Laborer/Grounds Maintenance

Description

Summary

Works with a crew to maintain the Knoxville National Cemetery to the very high National Shrine Standards.  Employee shall be responsible for grounds maintenance and custodial maintenance of the Knoxville National Cemetery. Attention to detail, precise work and courtesy to visitors is a must. Every action by Accord Federal Services employees at a national cemetery must be performed with the special care, reverence, dignity, and respect that acknowledges the cemetery as the final resting place that commemorates the service and sacrifice that service members, Veterans and their families made for our Nation. 

Job Responsibilities

The Laborer, Grounds Maintenance maintains the grounds of industrial, commercial or public property such as buildings, and performs several of the following tasks: cuts grass using walking-type or riding mowers, trims hedges and edges around walks, flowerbeds, graves, flagpole bases and wells using hedge trimmers, clippers and edging tools. Prunes shrubs and trees to shape and improve growth, using shears and other hand tools. Sprays lawn, shrubs, and trees with fertilizer or insecticide. Job duties could also include planting grass, flowers, trees, and shrubs, watering lawn and shrubs during dry periods, using hose or activating sprinkler system, and picking up and burning or carting away leaves, paper or other litter.

In addition, the Laborer may be responsible for removing snow from cemetery walks, driveways, roads, or parking lots, using shovel and snow blower, spreads salt on walkways and other areas, and repairing / painting fences, gates, benches, tables, guardrails, and outbuildings. This employee may assist in repairing property roads, walks, buildings, and mechanical equipment, and may clean comfort stations, restrooms, offices workshop areas, and parking lots by sweeping, washing, mopping and polishing. This employee will be responsible for keeping cemetery roads clear of materials, debris, personnel, equipment, and vehicles. 

Furthermore, this employee and crew will be charged with cleaning and pressure washing of headstones and facilities, storm debris clean-up, turf maintenance, chemical turf applications/treatments, core aerification and overseeding, the maintenance and upkeep of mulching beds, committal shelter cleaning, holiday support services, sweeping or blowing off cemetery roadways and sidewalks, maintenance of gravesites by cleaning and trimming around headstones, plant and tree maintenance, sunken grave repair, trash removal, removal of floral arrangements as required from graves, interments and disinterment operations for casket and inground cremations, maintenance of gravesites and headstones, headstone maintenance and the setting, alignment and washing of headstones. 

Work also consists of installing, refilling, compacting, and leveling casket grave sites with suitable soil to match existing adjacent graves and reestablishing the turfgrass. Work shall also consist of setting new or replacement headstones on gravesites and resetting or realigning those already in place that have shifted out of vertical or horizontal alignment. 

The employee will be part of a crew that assists in performing casket/cremated interment services to include digging graves and opening graves in accordance with the daily grave assignment work sheet.

Critically important is the awareness required when scheduling and performing work to not interrupt cemetery operations.

Requirements

• Ability to successfully pass a criminal Background check (level determined by the facility)

• Drug testing (upon hire and random)

• Military veteran preferred

• Functions well around staff and visitors

• Proven experience in grounds maintenance or in a similar role

• Knowledge of use and maintenance of industrial grounds maintenance equipment