Cemetery Caretaker-Kent, Wa

Description

This position is for a Cemetery Caretaker located at the National Cemeteries operated by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), National Cemetery Administration. The primary mission of the cemetery is to meet the needs of veterans and their eligible family members by providing dignified burials and maintaining the cemetery as a national shrine. The primary purpose of the job is to perform interment related activities, grounds maintenance operations, setting headstones and markers, and other associated tasks.

Key Responsibilities:

• Performs jobs requiring mainly manual skills and physical strength.
• Operates a variety of equipment related to cemetery activities and grounds maintenance to include passenger vehicles, pick-up trucks, van trucks, vehicles to transport remains, gardener type tractors, and dump trucks.
• Must be able to perform daily vehicle inspections before operating vehicles and operator maintenance.
• Performs a variety of tasks to include transplanting shrubs, digging graves to the proper level, cutting, and removing sod, tamping and leveling dirt using hand and power tools, digging and squaring graves using pneumatic equipment, picks and shovels.
• Assisting in lifting and placing caskets on lowering devices.
• Loading and unloading materials, aligning headstones, cleaning and clearing cemetery grounds of debris using power trimmers, chainsaws, axes, shovels, rakes, blowers, vacuums etc.
• Weeding, mulching, and applying fertilizer, pruning shrubs and low-level dead branches.
• Removing snow and ice.
• Cleaning headstones using sprayer and hand brush, and
• Maintains cleanliness of cemetery grounds and administrative areas.

Requirements

• Subject to a background/security investigation.
• Designated and/or random drug testing may be required.
• Selective Service Registration is required for males born after 12/31/1959.
• You may be required to serve a probationary period.
• You must be a U.S. citizen to apply for this job.
• Pass a pre-employment medical examination.
• Must possess and maintain a valid state driver’s license.
• Selected applicants will be required to complete an online onboarding process.
• Ability to utilize GPS technology to perform GPS collection of points on gravesites.
• Interpret instructions, specifications (includes blueprint reading)

Location(s):

Tahoma National Cemetery
18600 SE 240th Street
Kent, WA 98042

Work Schedule

May be required to work Monday through Friday to include occasional weekends. Due to the mission of the National Cemetery, the cemetery cannot be closed for more than 2 consecutive days at any given time. Additionally, when a federal holiday falls on a Monday or Friday, staff may be required to work on that holiday or a Saturday. All staff is required to work Memorial Day each year. Staff will be required to work overtime, weekends and holidays when necessary to meet the needs of the cemetery. Occasionally staff may be called back to the facility to perform emergency overtime work.