Member Spotlight

Member Spotlight on Shaun Meredith

Park and Safety Division Chief for Calvert County

••••••••••

What do you do in your current position for Calvert County?

In the current position I have a really big scope of work. A lot of it has to do with athletic fields. We have over 60 total, some of them are local elementary and middle school fields we help maintain for the school district. We also have stuff ranging from highly maintained turf that has irrigation and bermudagrass or bluemuda, but the majority is not even irrigated. At that point, it’s just keeping it as green as you can.

Per my title, for our department, I also see a lot of safety issues and I also manage all of our capital improvement projects for the Park and Recreation Department, which is about $32 million worth of projects. We have a pretty big staff as well — if we’re full staff, we’re up around 60 people. We work over 600 acres of land that doesn’t just have athletic fields. It’s everything from trails to tennis courts, basketball courts, skate parks, dog parks, you name it, so customer service gets involved in a lot of that too, with being a public facility.

What was your career path prior to this position?

My family had a landscape business, so I grew up in that field of work. When I was a kid, I remember being out there mowing grass with my grandfather and the natural progression of things led me into the turfgrass industry. I went to Penn State and got a turfgrass degree. I went in there with all intentions of working on golf courses. Freshman year of college, I got in a bad fourwheeler accident, broke my neck in four places and paralyzed my right arm. That had me thinking about whether it was the right career path anymore. Obviously it’s not a job where you get to sit behind a desk all the time. But I stuck with it, I had a lot of good support. People encouraged me to stay in this field of work and I’m glad for that. I wouldn’t be where I’m at without it. I started off going into baseball. I worked in minor league baseball for eight years, going from State College up to New Hampshire. Minor league baseball, as people probably know, is a lifestyle, I like to say, more than it is a job. You have to be fully invested and want to spend the majority of your time there during the season. A lot of people do it, but my wife and I thought it was a good idea to try and look at a career change and find something that’s a little less hour-dependent, which led me into parks and recreation, where I am now. I honestly enjoy it a lot and I miss being on the grass all the time, but it keeps it fresh. Days go fast and really widen up the umbrella of knowledge.

With such a diverse range of tasks in your current position, what’s the best part? Is it still the grass?

Oh yeah, that’s my love, there. I think probably my staff probably doesn’t want me out there with them anymore. That’s certainly what really puts blood into my veins. But I’ve found that I had a lot more of a love of construction than I thought before. I’m sure it’s a combination of new things, I’m learning a lot as I go through and do it. I didn’t have formal education in it or anything like that, so it’s always nice to learn something new and I really enjoy the planning aspect of it, and over the years work on different facilities and fields and you try and find someone who knows how it was built, or what happened here or what’s in the ground there… the nice thing is that now that I’m planning it, building it, and then maintaining it, I kind of have all that insider knowledge and it really is nice.

What’s the biggest challenge of your job?

It sounds cliché to say it, but I think it’s the people aspect of it. I had a professor in college, Dr. Andrew McNitt, he’s one of the best professors I had. He gave lectures, going on for weeks about turf and soils and dirt and at the end of it, he’d say, “Now don’t forget, the grass will grow itself, it’s everything else that’s hard.” As a college student, you don’t really understand what that means. But once you get out there, you do. If all we had to do was worry about the grass, you have a pretty easy job, but it’s the people, probably.

Not just staff, but people in general, especially now that we reach a lot of people in what we do. And unfortunately, you don’t really hear the thank you’s as much as you do the complaints.

For the most part you have to let it roll off your back, but those days that you’re giving it your all and it ends with somebody complaining, it’s a little deflating. But Dr. McNitt was right — the grass really does take care of itself to a certain aspect. It is all the other things — getting purchase orders and jumping through the hoops to do certain things, that’s the hard part.

You’ve been on the MTC Board for three years. What made you want to step up into that volunteer role?

I’ve always wanted to be involved in the industry in whatever way that could be, and that alone is a driver enough for me to do it. But it was kind of funny, our annual conference is when we typically vote in the new board. One of the existing board members who’s still there now, I was sitting there eating lunch and he came up to me and said, “Shaun, we need one more person to fill the role. Somebody just backed out, can you do it?” I said, “Sure, why not.” No pressure, they were 15 minutes away from announcing it, but I said, “Yeah, I think I could do that, I’d like to be a part of it.”

It is gratifying – you hope that you make the industry, your job, your relationships better and just leave a mark on somebody or something or some part of the industry when you leave it.

What is a lesson you’ve learned the hard way in your career?

When I was at one of the minor league ball parks, I had a general manager that generally speaking wasn’t really my favorite person I ever worked for, but I was young and it’s very stressful at times there. I lost my temper one time and he came to me and he said, “Shaun, your hard work and stress to you is the same as everyone else’s hard work and stress is to them.” It hit home for me, and it makes sense. I was of the mindset then that if your hands aren’t dirty, and you’re not dripping sweat, you’re not working. You get older and you learn that that’s not the case. But it really put it in perspective for me and it was probably one of the hardest lessons I had to learn because at that time, I was losing my temper, getting upset and it really wasn’t warranted.

What would you tell young people who are just entering the field or are considering turfgrass management as a career?

Remember that you’re not going to come out of college and not work and get your hands dirty. I think that’s something that a lot of people don’t realize — that you’re getting your knowledge to apply out in that field, you’ve still got to be out in that field. I do a lot of interviewing now, even with existing employees that I have, I find myself going back to them like, “You sure did leave a lot on the table.”

Thinking outside the box doesn’t just apply to a task, it applies to everything that you do. If I’m interviewing you and I ask if you’ve ever drug a baseball infield, don’t say no. Stop for a second and think, “What else have I done that’s similar to that?” Have you drug a horse rink, a beach, have you drug a grader up and down your driveway at home? Think about the concept behind it and apply it to something there, and always be thinking in that direction. As long as you keep doing that in everything you do, you’re going to continue to move forward.

Also, keep up with continuing education, get involved in a board. The more you do, the more you do, right? If you want to keep moving forward and moving up that ladder and getting better, you’ll snatch every opportunity you have. It’s not always going to be the right choice –not every one is a homerun, but if you didn’t try, you only have regret.

What do you enjoy doing outside of work?

I’ve got two little ones so they keep me quite busy for sure. Honestly, I probably do just work outside of work. We have a little slice of land with a couple of goats and chickens. There’s always some type of job or something I have to build or something around my house. I really just enjoy doing that, tinkering around on projects on my own time and just being outside. I do like to hunt, I’ve hunted all my life. But like I said, I’ve got two little kids, so my opportunities for hunting aren’t like they used to be.