
We fly you here and pay you to play... and learn, and grow, and develop your leadership voice and soft skills necessary for success in any field you choose!
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https://youtu.be/XzszO1RumVM?list=TLGG354bvK-_EgswNzAzMjAyNA​
Our Mission is your Mission
The mission of the Sunset Bay Marine Mammal Academy is two-fold. To educate and empower our students with outdoor education and environmental science life skills. And, to educate and empower our staff by helping them develop the type of leadership and soft skills necessary for success in any field they choose. And for those thinking about selective colleges or grad school but coming up short in the adversity and personal essay department, a summer here will provide you a lifetime worth of compelling human interest narratives for your grad school and college applications.
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​​Looking for Experience to Keep AI from Taking your Job?
You should be, and you’ve come to the right place. As a soon to be college grad, regardless of major, you will be applying for roles that can't be done well AI. Which means, you will be asked a lot about experience you've had either managing people, or working in organizations where new and unexpected things happen everyday. Fortunately for you, after a summer here, you will have a lot to say.
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Managing People is a "soft skill"
With 3 distinct aspects, all of which take practice: “managing up” (dealing with your boss or bosses), “managing down” (dealing with your subordinates), and “managing across” (dealing with your peers in the organization). All three take real world experience to develop and the Sunset Bay MMA program offers a unique opportunity to practice these soft management skills in a forgiving and low stress environment.
The ability to start afresh each week leading an entirely new student group, and with different co-counselors and CITs each week is experience that would take years to replicate in a typical job with the same co-workers and customers week after week, year after year. ​​And Sunset Bay is small enough that summer staff have daily interaction with upper management giving them experience “managing up” rarely available in summer internships.
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Sunset Bay MMA is the Classic Startup Experience
What makes working at startups uniquely challenging, and mostly immune from takeover by AI, is they have new customers with new needs, and new employees in new job roles that evolve based on people’s skill sets, and which require lots of creative problem solving. Convincing an interviewer that you can provide more value than an AI bot can be an uphill battle without prior experience in the type of setting that bots cannot do.
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Fortunately, developing an AI proof skill set define your experience here. New staff from around the country and the world, new student and parent customers, wide latitude in managing your groups within the mission statement and safety rules, and new and unexpected things happening everyday for you to practice creative problem solving skills. By the end of a season here you will have the “receipts” in the form of compelling narratives of real world experiences handling the classic AI proof challenges presented by roles in managing people and new ventures.
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How do I apply
Sunset Bay is a growing organization with student enrollment and year around programs growing every year. We have new career and seasonal positions every year with resume building opportunities for young people with a passion for the outdoors and empowering the next generation. There is simply no more valuable, fun, and rewarding way to spend a summer or beyond than living and working here with young people like yourself from around the country and the world.
Positions are limited to people who are happy and comfortable in and around ocean beaches and the water, and enthusiastic about our mission of empowering the next generation with outdoor education and blue water life skills, along with the courage to use them.
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If this is you and you are over 18 and wish to be considered for a position next summer or beyond, please send us an email with "Summer Employment" in the Subject line along with a copy of your resume and we will get back to you with next steps.
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​Summer Positions
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Two college student counselor/instructors and one or two high school CITs form the management team responsible for leading their Orca, Dolphin, Seal, or Minnow student activity groups each week. Staff receive additional support from skill instructors, head counselors, and staff members assigned to marine science data logging and manager duties for the week.
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Counselor/instructors attend two pre camp training weeks starting the last week in June and have access to training videos and written materials year around. Counselor/instructors receive lifeguard training, and since the main form of transportation here is paddleboards, summer staff must be sufficiently fit and water oriented to stand up on paddleboards leading paddleboarding expeditions for their groups. Counselor/instructors with aptitude may also be trained to operate our fleet of Zodiacs for trips to the sea lion buoy.
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Staff Compensation and Overview
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Summer Counselor/Instructor staff receive round trip air fare from anywhere in the country, plus $5,000 ($500 per week) stipend, food and lodging, and free time use of camp facilities, so that at the end of the summer camp staff are likely to have most if not all of their summer earnings in the bank.
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Summer staff attend two paid staff training weeks starting the last week in June, followed by 8 Monday to Saturday camp sessions with one Sat-Sun day off between sessions. Like any manager within an organization, counselors and instructors lead and motivate their group to accomplish a wide variety of missions each week. And like any modern organization managers, leadership is accomplished through fun and encouragement. What is unlike a typical management trainee job, is that our leaders live and work with young people like themselves from around the country and the world, and get a fresh start each week with a new group of students to try out new things and work toward finding their best leadership voice. Beach Camp educators leave with friends and connections across the globe, and with leadership experience equal to many years or many jobs in a typical organization.
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Cheers!
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Although it is never easy for young people to obtain meaningful work and financial independence right out of school, the Sunset Bay Beach Camp MMA Program offers a well trod path and supportive environment for young people to grow, learn, relax, and pursue their dreams.
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Look us up!
Sunset Bay Wharf
14725 Norma Beach Road
Edmonds, WA 98026
206-324-6715 Main
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