Robert Sciarrino/The Star-LedgerKevin Jones, left, adjusts a kayak’s foot rests for first-time kayaker Brianna Cinaglia, of Vernon, as her brother Vincent and father Charles look on. Jones and his wife, Cheryll Compton, background left, are workampers who travel the country living in their 5th-wheel trailer taking seasonal jobs as they cruise coast to coast. Compton and Jones are currently volunteering at the Wallkill National Wildlife Refuge where they run four programs, kayaking being one of them, and they volunteer for 16 hours a week. in return, they get a great spot to park their RV and their dog, Jackson.
SUSSEX — For the past decade, retired mechanic David Standaert has been in transit, towing his 27-foot travel trailer to scenic places coast to coast.
The 71-year-old Pequannock native is living the Jack Kerouac dream, clocking thousands of miles in his mobile bachelor pad.
As Standaert tours national wildlife refuges, he meets other free spirits and explores a variety of environs, encompassing dark forests, red deserts and rocky shorelines. his Kodak moments include close-ups of wolves, alligators and snakes.
He offsets the cost of his adventures by working part-time at each refuge he visits. Helping out 20-something hours a week earns him a sweet spot to park his trailer for a few months, often with a free electrical hookup.
“I have no problems explaining this lifestyle to people,” says Standaert. “They may have a problem understanding it.”
He is based at the Wallkill River National Wildlife Refuge in Sussex through October.
“If I had to take planes and trains and pay for motels, I wouldn’t have been able to afford to see what I’ve seen in the last 10 years,” Standaert says.
The coupling of RV travel and seasonal employment is known as “workamping,” a movement that dates back two decades. The average age of a workamper is 59 and the estimated population of the roving community is climbing, according to Steve Anderson, editor of Workamper News. About 750,000 people are on the roll.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do when I retired,” says Standaert, who works three days a week at Wallkill. “I knew I was going to move. I figured I’d try RV-ing for a year. Bought the trailer, bought the truck, sold the house. I got rid of the wife first, which made it all possible.”
Volunteerism is a big part of workamping culture. As environmental programs are pruned out of budgets, people who donate their time are increasingly vital at parks and refuges, Anderson says.
“State agencies and the national government are reaching out to workampers,” explains Anderson, whose magazine is based in Heber Springs, Ark. “Look at California. They’re closing state parks. They’re desperate for volunteers. many folks who have jumped into the lifestyle volunteer all their time.”
Wallkill has three summer workampers. Standaert’s neighbors are Kevin Jones and Cheryll Compton, married retirees from Goshen, N.Y. with a fifth wheel trailer that houses them and their dog, Jackson. They are running educational programs through October, leading kayak trips and hosting such events as flashlight firefly night.
“We’re Baby Boomers and for a lot of us, retirement is about giving back and being active as opposed to sitting in a rocking chair,” says Compton, 63, a former surgical nurse at the Orange Regional Medical Center in Goshen.
Compton continues, “We know that most of these parks, state and federal, are running on a shoestring budget.”
The couple’s trailer is equipped with satellite TV, Internet service, central air conditioning, a central vacuum system and dining room seating for six.
“The scenery changes outside but we’re home all the time too,” says Jones, 60, who ran conservation programs for Orange and Rockland Utilities in new York. “This isn’t vacationing. this is living.”
The world of workamping encompasses volunteers at nature centers, paid staffers at RV resorts and temp employees at warehouses in rural regions.
The lifestyle is making a rebound after three years of recession-related decline, according to Anderson.
“We’re getting folks who may have retired early from public service and are living on pensions,” explains Anderson. “One thing we tell people is to plan ahead because paying off a motor home can be like paying off a mortgage.”
Some volunteers are being recruited for positions that once were salaried jobs. Standaert, who is certified to operate heavy machinery, hopes the paid opportunities will return when the economy improves.
“It has caused a tinge of resentment amongst people who work for the refuge system,” says Standaert. “They see us coming in the door and they see their jobs going out. I wouldn’t go to a place if I knew I was putting someone out of work. a lot of times the job was gone before I got there and the work just wasn’t being done.”
Established in 1990, Wallkill is a 5,500-acre sanctuary for 225 species of birds and endangered creatures like the bog turtle. The paid staff has been downsized from seven workers to five, according to spokeswoman Fran Stephenson, who helped launch the resident volunteer initiative in 2009.
“We’re always trying to do more with less,” says Stephenson. “Our job is to maintain the property. We cannot just let it go to ruin just because we don’t have the staff. Dave was our first workamper and he spent his first summer mowing, mowing, mowing.
Whether he’s cutting grass or whacking weeds, Standaert doesn’t consider his responsibilities to be chores.
“They have great big toys that they let me play with,” says Standaert, who jokes that he’s hiding from his two ex-wives. “They’ve got 15-foot mowers and I can go out and chew a lot of stuff up. if this was like a job, I’d give it up. I don’t mind work. I just don’t ever want a job again.”
Compton and Jones, who established residency in South Dakota after they retired for tax purposes, haven’t yet selected their next stop after Wallkill. They envision themselves workamping for at least another decade.
Jones explains, “When we told our friends what we were going to do, they asked, ‘How long do you think you can do it?’ Every time we’re hiking on a beautiful mountain, we look off in the distance and say, ‘How long do you think we can do this?’ When we’re on the Pacific Ocean looking at 1,000 seals and sea lions, we ask, ‘How long do you think we can do this?’ It’s become our in-joke.”
The Wallkill volunteers are the only people permitted to camp on the property. Summer interns, who earn college credit tagging wildlife, bunk in a distant dorm. while the RV’s are parked in a secluded spot up a gravel road, civilization isn’t all that distant. Pizza delivery drivers can locate the trailers using GPS.
For Standaert, a key workamping perk is access to areas that are off limits to tourists.
“I’ve been to places where I was the only person around amid 35,000 acres,” says Standaert. “You get to see a whole lot more than the public does. By working, I can go to areas I’ve always wanted to go to and stay for an extended period of time and get to know the people. I used to live right in this town but now I’m doing a Dorothy, following the Yellow Brick Road wherever it goes.”
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