Summer Reruns, The Asbury Park Press

Summer Reruns
The love of the work and a sense of accomplishment keep people coming back to the same summer job every year.
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 06/26/06
BY DAVID P. WILLIS



BUSINESS WRITER
Ed Guiliano has worked as a beach manager at Jenkinson's in
Point Pleasant Beach for several years. He said the work keeps
him occupied while he stays with family up here, before returning
to his home in Florida during the winter months.


It’s not the sun that brings Wall resident Bill Mack back to the Sea Bright public beach every year.

“I stay out of the sun,” said Mack, 68, chief of beach operations and water safety.

His life as a lifeguard — saving people — keeps him coming back, he said.

“There are not many jobs, perhaps a fireman or a policeman, where you absolutely save lives,” said Mack, a lifeguard since the age of 15. “A fireman runs into a burning building and a lifeguard runs into a rip current.”

With summer comes a return of many people to the same job they have held every summer. They could be teachers who take up another job to hold them over after the end of school or retirees going back to work during the hot months.

“Americans always need to be working,” said Stephen Viscusi, chief executive officer of The Viscusi Group, a New York City recruiting firm. “It could be working at a local pool, it could be working at the beach. It is part of their routine that they, like so many people, continue to do it.”

And some people count on the extra summer income or are accustomed to it. “They have grown into that extra-income lifestyle,” Viscusi said.

Another motive may be that some people frown on those who are not working, Viscusi said. “In society today, when you are not working and you take the whole summer off, people talk about you.”

Oceanport-based North Shore Lifesavings Association of New Jersey employs about 1,000 lifeguards on beaches in Monmouth and Ocean counties.

About one-third of them are repeat workers, including teachers and people who work their regular jobs and are lifeguards on the weekends, said Dick Martin, chief executive officer and training officer.

“It is the lure of the beach,” Martin said. “It is something that is in your blood.”

One lifeguard in Sea Bright is a school principal in North Jersey, Mack said.

“He likes it so much he drives all the way down here,” Mack said. “Once you save a life in the water, you really think you have done something.”

Mack also enjoys working with the lifeguards and training them. “I have seen new generations of lifeguards come and go and go on to be doctors and lawyers.”

Ed Guiliano became manager of the south beach at Jenkinson’s in Point Pleasant Beach several years ago. He and his wife now live in South Pasadena, Fla., but stay with family in Manchester while he’s working four days a week at Jenkinson’s.

He oversees Jenkinson’s employees who work the gates and beaches, including workers who keep the beach clean, set up umbrellas, and make sure everyone has a beach pass.

Guiliano, who owned a janitorial company in Dover Township for years and later became a blackjack dealer in Atlantic City, said his job keeps him occupied.

“It is just a convenient way of life for me now,” said Guiliano, 70, a former Dover Township resident who works four days a week, and plays golf, fishes and spends time with family the other days. “I’m too active to sit home seven days a week.”

Middletown resident Patricia Ouellette, 52, has been manager of the Middletown Swim & Tennis Club for six years. During the rest of the year, she is a school counselor at Middletown High School North.

“It is a very enjoyable place to work,” said Ouellette, who also is coach of the Middletown High School South tennis team.

It also gives her the opportunity to use her master’s degree in management and supervision.

“I was a history teacher, but I have always had an interest in managing,” she said. “This has given me an outlet for that aspect of things that I like to do.”

She also likes working with high school and college students. “It feeds all the things that I enjoy.”

It’s Devon Markowski’s 10th summer at Brick’s summer camp at Windward Beach. She started as a counselor at age 14. She’s now supervisor and is starting another camp for children with special needs.

“I couldn’t wait to start again this year,” said Markowski, 23. She works at the Children’s Center of Monmouth County in Neptune during the school year.

Her job includes planning events, such as a trip to the Philadelphia Zoo.

“I always wanted to be a teacher,” she said. “It is part of the field that I am working in,” she said of her summer job.

Copyright © 2006, Asbury Park Press. All rights reserved.