Being a park ranger is an admirable job. Many people grow up dreaming of becoming a park ranger.

Yet, too many people leave parks, and walk away from their dream, because of poor leadership or an unhealthy culture.

Dylan Mroszczyk-McDonald, a park ranger at Acadia National Park, joins host Jody Maberry on the Park Leaders Show to examine some of the challenges parks face with leadership and culture.

For the future of parks, we need to be able to not only attract but also retain a diverse staff.

The front line supervisor has the biggest impact on employees and our ability to accomplish the mission of parks. By shifting the focus of parks away from the visitor and the resources and towards building leaders, we can begin to build a culture where people are willing to spend decades serving others.

The greater the employee experience, the greater the experience visitors will have.

Brennan McCauley returns to the Park Leaders Show to give an update on where he is in his park ranger career.

Over the past two years, Brennan has been a guest on the show several times as he has moved through stages of his early park ranger career.

Beginning when he was a student at Temple University and a member of the Pro Ranger Program, Brennan joined us to talk about the program and his future plans. Now, two years later, Brennan is on the verge of entering the law enforcement academy.

You can hear Brennan's past episodes of the Park Leaders Show below;

Building Young Leaders

How a Leader Can Help New Rangers

Learning From Leaders

This episode of the Park Leaders Show digs into the audio vault and shares an audio file from the Ranger Rendezvous in 2015.

I talk to 4 different park ranger about their experience with the National Park Service.

One question I asked all the ranger is why they became a park ranger. It is inspiring to hear these young rangers talk about why they became a park ranger.

Ask yourself the same question. Why did you become a park ranger?

Write your answer down. Look at it before you go to work. Keep reminding yourself why you are doing this work.

Dan Cockerell had a successful 26-year career with Disney, working his way from parking cars to the Vice President of the Magic Kingdom.

Before his career at Disney, Dan spent a summer as a volunteer at Rocky Mountain National Park.

Recently, Dan left Disney to make a transition into full time speaking and consulting.

Like most of us in parks, Dan worked time out in the field with guests. He learned operations by performing the tough jobs. When he became a leader with Disney, he understood what it took to perform jobs under pressure always focused on serving the guest.

Dan specializes in building strong cultures and solid operations for organizations.

Dan offers an article of the week for leaders. If you are interested in leadership, you will find a lot of value in these articles. In the weekly email, Dan offers curation on why the article matters and how you can apply it to your role.

Find out more about Dan at DanCockerell.com.

David Gustafson is a lead ranger with the City of Boulder. With city parks, or parks close to cities, problems you see in cities can also spill over into parks.

Homelessness is one of those problems.

When a park has to deal with a homeless population, you also have to deal with the other problems that come with it; trash, fire danger, drugs, and safety.

How can rangers serve the public while also serving the homeless population that finds their way into the park? Ranger Gustafson talks about this and more on this episode of the Park Leaders Show.

Christian Beckwith is not a traditional conservationist. He will admit, he is a climber, not a conservationist.

Yet, Christian founded and leads an organization in Jackson Hole, WY that focuses on conservation.

But Christian doesn't take a traditional approach to conservation. In fact, he is disrupting conservation.

Through SHIFT, a live event, and the emerging leaders program, Christian is helping change the face of conservation.

In order to protect parks and open spaces, we need more people who care enough to speak out and stand up for conservation. Jenny Mulholland Bearhs is leading a Coalition that is making that happen.

Jenny is the Director University of California Berkely's Outdoor Engagement Coalition.

The coalition is a membership-based group that works to give all Californians an opportunity to get outdoors.

In this episode of the Park Leders Show, Jenny talks about the work her organization is doing and how other states can create a similar coalition to spread the work.

After retiring as the Director of the National Park Service, Jon Jarvis took on a new role.

Director Jarvis is a Director again. This time, he is the first executive director of the newly formed Institute for Parks, People, and Biodiversity.

Jarvis joins the Park Leaders Show again to discuss his time with the National Park Service and his new role. As a 40 year veteran of the park service, Director Jarvis is now using that experience to help build the next generation of leaders for conservation.

Do veterans like Jarvis have a responsibility to give back to the up and coming leaders? We talk about that in this episode. Veterans have the unique ability to pass on stories, wisdom, and knowledge to people who can benefit from it the most.

Director Jarvis has a new book available, The Future of Conservation in America.

"What distinguishes the National Park System is the National Park Service." - Jon Jarvis

Do parks have a responsibility to interpret?

Cem Basman joins the Park Leaders Show to discuss.

Building friends groups and partnerships is essential for a modern park. Krista Muddle from the National Park Service joins the Park Leaders Show to discuss partnerships.

Krista Muddle is a Regional Partnership Coordinator at Intermountain Region Office with the National Park Service.

Krista divides her time between a program working in partnership with Mexico on border-related issues and working with parks developing partnerships in their community. Broder related issues range from animals that are found in both countries, vegetation management, and sand dune studies.

Whether your park has already formed local partnerships, or are just getting started, Krista shares information of what makes a successful partnership. This episode will give you ideas of why you need partnerships and way friends groups can help your park get more done.

Friends Groups serve as an Ambassador for the park and a direct link to connect the park to the community and connect the community to the park.