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A View From the Overlook: “How Do You Get A Permanent Job With The NPS?”

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A ranger's job, and how to get one, have both changed quite a bit since these ranger's posed for a photo at Mt. Rainier in the 1930s. NPS photo.

'œHow Do You Get A Permanent Job With The NPS?'

This is a frequently asked question, neighbors! If the National Parks are 'œAmerica'™s Best Idea,' then it logically follows that the agency that services the National Parks, that is, The National Park Service, is the best damn bureaucracy in the world, and (therefore) NPS rangers, including myself, are the best damn bureaucrats in the world. (There is a flaw in logic in there somewhere, but you get the drift.)

Everyone enjoys basking in the reflected glory of an elite organization; this is one of the many reasons for the popularity of both the National Park Service and the U.S. Marine Corps. (Admittedly, the Marine Corps is easier to get into.)

Another reason for NPS employment popularity is Positive Feedback: People actually like you and like what you'™re doing. Many of the federal agencies are regulatory, which means you have an established Enemies List, people that hate you automatically, even before you arrive at work at eight in the morning. Not so in the case of the NPS (except for Tea Party fanatics!)

Consider the Internal Revenue Service. Have you ever wondered why the IRS does not have a 'œJunior IRS Agent' program similar to the Park Service'™s Junior Ranger Program, in which aspiring juvenile IRS agents could conduct mock audits of the neighbors? No? I thought not. The same is true of the CIA.

A third reason for NPS job popularity is the physical setting.'œVignettes of Primeval America, at the point of European contact: Towering trees! Thundering waterfalls! Limitless vistas!"

No doubt about it, friends, the NPS is a feel-good agency that many people would like to join, and they are not easily dissuaded.

Recall the last cocktail party you attended. After the host has introduced you as a retired or active member of the NPS, you will be asked two questions: (A) 'œWhat is your favorite bear story? (Pretty difficult if you were at Statue of Liberty), and (B) "How can my (son, daughter, grandchild) get a job with the NPS?'

Now the answer to question B is complicated, ambiguous and fluid.

You might like to hedge, particularly if you are feeling a tad malicious.

'œDo you want your child to be happy?' you might solemnly inquire.

The answer will, of course, be 'œYes! Yes!' (America being the first country to be founded on the 'œPursuit of Happiness" as a goal.)

'œThen,' you reply, 'œYour child should get a job as a Federal Prison Guard.'

Your questioner will be appalled.

No, you have not taken leave of your senses due to Sequestration Frustration; you are merely alluding to a famous yearly study by The Partnership for Public Service in which they ranked the various federal agencies as 'œThe Best Places to Work.'

Now the NPS has never done particularly well in this survey, landing somewhere in the low middle. One notable year, the Federal Bureau of Prisons was found to be a happier place to work than the NPS.Why is this the case?

Actually, it is an unfair comparison. You see, there is a difference in expectations.

A person who applies for a job as a prison guard has rather low expectation of approval by the clientele he serves. Most federal prisons are located in rural, low rent areas with few permanent jobs. Our prison guard candidate will be looking for a favorable retirement and medical package rather than Spiritual Fulfillment. In addition, he/she will be pleasantly surprised that they were not murdered the first day on the job. Every day after that is an improvement.

The NPS seasonal acolyte, on the other hand, has high expectations. If only he/she can enter the Nirvana of permanent employment in 'œThe best job in the world,' our Newbie expects 30 years of blissful contentment. What they fail to realize is that the National Parks are not administered by 'œtowering trees or thundering waterfalls,' or even by a John Muir clone, but by rather fallible and ordinary human beings. There will be difficulties and frustrations.

When approached by young men or women desiring a career in the National Park Service, Roger Siglin, former Chief Ranger of Yellowstone and Superintendent of Gates of Arctic National Park, would ask, 'œWhat is your second choice for a lifetime career?' They rarely had one. One should have a back-up plan, unless one is wearing a suicide vest.

