Check out this excerpt from the most recent issue of PJ Ryan's hilarious and often brilliant Thunderbear... which he labels THE OLDEST ALTERNATIVE NEWSLETTER IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT http://www.workingnet.com/thunderbear/284.html...

"Readers of THUNDERBEAR (and I suspect, present or former employees of the National Park Service) have often asked your kindly editor why the National Park Service is the most hide bound, slow to change, reactionary agency in the Federal Government?
First of all, is this accolade really deserved? Has the NPS really gone to the head of the class to win the Oscar for bureaucratic obfustication in the Federal Government?

Yup! It's true! We really are the best! Take it from an expert; nobody beats the NPS at Obstructionism.

The expert in question is none other than the former Inspector General of the Department of Interior, Earl Devaney.

Testifying before the Senate Committee on Finance on January 30, 2003, Inspector General Devaney remarked:

"Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, I have served in the Federal Government for a little over 32 years. I have never seen an organization more unwilling to accept constructive criticism or embrace new ideas than the National Park Service. Their culture is to fight fiercely to protect the status quo and reject any idea not their own."

There you have it neighbors! Confirmation from the Man Himself."..... read the rest of Ryan's story here (scroll down to the bottom for this article) http://www.workingnet.com/thunderbear/284.html

As a seasonal employee who has worked in three different parks I believe it depends on the park and the management at these parks. But it really boils down to the fact the large percentage of employees in the NPS are seasonals and all but a few can get jobs year round in the NPS system or permanent positions due to less and less openings and later and later retirement of those holding permanent positions. I enjoy the time I work in the National Park System and would love to do it full time and year round.

For those readers who think only NPS seasonals and lower graded permanent employees are
terribly discriminated against or treated badly, let's refresh our memories by re-reading:
 
Judge Kessler ruled that Mintzmyer, first female Regional Director, had been retaliated
against by senior [color=#333333]Lead Counsel, Representation before Congress.   There was just one woman who was the National Park Service’s first female ranger, first female superintendent, and first female regional director.   She was the much decorated official who oversaw both the reintroduction of the wolves into the wilderness, and the controversial fire policies at Yellowstone.  Eventually, she became the regional director in charge of the prize NPS region -- the Rocky Mountain Region.  Then, suddenly, after 30 years of this type of service it seemed inconceivable that she was alleged to have illegally lobbied Congress (on behalf of the NPS) and threatened with an Inspector General’s investigation by a high-level DOI political appointee -- and later accused of being a potential threat to the President.  Coincidentally, this happened just as she was criticizing political tampering with environmental programs and secret deals to gut related scientific studies -- deals between politicians and commodity groups subverting environmental and scientific programs in the West.  What followed was a running battle in several forums -- involving many agencies and organizations -- and a bipartisan Congressional investigation with more than 45 witnesses and over 6,000 documents.    Nothing could describe the results of the Subcommittee’s investigations as well as the executive summary of the huge report prepared by the Subcommittee's investigators and staff -- following the issuance of bipartisan subpoenae, a hearing and extensive review.  [/color][color=#0000ff]"Interference in Environmental Programs by Political Appointees:  The Improper Treatment of A Senior Executive Service Official" - [/color][color=#333333]A Report by the[/color][color=#333333]Sub-Committee on Civil Service,U.S. House of Representatives, Congressional Printing Office (July 1993). [/color]

Based on the evidence examined thus far, the Subcommittee concludes that the Department of Interior engaged in a politically motivated, underhanded operation to destroy an environmental document Ms. Mintzmyer headed. This activity resulted in the improper directed reassignment of Ms. Mintzmyer.

On September 24, 1991, the Subcommittee on the Civil Service, Committee on Post Office and Civil Service, held a hearing regarding alleged improprieties in the directed reassignments of two high-ranking career Senior Executive Service (SES) level civil servants, Ms. Lorraine Mintzmyer (National Park Service, Department of Interior) and Mr. John Mumma (Forest Service, Department of Agriculture).  That hearing was the first step in the Subcommittee's investigation to determine whether the directed reassignments of these two SES individuals were contrary to law or warranted additional legislative action by the Subcommittee.

