Next NPS Director? Not Me :(

Well, I knew it was a long shot. Despite asking Secretary of Interior Kempthorne if I could be the next director of the National Park Service, the powers that be chose not to go with my years of inexperience and instead have nominated an NPS career employee for the post. The NPS Digest today has announced that Mary Bomar has been nominated as the new director.

Other than what is written in that short piece, I don't know a lot about Bomar. I have read the letter published at the National Parks Traveler in which she wrote a very brown-nosed goodbye to out-going director Mainella and cc'd it to all employees of her Northeast park region. I hope for the sake of the Park Service that Bomar is a leader and not a lackey. I hope she's the type that can repel the continuing advances of the privatization push that is sweeping through our government. I hope she can be the force necessary to find full funding for the agency in the halls of congress. I hope Bomar can bring back a little of the sparkle that was lost during Mainella's term. Let's hope that at the end of Bomar's term we can write of her (as she did to Mainella)

"Well done is better than well said," wrote Benjamin Franklin, knowing that we will all be judged by our deeds. I am confident that the "future generations" we serve will honor her for her passion, her energy and her steadfast commitment to the mission of the National Park Service.

Good luck to you Mary Bomar. Those of us who love the National Parks will be following your progress.