'œYes, I know that!' our acolyte exclaims irritably. 'œI understand that the NPS has some serious personnel management problems, but I am different! Once I become permanent, I will reform the organization from top to bottom (WASO is clearly shaking in its boots!), BUT FIRST I NEED TO GET A PERMANENT JOB WITH THE NPS!'

Thereupon hangs many a frustration, neighbors! There are many rumors abounding that 'œOne must know someone' before the Holy Grail of a permanent position can be grasped, or that certain jobs are 'œwired' for certain individuals or certain minority groups.

'œOutsiders,' those brave, noble souls who are not part of the 'œConspiracy,' are condemned to wander forevermore in the Twilight Zone of seasonal employment or working for free as a volunteer. Since the NPS is one of the more gossipy agencies of the Federal Government, rumors abound. Some of them are true.

It is true there is malfeasance and corruption in the obtaining of government jobs, but less so than in the rip-roaring, wide-open period after the Civil War known as the Gilded Age, when everything seemed for sale, even if seller didn'™t own it. Federal jobs were just some of the merchandise available. People worked for political parties and voted for candidates not because they were interested in Good Government and Progress, but because they wanted the postmaster'™s job in their town or the lighthouse tender'™s job, or wanted to be the lucky chap that handed out land to railroads.

This was called Patronage, and constituted a venality tax on just about everyone as the wheels of government ground slower and slower. The various presidents of the Gilded Age may not have been personally corrupt, but many of their appointees certainly were, and the country was shot through with graft from top to bottom.

How were we to get out of the Civil Service corruption trap that even today bedevils most of the poverty stricken countries of the Third World?

'œIf in doubt, ask a ranger!" So, I asked Ranger Todd Arrington of James Garfield National Historic Site in Mentor, Ohio to clear things up for us. You see, in addition to being in charge of the tallest tree and tallest mountain in America, the National Park Service is in charge of American history. If you are interested in the history of the light bulb, you contact Thomas Edison National Historic Site; if you are interested in Civil Service corruption, you contact James Garfield National Historic Site. It seems that President Garfield died for our sins.

Here is what Ranger Todd had to say:

'œ'¦Civil Service Reform was something that was awaiting James A. Garfield when he became President in 1881. Garfield was inclined to agree that some reform to the civil service system was necessary to get rid of patronage and replace it with a merit-based system in which only qualified candidates who passed exams could receive appointments to federal positions. However, Garfield became much more adamant about this need after his election to the presidency, when he was almost immediately bombarded by letters and visits from people seeking jobs. Very few of these individuals had any real qualifications for the positions they sought and to which they felt entitled simply because they were Republicans or knew someone who knew a Congressman, etc.

Alternate Text
President James Garfield supported major changes in hiring practices for federal jobs in the 1880s. Library of Congress photo.

This continued after Garfield'™s inauguration when he unhappily spent hours each day receiving job seekers. One of those who tried to convince Garfield to appoint him to a position (American Consul to Paris) was Charles J. Guiteau, a mentally unbalanced stalwart Republican who had given a meandering, unimportant speech promoting Garfield in New York and wanted to be rewarded for it.

Guiteau didn'™t get the job, and he soon grew concerned about Garfield'™s intention to replace the patronage system with a merit system, as the new president engaged in a very public battle with New York'™s Senator Roscoe Conkling over who would be appointed to the most prestigious and lucrative patronage job in the country: Collector of the Port of New York.

Charles Guiteau eventually decided the best way to handle this was to murder President Garfield so that Vice President Chester A. Arthur, a New Yorker and Conkling acolyte, would be elevated to the presidency.

Guiteau shot Garfield on July 2, 1881; the wounded President lingered until September 19.Vice President Arthur then became the new president and, to his credit, immediately distanced himself from Conkling. It was President Arthur who signed the Pendleton Act on January 16, 1883. That law reformed the Civil Service, as Garfield had desired, by instituting exams and qualification requirements for those seeking federal jobs. This was the beginning of the end for the patronage system.'

Thank you, Dr. Arrington. You will note that Todd said that it was the beginning of the end, not the end of patronage.

