Washington

Washington State Parks will hire more than 300 park aides this year – My Edmonds News

Published

2 years ago

February 4, 2024

Washington State Parks will hire more than 300 park aides this year – My Edmonds News

Washington State Parks said it is recruiting seasonal park aides to work in its outdoor places this spring, summer and fall.

Parks is looking for more than 300 park aides and senior park aides to work from April through September in such diverse environments as old-growth forests, channeled scabland and shrub steppe, on Pacific Ocean beaches, in the high desert and around Puget Sound and its islands.

Park aides enjoy a variety of duties. They register campers, maintain trails, clean campgrounds and maintain facilities. They also staff park offices, assist visitors and help with interpretive and educational programs. Park aides work in one large park or cover an area with several small parks. Each senior park aide leads a team of park aides.

According to a state parks news release, this opportunity is ideal for recent high school and college graduates, retired workers looking for an encore, military veterans transitioning to civilian employment and mid-careerists taking time to reinvent themselves. Most park aides appreciate the flexibility of seasonal outdoor work and the mix of public interaction and physical labor.

Park aides have the chance to grow with the agency, and many have gone on to success as rangers, customer service and human resources managers, environmental planners and more. Former park aides also have found work in the outdoor industry, for nonprofits or with other public lands agencies.

Olyvia Buday started as a seasonal park aide and rose through the ranks to become the South Sound’s area manager.

“Working for state parks is a great opportunity to have a career that eliminates the monotony of a desk job,” she said. “Every day is different.”

Park Aide Ben Johnson has worked two seasons at Jarrell Cove. He started with general maintenance but eventually took an office role and learned Parks’ reservation system. He said his park offered, “one of the most respectful environments I’ve ever worked in… a place where my work is seen and appreciated.”

Applications are open now through August. Park aides earn $16.90 to $20.33 an hour, and senior park aides earn $19.40 to $23.40 an hour, depending on qualifications and experience. More information and online applications can be accessed at Parks Aide Jobs. Staff testimony and other details are available in this video.

Persons needing accommodation in the application process or this announcement in an alternative format may contact the human resources office at 360-902-8565 or the Washington Telecommunication Relay Service at 800-833-6388.

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Washington

Washington Spirit goalkeeper Aubrey Kingsbury announces she’s pregnant

Published

1 day ago

February 26, 2026

Press Room

Washington Spirit goalkeeper Aubrey Kingsbury announces she’s pregnant

Washington Spirit goalkeeper Aubrey Kingsbury has announced that she and her husband Matt are expecting a baby in July.

The couple made the announcement in a video on the Spirit’s social media channels, holding a baby goalkeeper jersey on the pitch at Audi Field.

Kingsbury becomes the most recent Spirit star to go on maternity leave, following defender Casey Krueger, midfielder Andi Sullivan and forward Ashley Hatch.

Sullivan gave birth to daughter Millie in July, while Hatch welcomed her son Leo in January.

Krueger announced she was pregnant with her second child in October.

Kingsbury has served as the Spirit’s starting goalkeeper since 2018, and has been named the NWSL Goalkeeper of the Year twice (2019 and 2021).

The 34-year-old has two caps with the U.S. women’s national team, and was named to the 2023 World Cup roster.

The club captain will leave a major void for the Spirit, who have finished as NWSL runner-up in back-to-back seasons.

Sandy MacIver and Kaylie Collins are expected to compete for the starting role while Kingsbury is on maternity leave.

The Spirit kick off their 2026 campaign on March 13 against the Portland Thorns.

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Washington

Washington state board awards Yakima $985,600 loan for Sixth Avenue project design

Published

2 days ago

February 26, 2026

Press Room

Washington state board awards Yakima 5,600 loan for Sixth Avenue project design

YAKIMA, Wash. — Yakima could soon take a major step toward redesigning Sixth Avenue after the Washington State Public Works Board awarded the city a $985,600 loan.

The loan was approved for the design engineering phase of the Sixth Avenue project. The funding can also be used along Sixth Avenue for utility replacement and updated ADA use.

The Yakima City Council must decide whether to accept the award. If the council accepts it, the city’s engineering work will move forward with the design of Sixth Avenue.

The cost of installing trolley lines is excluded from the plan. The historic trolleys would need to raise the funds required to add trolley lines.

The award is scheduled to be discussed during next week’s City Council meeting.

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Washington

Microsoft promises more AI investments at University of Washington

Published

2 days ago

February 25, 2026

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Microsoft promises more AI investments at University of Washington

Microsoft will ramp up its investment in the University of Washington.

Brad Smith, the company’s president, made the announcement at a press conference with University of Washington President Robert Jones on Tuesday.

That means hiring more UW graduates as interns at Microsoft, he said.

And he said all students, faculty, and researchers should have access to free, or at least deeply-discounted, AI.

“ Some of it is compute that Microsoft is donating, and some of it is pursuant to an agreement where, believe me, we give the University of Washington probably the best pricing that anybody’s gonna find anywhere,” Smith said. He assured the small group of reporters present that it would be “many millions of dollars of additional computational resources.”

The announcement today didn’t include any specific numbers.

But Smith said Microsoft has already invested $165 million in the UW over several decades.

He pointed to Jones’ vision to spur “radical collaborations with businesses and communities to advance positive change,” and eliminate “any artificial barriers between the university and the communities it serves.”

Microsoft’s goal is for AI to help UW researchers solve some of the world’s biggest problems without introducing new ones.

At Tuesday’s announcement, several research students were present to demonstrate how AI supports their work.

Amelia Keyser-Gibson is an environmental scientist at the UW. She’s using AI to analyze photographs of vines, to find which adapt best to climate change.

It’s a paradox: AI produces carbon emissions. At the same time, it’s also a new tool to help reduce them.

So how do those things square for Keyser-Gibson?

“ That’s a great question, and honestly, I don’t know the answer to that,” she said. “I’m highly aware that there’s a lot of environmental impact of using AI, but what I can say is that this has allowed us to make research innovations that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.”

“If we had had to manually annotate every single image that would’ve been an undergrad doing that for hours,” Keyser-Gibson continued. “And we didn’t have the budget. We didn’t have the manpower to do that.”

“AI exists. If we don’t use it as researchers, we’re gonna fall behind.”

Microsoft reports on its own carbon emissions. But like most AI companies, it doesn’t reveal everything.

That’s one reason another UW student named Zhihan Zhang is using AI to estimate how much energy AI is using.

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