Lakelands Property Manager Michele Kennedy
The Lakelands clubhouse is a busy place in the summer: The pool is full, the playgrounds stay busy and the landscaping crews work hard to keep the grass thick and green. New Property Manager Michele Kennedy will oversee it all from her second floor office in the Lakelands clubhouse.
She replaces Melinda Nickols, who died of lung cancer on May 4.
Kennedy has hit the ground running since she started on June 11. Her office needed to be brought up to speed in several ways, including switching from DSL to higher-speed Internet.
“Updating the technology is one of my top priorities,” said Kennedy.
She brings many years of experience to Lakelands, starting with a secretarial job at the Montgomery Village Foundation (MVF) right out of high school. After taking time off to start a family, Kennedy rose to the position of property manager at MVF. Het career then took a different turn for a few years while she worked in mortgage banking as a compliance specialist and then administrator. But she soon went back to property management in the Lakel Linganore neighborhood in New Market, Md.
At the Lake Linganore Association, Kennedy managed over 1,000 homes for seven years before coming to Lakelands this month.
Her background in the field will likely benefit her in the sizable Lakelands community. “Lakelands is basically a large-scale version of what I have always done,” she said.
Because of Lakelands’ size, Kennedy believes it is important to make everything she can as user-friendly to residents as possible, starting with updates to the Lakelands website and making information as web-based as possible.
Kennedy said she is ready to support residents in any way she can. Luckily, other than a few issues with the clubhouse garbage disposal and some typical noise complaints, things have been smooth sailing for her thus far. She said this is due, in part, to the committee members who take some of the burden off by handling specific issues.
“It’s awesome that the committees here are so active and have so many [devoted] members,” said Kennedy.
While she still lives near Mount Airy, Md., Kennedy said she is enjoying the convenience of the Kentlands/Lakelands area. The commute to her job in New Market was much shorter; however, she likes the more urban feel of her new management home.
“It’s great that you can walk to everything,” she said, echoing a sentiment shared by many who live in the Lakelands community.