Dave Putnam has had trouble with retirement.  He tried it once.  It didn’t last.  After a career of over 35 years in the field of recreation, the last 17 as Parks and Recreation Director in East Lyme, he thought he had called it quits.

“I took some time off, but it didn’t last,” he says.  “I was only 60, and I wasn’t done.”

For the last year and a half, Dave has been an administrator at the Valley Shore YMCA (VSYMCA), first as director of member services and, more recently, as director of development.

Dave also volunteers as the executive director of Miracle League of Southeastern Connecticut, a group that provides athletic opportunities in appropriate environments for children with a range of challenges, from physical to emotional and intellectual.

That is not all. Dave also works evenings and weekends for Timing Is Everything, an organization that provides timekeepers and scoreboard operators for college and professional sports teams.

In his role as director of development at the VSYMCA, Dave wants more community awareness of the scope of the VSYMCA’s activities and programs.

“There are people who still think what the Y is about is teaching swimming and a gym,” he says. “We give back so much to the community, health programs, group exercise, day camp.  It’s giving people an opportunity to become healthy.”

Dave points to the upcoming Holiday Splash Week, Thursday, Dec. 26 to Sunday, Dec. 29, which provides four days of free swim lessons to any child from ages four to 12, whether or not the family is a member of the VSYMCA. Preregistration is required.

He also notes that there is ongoing financial aid for individuals and families who want to join the VSYMCA and financial aid to make it possible for children to attend its summer day camps.

Dave was born in Indiana, but his family moved to Connecticut when he was in sixth grade. There is a bit of his early Midwest life on the wall of his office, a picture of legendary quarterback Bart Starr of the Green Bay Packers. Dave explains because Indiana did not have a professional football team, he was an enthusiastic Packers fan and remains one to this day.

Framed on the wall is a present from his wife Julie, who just retired as an elementary school teacher: a stock certificate she bought for him, making him one of the many part-owners of the Packers.

His office is also full of his own creations, Lego constructions of everything from a lighthouse that has a working revolving light to a reproduction of a set from the Netflix series Stranger Things.

Dave is one of the many adults who enjoy construction with the complicated sets of little bricks, many specifically designed for older builders. He was introduced in his early 50s to the hobby by a friend.

“It’s relaxing, enjoyable,” he says.

Some of the money he earns working for Timing Is Everything goes to underwrite purchasing Lego sets. Though most of the athletic contests he works are in Connecticut, Dave has also been to London and Paris when the company was hired to service games in those cities.

He has a picture that shows WNBA superstar Caitlin Clark playing in her first pro game against the Connecticut Suns; Clark is on the court in the foreground, but in the background, Dave is at the scorer’s table.

Dave attended Springfield College, already knowing that he wanted to be in the recreation field. He started as a summer playground counselor when he was 16 years old and says that it did not take him long to realize that recreation was the proper field for him.

“I’ve always liked the interaction with people,” he says.

He has had experience in fundraising, the major task of a director of development, before joining the VSYMCA. The Miracle League is entirely supported by volunteer donations that were used to build a handicap-appropriate athletic field for young participants from communities all along the shoreline.

The group started with 30 youngsters learning to ride two-wheel bicycles. Since that time, there have been some 500 participants in sports, from soccer and baseball to sailing and dance.

Dave likes dealing with the public, a regular part of his present position. He particularly likes the special fundraising events that the VSYMCA sponsors like the annual golf tournament and the spinathon, where teams of participants solicit donations for competitions of extended rides on stationary bikes.

For his own activity, Dave is enthusiastic about another kind of exercise. He likes to hike, mostly in the lower Connecticut River Valley, often in Lyme Land Trust properties. But there is a caveat to the outdoor exercise: “When the weather cooperates,” he says.

For information about the Valley Shore YMCA and its programs, visit VSYMCA.org For the Miracle League of Southeastern Connecticut, visit miracleleaguesect.org