With a season that starts on June 5 and runs through the third week of August, Maine state parks are facing a shortage of lifeguards.
Kurt Shoener, who manages three state parks in southern Maine, says there’s a tight market for lifeguards. Of the five lifeguard positions at Crescent Beach State Park, he says four are open and only two people have applied.
Shoener says some other state parks in Maine have a similar number of openings with no applicants.
“We’re a month out right now, between now and when the lifeguards start, and there is still time for anybody looking for a summer job, be it a high school student or a college student, to go out and get certified. There’s time to do that,” he says.
Shoener says when the state parks faced a similar lifeguard shortage several years ago, the facilities cooperated. He says on the busiest days, parks that were fully staffed sent lifeguards to help out at parks that had vacancies.
