a deep commitment to the mission, vision, and values of
Friends and its transformational impact on the people, architecture, and
culture of Seattle. The ideal candidate will first and foremost be a:
·
Visitor
Experience Expert and Community Connector. The Director of Park
Experience will ensure Friends is providing all park visitors with a welcoming
and memorable experience. This requires the ability to build and maintain
positive relationships with internal and external stakeholders, especially at
the intersection of community and civic infrastructure. They will have
experience thinking strategically, problem-solving, and developing innovative
solutions to ensure smooth operations. Success in this position requires
demonstrated commitment to collaboration and partnership, a confident and
outgoing disposition, and an enthusiasm for working with the public.
·
Team
Builder and Inclusive Leader. The Director of Park Experience will have
experience leading a team through growth and transformation with expertise
facilitating participatory decision-making. They will have an adaptive
leadership orientation and will hold accountability for Friends achieving its
Park Experience goals while nurturing and empowering their highly skilled and
values-based team members to make their greatest contribution to the work. This
requires a commitment to transparency, authenticity, and values-alignment
in all aspects of management. They will be able to inspire others to achieve
big-picture results while bringing clarity, providing feedback, and helping
their team develop the competencies and skill sets necessary to navigate their
day-to-day work.
·
DEAI
Champion. The Director of Park Experience will have a demonstrated commitment
to incorporating diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion (DEAI)
practices and values into all facets of Park Experience work, including the
ability to center the community. They will have experience implementing DEAI
strategies to empower populations and identities that have historically been
under-resourced, particularly in public space use and policy. This requires
cultural competence and experience working with diverse teams and communities.
They will understand unconscious biases and have experience actively working to
mitigate them in decision-making processes, team dynamics, and organizational
practices and systems.
Additional skills and attributes that will be
important to the Director of Park Experience’s success include:
Professional Experience
·
Demonstrated leadership skills and at least 6
years of professional experience working in a field relevant to reimagining and
revitalizing public spaces.
·
Ability to master a diverse and demanding
workload and to manage projects successfully.
·
Proven management skills including the ability
to develop, manage and maintain the department budget.
·
Experience working on-the-ground in a park or
facility, including knowledge of public safety management and campus-wide
security procedures.
·
Ability to direct and model technology use for
the team; openness to trying and troubleshooting new technology solutions;
experience with project management tools (e.g., Asana) is a plus.
Personal Attributes
·
A demonstrated passion and a vision for the
role that the Park Experience team can play in elevating urban spaces and
communities and a commitment to the underlying importance of the role of
community revitalization in improving social and economic wellbeing.
·
Equity fluency and commitment to reimagining
inequitable systems and practices in alignment with Friends’ values and
commitment to anti-racist work.
·
The personal balance and confidence necessary
to maintain a learning posture while still contributing as a leader in a
dialogue about transformative urban spaces.
·
The wisdom, initiative, and humility to
co-create with and build alignment across staff and stakeholders toward a
vision and plan for the park experience that inspires all.
Compensation and Benefits
This is a full-time, exempt position with a
salary range of $139,320 to $159,960. Paid time off, health and dental
coverage, and transit pass are provided. Defined contribution retirement plan
with 3% match available.
Working Conditions
This role is based in Seattle, WA. Friends has
office space located at Pier 56. The job requires significant in-person, public
engagement at Waterfront Park sites and with numerous partner organizations
throughout the city.
·
This position is a flexible, hybrid role with at
least 80% of the work being in-person at Friends’ office, in Waterfront Park,
or in community. Administrative offices are open Monday-Friday, 9am to 5pm.
·
Weekend and evening work required depending on
season and events; staff flex their work schedule to accommodate while
maintaining a healthy work/life balance.
·
Friends follows King County Public Health
guidelines regarding COVID-19.
The physical requirements of this role listed below are representative of
those that may need to be met by an employee in this role:
·
Operating a computer and other office equipment.
·
Ability to work in an open office format with a
fluctuating noise level – Friends' office is an open floor plan and teams often
meet in person to collaborate. Noise levels can be low to moderate.
·
Occasionally lifting up to 20 pounds; however,
assistance with lifting or moving items can be provided.
·
Ability to travel the length of the park and
interact with park visitors; reasonable accommodations can be provided.
How to Apply
Click the Apply link to submit your
application. You will be asked to upload a resume and to answer the following 3
questions as part of your application:
1. What would
be your overall approach to ensuring that all visitors have a welcoming and
memorable experience at Waterfront Park?
2. What
is your leadership style and how do you balance inspiring your team to achieve
big-picture results while also providing clarity for their day-to-day work?
3. How
would you use your experience and commitment to embed DEAI values into all
facets of Park Experience work at Friends? What is one example of how you have implemented
DEAI strategies in past work?
Friends is committed to improving hiring
practices to be more inclusive and anti-ableist. We have reviewed the job
requirements and only include physical abilities when completely necessary.
During the interview process, we email the panel questions ahead of time. We
are also able to provide captioning and/or interpretation (e.g., ASL) if
requested. If you need assistance and/or accommodations during the application
or recruiting process due to a disability, please email our People &
Culture team at dei@waterfrontparkseattle.org.
Applications
will be accepted until the position is filled.