Ryan Preston admits he is a little inexperienced, but he is ready to accept the challenge of taking on the position of recreation manager for the Town of Fountain Hills. He is replacing Linda Ayres, who recently left the position.

The job primarily entails overseeing the staging of the special events hosted by the Town. These range from the Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot to the Halloween Spooktacular and holiday Roll in the Glow, as well as some of the smaller events residents enjoy.

“I will continue to follow the lead of my predecessor (Ayres),” Preston said. “She left us well set with planning for some of the future events.”

He said the job will entail a lot of getting out and talking with people to hear their ideas and thoughts on community events and see if they can come up with a plan to initiate activity.

“We got into a good place with special events under Linda (Ayres),” he added. “We are really not looking at adding. We want to make our events the best version of what they can be.”

Preston said he had the opportunity to learn by being thrown into the deep end somewhat. He started as a recreation program coordinator in October last year just before the Spooktacular, and soon after that Ayres and fellow program coordinator Skylar Thomas were both out for the lead-up to the Turkey Trot, and he was left with some additional responsibilities as the new guy.

Preston grew up in South Florida and attended the University of Florida studying criminology. He spent some time in Singapore, where his wife is from, and became involved in a recreation franchise, Sportball, in 2009, offering multi-sport programs for children. He came to Arizona to work with a Sportball franchise here.

Preston and his wife live nearby in Scottsdale with their eight-year-old daughter.