Jill Robie, the new interim executive director at the YMCA of Martha’s Vineyard, began her first day on the job Tuesday wearing a hard hat and walking through the new $12 million facility in construction off the Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road.

While she was touring the concrete swimming pool with Chuck Hughes, president of the board, and Bill Skinner, board member, there were loud roofers outside overhead hammering in new shingles.

Ms. Robie comes to the Vineyard from Maine. She has over 24 years of experience in leadership with YMCAs, mostly in Maine and Connecticut.

For five years she was the executive director of the Old Town Orono YMCA, a facility shared by two towns north of Bangor, twice the size of the Vineyard facility. She leaves behind her a facility that offered plenty of family-oriented programs around a swimming pool, fitness facility and recreational sports programs. There were between 15 and 20 full-time staff and as many as 90 volunteers. Prior, she spent nine years as a director at the Wilton YMCA, north of of Norwalk, Conn.

The one distinctly different part of her new job is walking into a building that right now only has exterior walls. She is starting up a new YMCA where there was no building before. For her this is different from all the other Ys where she has worked. “Before, it was walking into something that was already running,” she said. “Here, I get to make some decisions about how we will look and feel. It is nice starting out new.”

On the second floor of the facility, there is a large area that will be dedicated to the exercise studio and a fitness center. Since the space has no walls yet, there is an expansive view of the swimming pool below, where workers are still in the process of creating the form.

Ms. Robie comes to the Vineyard as a divorced mother of three daughters. She has an 18-year-old daughter, Tara, attending college; a 14-year old daughter, Paige, who arrives at the high school as a freshman, and an eight-year-old daughter, Anna, who will attend the Edgartown School.

While she has little prior experience with the Vineyard, her late father, Edward (Bud) Robie, spent summers in the 1930s at the Vineyard Haven Yacht Club. Ms. Robie said she grew up listening to her father speak of sailing with his best friends, Kingman Brewster and Jack Ware. When Jack Ware moved up to Maine a few years ago, Ms. Robie connected with him.

Ms. Robie said she grew up in a coastal community in Connecticut and looks forward to being a good deal closer to the water, salt water.

On Wednesday, she held a meeting with her staff of three and others to talk about the days ahead. “I talked to the staff and asked what is it we would like to be like on opening day,” Ms. Robie said. Opening day will be sometime late in May.

“Then you just work backwards asking what do we need to do to get to that point. Looking ahead, there will be programs and hiring of staff. We have to make sure the place is furnished and that the approach is right. It is about having a vision and taking the steps to get to that point.

“There is a lot of excitement within the organization. It is contagious. People are enthusiastic about the new building. They want me to give leadership to that energy,” she said.

The work ahead isn’t just planning. Ms. Robie said the club still needs to raise $2 million prior to opening the doors. The Y is running after-school programs at the Cottagers’ Corner in Oak Bluffs. “We are really busy with a very dedicated group of volunteers and a small staff of three,” she said.