Kent\u2019s top parks official works hard<\/b><\/p>\n
Jeff Watling compares his leadership style as the Kent city parks, recreation and community services director to that of a basketball coach.<\/p>\n
Watling uses what he learned from coaches as a basketball player at the University of Washington and Kentridge High School to help lead a full-time staff of 125 in six divisions of the parks department.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy job is to provide vision and direction and to access the skills of the staff so they can succeed,\u201d Watling said Tuesday at his City Hall office. \u201cAnd then I get out of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watling, 41, who became the city parks director in 2006, played basketball from 1987 to 1989 at the UW as a walk-on under coach Andy Russo. That means he didn\u2019t receive an athletic scholarship to play for the Huskies after he graduated in 1985 from Kentridge. He had to earn a spot on the team by playing well in practices.<\/p>\n
\u201cI learned as a walk-on player that you are part of a bigger picture and it\u2019s not all about you,\u201d said Watling, a 6-foot-1 guard. \u201cI was still one of the 12 players and part of the team, but I earned the respect of the other players by playing hard in practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nowadays, Watling plays golf rather than basketball. But he took on his first coaching role last winter when he oversaw his 8-year-old daughter\u2019s church-league basketball team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a ball,\u201d Watling said, of the fun he had. \u201cBut with 10 first- and second-grade girls, it\u2019s like controlled chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n
His duties as parks director can be chaotic as well. Watling oversees parks, recreation programs, cultural programs, city facilities, human services and the city-owned Riverbend Golf Course.<\/p>\n
\u201cJeff stepped into a big and busy parks department,\u201d said Pete Petersen, director of golf operations at Riverbend, who has known Watling for about seven years. \u201cIt could\u2019ve been somewhat overwhelming for some, but he has handled it real well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watling likes the challenge to work with everything from opening a new park such as Town Square Plaza to helping to make recommendations on which nonprofit programs will receive city grants from the human services division.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can be hair-raising some days, but I enjoy the diversity of the job,\u201d Watling said.<\/p>\n
Prior to coming to Kent, Watling worked six years as the parks director for the City of Sammamish. He worked from 1993 to 2000 as a recreation manager for Metro Parks of Tacoma.<\/p>\n
Watling developed an interest in parks and recreation as a Kentridge High student, when he worked for the City of Kent as a flag-football referee. A college internship with the Redmond Parks Department convinced him to pursue a career in parks and recreation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always had a passion for it and I\u2019ve always known that public service was of great interest to me,\u201d said Watling, who graduated from the UW in 1990 with a history degree and took numerous public-administration classes.<\/p>\n
When the parks director job opened in Kent, Watling didn\u2019t hesitate to apply.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted the opportunity to come back to Kent and be part of a renowned department,\u201d he said. \u201cI wanted to commit my passions and career to South King County and to Kent. And the commute is much better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watling lives in the Lea Hill neighborhood of Auburn with his wife, Renee, who teaches in the occupational therapy department at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma. They have been married for 18 years and have two daughters, ages 8 and 3.<\/p>\n
Petersen has worked closely with Watling on the Green River levee-repair project that will cause the temporary closure of nine holes later this year at the Riverbend 18-hole course. Watling helped negotiate with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and King County officials to make sure the city could keep the course open as long as possible during construction, as well as receive compensation from the county for lost revenue during the closure of nine holes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe greatest thing about Jeff is he was not giving an inch,\u201d Petersen said. \u201cThe city was not going to lose in the process. He was looking out for the city and the golf course throughout the negotiations. You could see Jeff and how he was going to be a good leader of having a vision of getting us there. That\u2019s what a good leader does.\u201d<\/p>\n
Contact Steve Hunter at 253-872-6600, ext. 5052 or shunter@reporternewspapers.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jeff Watling compares his leadership style as the Kent city parks, recreation and community services director to that of a basketball coach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":212,"featured_media":23441,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-23440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23440"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/212"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23440\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23440"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=23440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}