Park Leaders Show

Eben Sypitkowski is the Director of Baxter State Park in Maine.

Baxter State Park is a unique park. Baxter is a state park in name, but not park of Maine State Parks. The park started as a gift in land and resources from Governor Baxter.

Two more ways Baxter is a unique park; it is completely self-funded. This removes the park from the usual politics and worry of receiving funds from the state general fund. Second, the park places a priority on wilderness over recreation.

Eben was recently appointed to Director after being a forester and most recently Resource Manager. Eben discusses the transition from forester to the director. He explains his listening tour to understand the culture of the entire park and get to know the staff.

Eben has a passion for the place he now has the privilege to manage. Passion for place also inspires the rest of the staff of Baxter State Park. This same passion fuels many of us in parks.

As technology has changed around us, it has created a tremendous opportunity for interpretation.

Brad Krey, Interpretation and Education Programs Manager for California State Parks, joins the Park Leaders Show to discuss how California is using technology to take the park to kids.

One concern we have in parks is remaining relevant. People will protect what they care about. They will care about what they learn about. In order to stay relevant, we need to continue helping kids learn about parks, wildlife, and wild places.

California State Parks has used video streaming to bring the park directly into classrooms. One interpretive staff member uses video conferences to introduce students to park resources. The kids may be nowhere near the park, but they are giving a connection to the park. The video session is live and in real time, which allows students to ask questions.

Once kids are connected to the park through one of these video interpretive session, it may be years before it pays off. But a seed is planted.

California is leading the way in finding innovative solutions to tell stories. Brad Krey shares how any park can use distance learning to tell stories to kids all over the country. Long distance interpretation will help your park remain relevant now, and 20 years from now when today's kids have families of their own.

Don't limit your interpretation to pamphlets, signs, information boards, and in-person interpretive talks. Reach outside the boundaries of your park and help kids learn about the plants, animals, and even park rangers found in your park.

Often, on the Park Leaders Show, I ask people about their history with the outdoors and why they became a park ranger. One day, we will hear a park ranger tell the story of how an in-classroom interpretative video conference is what inspired him to become a park ranger.

Wild Jobs are all around us, but often go unnoticed.

John Griffith returns to the Park Leaders Show to tell us about his new show, Wild Jobs, on Animal Planet.

Griffith uses the show to highlight conservation and the hard work done at wildlife sanctuaries and animal hospitals.

Getting a show with Animal Plant started years ago when John uploaded his first video to YouTube. The video went viral and made John a YouTube star because of his dancing. John used his dancing to turn attention to his true love, conservation.

Now, his love for conservation gave him an opportunity to host Animal Planet's first digital show. In each episode, John spends the day working with people who care for animals. You will enjoy watching John do a variety of jobs from trimming porcupine toenails to changing monkey diapers.

Dylan Mroszczyk-McDonald returns to the Park Leaders Show to continue the discussion about leadership and culture in parks.

Dylan is a park ranger at Acadia National Park.

In this episode, we discuss innovative leadership and the impact it can have on the culture of parks.

To some degree, we are doing the same job park rangers were doing 60 years ago. We are trying to protect and preserve parks.

With innovation, we can hold true to our history and mission while bringing in positive changes and best practices from organizations and movements found around us.

Innovation brings tension with it to people in parks who feel an obligation to hold on to our tradition and heritage.

Change throughout an entire agency begins with a single individual making a change. You can start the long progress of making change by having difficult conversations about leadership and culture in parks.

You can listen to the first episode in the series here.

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.