Do we still have Patronage? Sure do, neighbors! Even in the National Park Service? Yup! These are called Schedule C jobs and are awarded to deserving, helpful people by the political party that won the last election. This is sort of a sanitized, 'œLiving History' patronage relic of the Gilded Age, as the Schedule C jobs are relatively few in number and mainly deal with policy. (Nothing secret, neighbors! The Schedule C jobs are listed in a handy little book produced by the US Government Printing Office. It is called 'œThe Plum Book' because, among other things, it has a purple plum colored cover. (Who says the Federal government has no sense of humor?)

But what of our original question: lacking patronage, how DO you get a permanent job with the National Park Service?

Again, James Garfield National Historical Site was most helpful. According to Ranger Arrington:

'œJobs with the federal government, both permanent and temporary, as well as paid internships, are advertised on USA JOBS.  You may search by the type of job you are interested in and the agency. National Park Service jobs are found under the Department of Interior. Be sure to read the announcement very carefully to determine what documents you will need to submit. On-line submittal of your application is preferred.'

Now is there any other way? (Aside from that of Charles Guiteau).

Well, yes, neighbors, at least for the protection ranger (law enforcement) there is something known as the Pro Ranger Program.

You see, the NPS, along with the rest of the Department of Interior, has a 'œDiversity' problem. That is, the Department of Interior is the 'œWhitest' of all the Federal Departments. (It is also regarded by some as the most corrupt, but any cause-and-effect correlation could be interpreted as racist.)

Anyway, how to solve the Diversity problem? Rather than trying to recruit graduates, it was decided to seek colleges with large minority populations and set up a program to steer undergraduates to a guaranteed career in NPS law enforcement.

Undoubtedly, there will be (or are) more colleges, but the ones that show up on Google are Temple University in Philadelphia and the very enterprising San Antonio College, a two-year community college in San Antonio, Texas.

According to the Temple blurb: 'œUpon graduation from Temple University and successfully completing the Pro Ranger Philadelphia Program, participants are placed in a permanent career tenured law enforcement park ranger position with the National Park Service.'

San Antonio College says, 'œRather than recruit or find the next generation of NPS law enforcement rangers, the Pro Ranger Program is a proactive approach to creating them.'

So, neighbors, I guess where your child goes depends on whether he likes Philly Cheesesteak sandwiches or Mexican food!

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Comments

Thanks for another great column, PJ ! Your humorous take on the NPS, warts and all, is so refreshing compared to the Dudley Dooright myth peddled by DC. Thanks also for the many thoughtful comments, folks.

Here at Mount Rainier, many locals more or less agree with park preservation mandates, even policies, but might be considered 'hostile' because of their experience of decades of nepotism & cronyism in NPS hiring, contracts, and concessions. An almost complete lack of financial transparency and increasing staff while reducing access and services last year has not won many local friends, either. NPS management and the old guard are truly out of touch if they think all critics are just resource-hungry rednecks. My experience has been that many locals know their parks far, far better than the 'itinerant manager class' of the NPS ( thanks for that great phrase, willj).

Gus, hiring monkey-business was common in NW parks during my career. My first NPS job came as a last-minute replacement for Watergate figure John Ehlichman's son. My roommate's dad ran the Texas border patrol. I was hired as a seasonal laborer, despite being only on the seasonal ranger register. Well into the nineties, Olympic Maintenance supervisors avoided perceived problem veterans and hired each other's friends and relatives as seasonals using um, poorly-advertised 'Student' hiring authorites.

I know it's not technically nepotism, but it sure has the appearance of conflict of interest when Director Jarvis' brother is a concession lobbyist, especially given all the suggestions of favoritism in that aspect of NPS management recently:

/2014/01/convulsion-national-park-concessions24457

Willj makes many good points, but I must especially second those regarding the skill repository of long-term seasonals and bottom-of-the-totem-pole 'Subject-to-Furlough permanents. We used saws and explosives, and ran helitac operations, where one could make mistakes you wouldn't live long enough to learn from. The real irreplaceable contribution of long-term seasonals was in training new seasonals, both formally at orientation, and more importantly, on the job. The hardest and most dangerous thing I ever had to do was run 'Hoods In The Woods' type programs where under-equipped, untrained, undiscliplined 'social engineering' labor was dumped on Wilderness trails with almost no planning, realistic goals, or training, for the youths or me. The proposal to substitute volunteers and interns in lieu of retaining and promoting experienced staff is a terrible one, IMO, even for the less-dangerous public contact jobs.

