Meet RA’s New Building & Grounds Coordinator

Jason Szostek has joined Rural Action as the Building and Grounds Coordinator.

Jason is an Ohio native who grew up in the Akron area, just outside Cuyahoga Valley National Park. But as soon as he graduated high school, “I was on a plane and gone.”

His journey led him to New Mexico and the Florida Keys, where he worked at two of Boy Scouts of America’s largest camps. He also spent time working for the National Park Service.

“I eventually reached a ceiling for what I could do without a degree,” he says. “So I went back and got one.”

After earning a degree from Ohio University in Outdoor Recreation and Education, he landed a job at Hocking College, where he spent about 3.5 years as the program manager for the Parks and Museum Education program.

Jason started with Rural Action the week of Sept. 14 and immediately started visiting the facilities and creating a process for requesting maintenance and other facilities-related services.

How does he like the new job so far?

“I love it,” he says, though he did note that after only a week his “to-do” list was already “pretty long.”

Jason can be reached at jason@ruralaction.org.