Once you find something you love to do, why not make a career out of it and then stick with it until it’s time to retire?

Greg Brown, 58, the current parks and recreation director in Maple Valley, has worked in parks and recreation for 32 years and has loved every aspect of it.

According to Brown, what got him started in parks and recreation was his time at Eastern Washington University. He was majoring in business, but ended up taking an elective class for parks and recreation and fell in love with it.

The professor of the class helped him realize he could make a career out of parks and recreation while incorporating his business degree.

“I’ve always loved the aspect of helping people,” Brown said.

Once he graduated from school, Brown went on to work at the Mercer Island Parks and Recreation Department where he spent 18 years of his career as an assistant director.

The city manager told him about the a job opening in Maple Valley as the director of the parks department. He decided to look into it and ended up taking the position. Brown has been director of Maple Valley Parks and Recreation for the past 13 years.

He said coming from an already established city to a less established city was a challenge in many ways.

“I was anticipating a new challenge, which was to build a parks department from nothing,” he said. “They were really looking for someone to lead (and) that was a big challenge, but really fun.”

Even though Brown knew this would be challenging, he knew it would be rewarding as well and he was excited to get projects going for the city.

If things were always easy, you would take them for granted according to Brown.

Brown was ready to get projects started and thought there were cool and useful ideas he and his team could start for the community. Brown had his own way of telling if a project was a success or not.

“Successful to me means the community enjoys and embraces (it),” Brown said. “At the end of the day, the main goal is to provide things people will enjoy.”

With that in mind came the challenge of doing projects while sticking to budgets and policies.

He said sometimes it was hard to do a project because everyone, especially the City Council, would have to agree it was a good idea, too. The idea had to be good enough for the council to allow a certain amount of money to be spent on the it.

Brown said his favorite part about working at the Maple Valley Parks and Recreation Department was getting to work with people and the community. He said he really enjoyed that aspect, even if it meant getting everyone to agree on a project.

He said it is more important to work with others than to do things alone. He also said he loves to share goals and aspirations with other people, which helps make projects come together more effectively.

He also wanted to create an environment where the public could come to the Parks and Recreation Department and talk about a problem. This is something he felt he and his team made happen.

“People don’t come to parks and recreation because they have to; they come to parks and recreation because they choose to come,” he said.

Now that the time has come for Brown to retire (kind of retiring), he has a lot in store for the next chapter in his life.

At the end of the year, Dec. 31, Brown’s time as parks director will end, but on Jan. 1 his time as parks manager, a part-time position, begins.

He is taking the part-time job because the council just awarded the department $11 million for projects Brown has been working on for about a decade.

The first one is to put new playground equipment into the Lake Wilderness Park, which he said should happen before the end of the year.

The second project is to demolish and rebuild the beach house at Lake Wilderness Park and the third and final project of Brown’s career is the Summit Park development, which is a sports field near Tahoma High School and is a 14-acre park, according to Brown.

“I’m really looking forward to finishing these projects,” he said.

He also said he is really excited but nervous to be moving on from his full-time position at the parks department.

“It’s really a mixed bag of emotions,” Brown said. “The fact that I’m so used to doing what I’ve done for 30 straight years, I’m not sure what I’ll do when I’m done.”

All nerves aside, Brown said he thinks he can figure out some things to do in his spare time, it’s just hard picturing that now while working.

On top of working at the parks department, Brown also has a business he has owned for 22 years, which he said he plans on putting more time into now that he is retiring, or at least limiting his time at the parks department.

He said he is looking forward to spending more time with his two kids and his wife. Both of his children are grown, one is in the military and the other is a senior in college, but he hopes this will give him more time to see them.

His wife is a teacher, so he said their schedule has never really lined up since she is off in the summer, but that is considered his busy month.

Brown said he looks forward to his upcoming life projects, but said he will miss the parks department.

“For me, I would like to say thank you to the citizens of Maple Valley for trusting me and letting my community grow, and a thank you to my staff. It’s a team effort,” Brown said. “The impact on our community has been positive.”

Contact Kayse Angel by email at kangel@covingtonreporter.com or by phone at 425-358-3259.