I'd add Naturalist to Owen's list of permanent NPS employees a visitor is increasingly unlikely to encounter. I was amazed to learn most Parks Canada staff, including the SAR supervisor and even the superintendent, spent regularly scheduled time at their information desks. Just what the NPS brass needs to keep it real and adjust their priorities.


I think it is interesting to note that a quote posted here a few days ago and attributed to a "former senior manager" was actually written by NPS Director Jon Jarvis's brother Destry Jarvis. That seems to give it a bit more weight and maybe explains why these days the organization seems to have such a disdain for job seekers with high levels of experience and qualifications --speculation I know.

Here is the quote:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/parklandsupdate/destry/parkla...

"I think it is high time to re-consider the whole "seasonal hiring" program. As some have indicated, it's too easy to ignore or exploit them, and current law does not really allow them to be perceived as an easily accessed recruitment pool, even when there are vacancies. Instead, with a few exceptions (such as folks with prior law enforcement experience and teachers who serve as senior interpreters)I would scrap the whole seasonal program and replace it with "interns" (e.g. such as SCA Resource Assistants) signed up under the Public Land Corps Act authority. In most cases they can be, and often already are, the same people NPS has hired historically - college students or recent graduates with degrees in relevant fields, or veterans of conservation corps work crews with good hand skills. But, unlike seasonals, PLCA interns can access non-competivie hiring authority into federal service, and come in at about half the price of a seasonal, so the Service can either save money or hire twice as many"


In regard to the article

The National Park Service does regulate. It regulates how visitors to a park can use that resource, which is why Law Enforcement Rangers and the Unites States Park Police exist. There are plenty of people, other than Tea Party fanatics, who do automatically hate NPS employees. There are certain locales where all uniformed park rangers are hated by many individuals of that locale because of the park service’s role of protecting natural areas and stopping those locals from using the land for whatever recreation purpose they wish to use it for. A hatred which goes as far as the employees of those parks being recommended, by their supervisors, not to wear their uniform outside of the park, and where park employees are even refused service in certain restaurants.

And one should beware of making assumptions based on a group’s political values and beliefs, and beware of assuming that certain people are going to automatically hate uniformed employees of a certain federal department. And while it may be easier to be accepted as a Marine Corps candidate, it is certainly not easier to complete the process of becoming a Marine. And the Marine Corps does drug test so that would ‘weed out’ a considerable percentage of those who currently are working for the park service.

In regard to comments

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits workplace discrimination based on religion, national origin, race, color, or sex. The definition of discrimination is: to make a distinction in favor of or against a person or thing on the basis of the group, class, or category to which the person or thing belongs rather than according to actual merit.

The purpose of ending discrimination is that a person’s race, sex, etc. is not relevant. To say, to improve our workforce, we should hire the candidate of color if experience levels are the same, is discrimination. There are no two persons with the same experience level. One person or the other has attended at least one more class or has one more day on a job than the other person, which makes one person or the other more experienced.

In a previous comment, it is stated; “Check the DOI and NPS demographics' numbers. It has not changed much for decades and even when the numbers increase in some categories, the white male and female still reign supreme (over their % of the US population). This demonstrates we still have a long way to go to make our beloved NPS more relevant.”

I consider stating that whites ‘reign supreme’ to be a type of ‘speak’ used to try and vilify whites. I find it very disturbing that a retired superintendent thinks whites need to be reduced in numbers to make the NPS more relevant. If people in this nation cannot see that it does not matter what color you are, and a retired superintendent does not realize that it does not matter if a park ranger is black, white, brown, red, or yellow, then yes, we do have a long way to go.


