Coast Union fills transportation and maintenance-operations post

Coast Union has hired Don Adams to be the district’s director of maintenance, operations and transportation.

Adams will start his new position this month. According to Human Resources Coordinator Kathryn Barnes, Adams’ annual salary will be $86, 896 (Step D on the confidential/management salary schedule).

“We’re excited about him,” Superintendent Vicki Schumacher said by telephone Thursday, Jan. 25, when the appointment was announced.

Since 1984, Adams has served in “a number of roles” including bus driving, custodial, dispatching, all aspects of maintenance, grounds work, safety training and supervising transportation personnel at Greenfield Union School District in Bakersfield, according to a district news release. For the past 19 years, he has provided training to bus drivers.

“I admire the high level of dignity and respect that Don conveys in his interactions with colleagues, from the beginning,” Schumacher said in a statement. “He has already stopped by to visit with our some of our employees in maintenance, operations and transportation prior to starting in his new role.”

Coast Unified advertised the job vacancy in November. It’s the combination of two positions that were previously separate: transportation on the one hand, and maintenance and operations on the other.

The district, which has been looking for ways to save money in anticipation of a funding crunch, merged the two positions after Lee Wight resigned as the head of maintenance and operations at the end of the summer. The consolidation is part of a plan detailed at January’s school board meeting: It also includes a reduction in teaching positions after the district offered five instructors voluntary early retirement in December.

The district appeared to have filled the new transportation-maintenance position when Carrie Brown, then director of transportation, accepted it. But Brown resigned shortly after that.

Cambria Grammar School Principal Jill Southern has been filling the post on an interim basis since then.

Note: An earlier version of this story contained an incorrect salary for Don Adams, which was supplied by the Coast Unified School District.

This story was originally published January 25, 2018 at 4:41 PM with the headline "Coast Union fills transportation and maintenance-operations post."