Theresa Sheridan will soon become a familiar face to people visiting the Friendship Park Recreation Building.
Sheridan will work out of the office at Clarkston and Baldwin Roads as the Orion Township Parks and Recreation Department’s new recreation programmer. Sheridan replaces Phil Castonia who left to accept a new position with the Oxford Parks and Recreation Department.
Sheridan is a Jackson native who has spent the past decade working with YMCA programs. She spent 15 years at YMCA in Detroit before returning to work at the facility in her hometown.
“I saw the opening in Orion Township on the Michigan Recreation and Parks Association website,” she said. “It was in my field and I said ‘Let’s get into city recreation and make a change.'”
Sheridan attended Jackson Community College and earned a basketball scholarship, eventually receiving her BA from Ferris State University. She began working on her Master’s Degree at Central Michigan University in 1998.
“I’m making a career change from the YMCA,” said Sheridan, who began working out of Friendship Park earlier this fall. “I grew up with a park right on the same block (in Jackson), and I’d spend my whole summer there. The park directors, I thought, were the greatest.”
Sheridan spent her youth playing basketball and sotfball and still considers herself an outdoors person.
“I run and bike…I tinkered in triathalon for a while, but ran out of time. I tinker in golf,” she said.
Sheridan is keeping her lakefront home in Jackson until property values there increase enough where she can sell it. Until then, she is commuting a few times a week to Orion Township and staying with her brother, who lives in Rochester.
“I knew of the Lake Orion area before,” she said. “Having worked in metro Detroit, and visiting my family here. It’s great…I really like the idea with the trails they have in the area. Having lived in the southern suburbs and being a runner, that’s a real selling point.”
Sheridan hopes to implement more programs for teens at the parks and recreation level.
“I worked with toddlers to senior citizens at the YMCA,” she said. “I’ve done tons of different things in that area.”