Well, PJ has done it again -- terrific article, as always. Owen just sent a note that this discussion was happening so I'll weigh in. I've been a seasonal for 43 years so have some insights. I'm also one of the founding members of the Ranger Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police. When we published our first newsletter in 1985, one of our goals was to create a clear path from seasonal to permanent. I wrote in that article that the current system was a "Byzantine nightmare." Shamefully, absolutely nothing has changed today. Of the goals we had then (LE retirement and better equipment and training for LE rangers) it's the only one that has not been achieved.

I have to admit I'm strangely sympathetic to the proranger program, though it appears to be both flailing and failing because students are dropping out or not passing FLETC (though neither is at all clear. That's from rumor & anecdotal evidence only). If that is the case, it'll fail on its own. But, I have found the current system so outrageously unfair to everyone -- experienced seasonal rangers, minorities & etc. that if anyone can find any way to get through the gauntlet and get a permanent job, I have no problem with it.

Is the pro ranger program any worse as a way to get in than taking a job at another federal agency only to get status, quit that job (that someone spent a lot of time and energy writing up and interviewing people)? Or, as in the old days, getting a job as a clerk-typist? No question it's insulting to very qualified and proven seasonals who have jumped through what they see as the accepted hoops, but we shouldn't get mad at the proranger program or those going through it. It's the NPS, and we – seasonals and permanent alike – let them get away with it year after year.

The seasonal NPS ranger system is unconscionably exploitive of the love and dedication we bring to our work. This is a feature, not a bug. We pay for our own initial training (EMS and LE); work at very low pay; are too often treated with disdain by our permanent betters; have no right to a rehire, only “preference”; get no step increases for time in service and no health insurance. And, this just in, WON'T be provided health insurance under the ACA because we're part-time. THAT is an absolute outrage, yet absolutely no one seems to care.

In all of my years, I have known only one or two permanent rangers who were strong advocates for seasonals and made even the slightest attempt to change this system. Not to be discouraging, but after trying to bring attention to this issue over the years, I often despair of a solution. The NPS is right there with WalMart or McDonald’s in how they treat employees.

And, along with my colleague Perpetual Ranger, I also wonder where ANPR and the retirees have been all these years. I -- a seasonal -- wrote and advocated extensively for 6(c) retirement but have not seen that same concern for an obvious injustice returned.

George Durkee
(Also, these comments don't necessarily reflect those of the Ranger Lodge. Just me with a word processor warmed in heck...).


It is very interesting that the PLCA intern quote came from Destry Jarvis. A “former senior manager” could be someone with no current influence on policy. The opinions of the director's brother, on the other hand, could be assumed to influence or reflect the those of the director himself. Rick, I'm curious why you chose to attribute the quote the way you did. It comes close to lying by omission. I'm also curious why nobody on your listserv brought up what a truly awful idea it actually is. Do you folks really think that it would not be so bad to remove thousands of experienced staff and replace them with college age volunteers, most of whom would turn over every year? Or do you just not want to call out someone who is so high on the food chain? Whichever it is, it is disheartening, and I think indicative of the problems in NPS management.

Rick, I would also still like to know why you don't think changing the law to give seasonals status after a few years would help.


If the seasonal gig is so bad (low pay, low respect, poor chances of advancement), then why do people keep going back? Is it because the job is that rewarding, or is it because there's no good job alternatives?


Rmackie. You make a reference to Congress being a roadblock to changing the rules. Could you elaborate? Why would Congress want to make it harder to make a seasonal employee eligible to compete for a full time job?

But then, i can't think of a rational reason anyone would want to put up such a roadblock.


willj--

Destry no longer works for the NPS so he is exactly what I called him, "a former senior manager". I don't think there is a legislative fix to this because there will always be someone who doesn't get the job that will see nepotism, bias or favoritism behind the decision.

I am glad to see George weigh in on this discussion. His long seasonal service in Yosemite and Sequoia lends a great deal of credibility to his remarks. He should remember two things, however. From the very beginning, the retirees decided not to get involved in personnel issues. Looking at this thread should tell you why.. And ANPR put a lot of money into lobbying for enhanced retirement for protection rangers. The Lodge, that George mentions, and ANPR, were its two biggest advocates.

Rick


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