PROFILE
During my career , I have been an arborist intern at Winterthur Museum and Gardens , I spent time working on a bobsled course , worked as a municipality snowplow driver , municipal arborist , commercial arborist , and was self-employed as a general contractor .
SFM : Please tell us about your role at St . Mark ’ s , your crew and the fields / facilities / grounds that you manage . Driscoll : We manage approximately 50 acres of grounds , baseball field , softball field and four rectangles , as well as a few plots of practice ground . Including me , I have two full-time employees , and I cross my fingers every summer to get a few students who want to put in a little sweat equity and learn some things they can use as they pursue their careers .
SFM : What are the biggest challenges you have faced ? And , in general , what are the biggest challenges facing sports field managers at the K-12 level ? Driscoll : The biggest challenge has to be time , personnel and budget at the K-12 level . We don ’ t just care for the multiple sports fields and teams playing each season — we are involved with nearly every event that takes place
on campus , and sometimes off . We do have some commercial help with larger jobs ; however , we tackle electrical , fencing , hardscaping , landscaping , tree care and a multitude of other tasks as well .
SFM : What is the best part of the job ? Driscoll : The best part of the job is also the hardest , which has to be the assortment of different jobs and challenges we face . I enjoy taking on a new project and seeing the positive end result it has played in increasing the beauty of the campus or the way it will benefit the students .
SFM : When you took the position at St . Mark ’ s you obviously had expertise in arboriculture , but how well versed were you in sports field management , or what were the biggest challenges early on when it came to managing the athletic fields ? Driscoll : Like I said , when I was offered and accepted the job at Saint Mark ’ s , I thought I would just be cutting grass . I knew a little bit about turfgrass from my college courses , but it was eye opening what I needed to learn about sports field management . At that time , I found the STMA ( now SFMA ), and the association helped me along my journey and growth of sports field care . sportsfieldmanagementonline . com September 2024 | SportsField Management
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