Summers of opportunity

Exhausted, frustrated and relieved are among the adjectives bandied among industry veterans once summer finally ends.

The pessimism is understandable. Keeping golf-height turf alive and thriving amid summer conditions presents a giant challenge. A few decades managing teams working through humidity and storms to appease golfers with elevated expectations can exert a toll on minds and bodies.

Managers and employees in other fields experience the same dilemma. Careers have lifespans. Motivation and creativity wanes. Negativity can overwhelm positivity. We’re all human, a fact frequently camouflaged by the superpower feats achieved by golf maintenance teams during the summer.

On page 56, we unveil the second part of our four-part series about modern equipment managers. Four of the five personal stories within the broader narrative follow a theme: golf equipment management isn’t a first career choice for many mechanically minded people.

The era of linear career paths continues to fade in golf and hundreds of other industries. The equipment managers of tomorrow are likely repairing cars, big rigs or home generators today. Professionals finding the golf maintenance business as a second, third or fourth career are bringing passion and different perspectives to the industry. They haven’t been hardened by decades of tough summers or industry politics. Perhaps tricky summers on a golf course aren’t as perplexing as the obstacles encountered in other industries.

A career doesn’t need to be a first choice to provide a long-term fit. Multiple equipment managers we interviewed for the series mentioned a “love” for the career they unexpectedly found. Love can be a delayed process with a huge reward.

The industry can help itself by celebrating and studying non-linear careers. Owners, committees, general managers, directors, superintendents and human resource officials limiting job searches to candidates who grew up working on golf courses and attended traditional schools are practicing negligence. Hiring based on templates established during the golf explosion and subsequent turf education frenzy of the 1990s and early 2000s is lazy, short-sighted and a likely route to ensuring a glut of vacant positions regardless of a facility’s history or reputation. Recruiting gaffes exacerbate summer angst experienced by existing staff because operating with a depleted roster curtails rest and recovery periods for overextended employees.

Despite its title, Mauro F. Guillén’s recently released “The Perennials” isn’t a turf or ornamental study. The book makes a case for shattering generational-focused thinking at work, home and play. Guillén, a professor and vice dean at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, defines perennials as “people not characterized by the decade they were born but by the way they work, learn and interact with others.”

Longer lifespans and healthspans combined with technological advances — and increased costs associated with living longer — mean many of us will have multiple careers. The average American already holds 12 jobs between the ages of 18 and 50, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Perennial-based thinking presents a tremendous opportunity for the golf industry to fill managerial, specialized and full-time positions with motivated and successful individuals seeking career changes. While a golf maintenance veteran might dread another summer trying to keep turf alive and thriving, a talented newcomer in their 40s, 50s or 60s who has spent his or her first career behind a desk or inside a factory might be energized by working summers on a golf course.

Retiring at 65 from the field you entered in your 20s is admirable.

It’s also impractical in a perennial world.