Inside our parks Charles Beall of North Cascades National Park has been selected as one of the National Park Service’s Bevinetto Fellows for 2013-2014.
He will be joined by William “Gordy” Kito who works in the Washington, D.C., area.
The two will spend their first year in the program working as congressional staff. Beall will work for the Committee on Natural Resources in the U.S. House of Representatives.
In the second year of their fellowship, they will work in the NPS Office of Legislative and Congressional Affairs and an office of the NPS Directorate.
At the North Cascades National Park Complex, Beall has served as chief of interpretation and education for the past six years and held other positions at the park for four years. He has also worked at Badlands National Park and the National Mall in interpretation and education roles. He earned a bachelor’s degree from California State University-Sacramento with a major in environmental studies and biological sciences and a master’s degree from the University of Maryland, University College, in environmental management.
The fellowship program was created in 1988 to improve understanding and cooperation between the National Park Service and Congress. It was named in honor of Tony Bevinetto, a former Park Service employee who served on the staff of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee from 1979 until his death in 1988.
Beall and Kito are the 29th and 30th Park Service employees to be chosen as Bevinetto Fellows.
The fellowship is widely considered one of the most effective developmental programs in the Park Service, said a news release. Most of its graduates currently serve as park superintendents or program chiefs. With a goal to build a cadre of mangers with legislative experience, the program has increased the knowledge base of Park Service leaders in their work with Congress and members of the executive branch who impact the parks and programs in numerous ways.
Mike Gauthier, former head of the climbing ranger program at Mount Rainier National Park, was a fellow in 2009-2010. Gauthier worked with the Senate Subcommittee on National Parks and then was the liaison between Park Service and the assistant secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks. He is currently working as the chief of staff at Yosemite National Park.
MORE WILDERNESS MEETINGS
To meet higher public interest in developing a wilderness management plan, Olympic National Park managers are adding more meetings to gather input.
One workshop will be held in Port Townsend from 5-7 p.m. Wednesday at the Cotton Building, 607 Water St. Meetings in Olympia and Aberdeen will be scheduled for March.
Meetings have already been scheduled for Seattle on March 4, 5-7 p.m. at REI, 222 Yale Ave. N.; and March 6, 5-7 p.m. at Shelton Civic Center, 525 W. Cota St.
The goal of the plan is to identify the best uses for the varied wilderness areas in the park, said Superintendent Sarah Creachbaum.
January visitation
Mount Rainier
January 2013: 21,735
January 2012: 14,361
Difference: 51.3 percent
Park managers always say if the sun is out, they can expect crowds. That’s true even in the winter. Thanks to a weeklong stretch at the mountain of sunny skies and balmy temperatures – it hit 65 degrees on Jan. 19 – and fogged in lowlands, the park had a very busy month. January’s recreational visit count, even with the road to Paradise closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays, was the highest since January 2010.
Olympic
January 2013: 77,162
January 2012: 65,178
Difference: 18.4 percent
While January’s count was an improvement from 2012, it was still below the five-year average of 85,429 recreation visits. It also was the second-lowest January count since 2005. The Lake Crescent (30.3 percent to 28,664 visits) and Elwha (196.2 percent to 8,086) districts saw significant increases compared with January 2012, while the Quniault District saw a 36.2 percent decline to 10,080 visits.
NATIONWIDE
January 2013: 11,358,756
January 2012: 11,638,383
Difference: -2.40 percent
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