You're never too old to work that cool summer job

Caitlin Patterson was a Center City resident, but when it came time for a summer job a few weeks ago, she traded Rittenhouse Square for space a bit larger.

Now, grand mountains loom not far from her summer work - at Yellowstone National Park. Between 50 and a hundred elk frequently roam outside her office window and "make a beautiful sound," she says, "almost like aquatic whales."

Patterson, 36, was on a break from Starbucks management training when she decided that a summer job, and not just any summer job, would be a good idea. She's among thousands of people - no one has a handle on just how many - who take seasonal work in the hospitality industry.

Half, by some estimates, are college-age teens. But summer jobs are no longer just for youth, and Patterson, who has been in the workforce for some time, is an example. People from all age ranges are taking hot-weather work in recreation areas and hotels, on liners and in theme parks, in restaurants and on boardwalks.

And in the national parks, where at least 3,000 workers have taken summer jobs in some of the most rarefied places. "The typical profile has changed," Jim McCaleb, the general manager of concessions at Yellowstone, says of seasonal workers.

A few decades ago, the summer slots were almost all occupied by students ages 18 to 22. But now the workforce is diverse, says McCaleb, who works for Xanterra Parks & Resorts, a company that operates lodges, restaurants and concessions at many state and national parks.

"We now have what we call the boomer market," he says, "the semiretired folks, the couples who bring their RVs and work a variety of jobs in the summertime."

Another group, he says, is the international workers who have come the last five years - all college students limited to 120 days, with work-travel visas. "They are very bright and outgoing and want to learn the English language or brush up on it."

Philadelphians currently see international summer workers down the Shore. A few years ago, Irish lilts could be heard at supermarkets and convenience stores on and around the barrier islands that define summertime in South Jersey; nowadays, the accents are more likely from any number of Eastern European countries.

Figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that one reason teens no longer define the summer workforce is because they tend to take steady, year-round employment. Indeed, "the youth labor force," as the bureau calls it - 16-to-24-year-olds who work - was about 21.5 million last year, latest figures show.

Their numbers swelled last summer by 3.2 million. This year's summer-work youth figures will not be tabulated until just before Labor Day.

Many of these young people got jobs in the hospitality industry, where summertime often means high season, and requires seasonal hires. About 3,300 summer workers, for instance, are now drawing paychecks at Hersheypark, and about 80 percent of them are college-age.

Many of the others round out the profile of the American seasonal worker: middle-aged teachers with summers off from the classroom, some in supervisory roles at the park, and many who return summer to summer. "And," says Kathy Burrows, who runs the park's public relations, "we have a lot of retired people who want to work someplace that's really fun."

For workers who travel to a new place for a few months, fun is certainly part of the attraction - and so is a change of lifestyle. Age or origin aside, McCaleb says, he keeps hearing over and over at Yellowstone, each year, about the workers' life-defining experiences.

"I'm not surprised when someone makes a career choice, or changes one, to move here. A goodly portion of the population in Bozeman, Mont., were former Yellowstone Park employees, and the same is happening in Jackson Hole, Wyo. A lot of people migrate here because of their summer job experience."

Caitlin Patterson, the Center City resident with a job at Yellowstone, says that after summer's over, she may find a way to return to the park where, not far inside the north entrance, she is an assistant personnel manager at Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel.

"My oldest and dearest friend in the world is here," she says, and that's the person who turned her on to the idea. Patterson had moved from her native home outside Boston to Philadelphia about a year and a half ago because she read in a national magazine that the city was full of opportunities, but the chance to work into the fall at Yellowstone was something she couldn't pass up.

"You get a vacation and a job for the price of one," she says. "My expenses are halved."

She says that life in Yellowstone is thrilling, largely because she is meeting people from so many cultures with whom she shares the same sort of other-worldly experiences, far from home and, particularly, from cities. "It would really be nice to bring some of this exuberance back to Philadelphia," she says, "a city I love."

Amanda Hydutsky, 22, from Pottstown, worked for the last two summers in Yellowstone at the same hotel. She just graduated from the University of Pittsburgh, and this summer she's preparing for grad school. When she talks over the phone about her experience working in the wilds, the delight in her voice is clear.

"For me," she says, "it was two totally different experiences. The first year, I didn't know the tricks of living there and I was being a tourist myself. By the second year, I knew the secrets of the park that employees know" - little-used trails and insider places to explore.

Her park pay covered lodging, three meals a day, and laundry, and Hydutsky, a waitress, made between $75 and $100 whenever she served dinner, less at lunch and breakfast.

"Being there changed my life," Hydutsky says. "My dad and I drove out there the first summer and he left, and I was by myself and didn't know anyone. I learned a lot, and grew up."