At the time she was reassigned, Ms. Mintzmyer was the first and only woman to serve as a National Park Service (NPS) regional director and the most decorated female employee in its history. Mr. Mumma was the first and only wildlife biologist to become a Forest Service regional forester. The Subcommittee had received information that both individuals were subjected to strong political and special interest pressures to deviate from environmental laws and guidelines. When they refused to give in, Ms. Mintzmyer and Mr. Mumma received directed reassignments which substantially altered and effectively crippled their careers, harmed their families, and led them both into accepting forced retirements in the ensuing year.

The Subcommittee viewed those allegations with the utmost seriousness and concern, launching a bipartisan investigation in September of 1991. In the past fifteen months, the Subcommittee has interviewed more than 45 witnesses and reviewed over 6,000 documents in connection with this investigation. In addition, the Sub-committee has identified significant missing documents and evidence that the Department of Interior (DOI) has failed to provide. This staff report transmits the results of the Subcommittees investigation to date into alleged improprieties in the directed reassignment of Ms. Mintzmyer.

Ms. Mintzmyer's account of her directed reassignment centered around the wholly political revision of a joint National Park Service and Forest Service environmental document, referred to as the "Vision document." The preparation of this document was inspired by Congress, and Congress directed that the document should facilitate protecting the Greater Yellowstone Area's ecosystem by developing coordination guidelines between the National Park Service and the Forest Service. This document was intended as a prototype for protecting the National Parks from the Federal government misusing the public lands surrounding the parks.

The Subcommittee's investigation has revealed an improper concerted activity by powerful commodity and special interest groups and the Bush Administration to eviscerate the Draft Vision document because the commodity and special interest groups perceived it as a threat. The Department of Interior and special interest groups first destroyed the sixty page scientific document, turning it into a ten page "brochure." They then developed a story that would explain the revisions and keep their actions a secret. Finally, to protect their acts and in apparent retaliation against Ms. Mintzmyer, the Department of Interior effectuated a directed reassignment which moved Ms. Mintzmyer out of the Rocky Mountain Region and away from the Vision document process.

The plan to revise the Draft Vision document began to unravel, however, when the Subcommittee launched its investigation into the matter. The Department of Interior's explanation for the events leading up to the revision of the Draft Vision document are contradictory and unsubstantiated. Further, Ms. Mintzmyer was subjected to retaliatory acts after she was transferred to the Mid-Atlantic region, thus weakening the Department's position.

The Subcommittee's Conclusions

The Subcommittee concludes that the Department of Interior engaged in a politically motivated, underhanded operation to destroy the Draft Vision document because it was unacceptable to powerful and mooned commodity and special interest groups. This operation resulted in the improper directed reassignment and subsequent retaliation against Ms. Mintzmyer. The Subcommittee's conclusions are substantiated by the following evidence:

• An unusual, closed meeting was held on October 4, 1990, between high-ranking Department of Interior and Agriculture officials, a western U.S. Congressional delegation, and commodity and special interest groups. The sole purpose of this undocumented meeting appears to have been to deal with the Draft Vision document. (Chapter 2, 3 and 4)

• Mr. S. Scott Sewell, then Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks at the Department of Interior, effectuated the destruction of the Draft Vision document by revising and taking control of the DRAFT document in October of 1990 at the behest of John Sununu, former Chief of Staff for the White House. (Chapter 2 and 4)

• At the Department of Interior, Mr. Sewell and his staff revised the Draft Vision document outside of the public review process to accommodate special interest requests during the fall and winter of 1990, despite Mr. Sewell's denial, under oath, of revising or even reviewing the Draft document prior to June 1991. (Chapters 2, 3, and 4)

• Mr. Sewell tried to complete the operation by further neutralizing Ms. Mintzmyer in February of 1991 by demanding she be reprimanded for allegedly lobbying the U.S. Congress. His intent appears to have been to silence her or provide a basis for her directed reassignment. (Chapters 2 and 4)

• Following the false lobbying charge against Ms. Mintzmyer, the Department developed an explanation for how the Draft Vision document went from a sixty page scientific document to a ten page "brochure" and why the original drafting process for the Draft document was altered. They accomplished this by utilizing the following tactics: 1) closing previously planned national hearings to avoid anticipated positive public comment; 2) assisting outside groups to "rig' the appearance of negative public opinion at a few, select, local public meetings; 3) maneuvering the scientific interdisciplinary team, who had originally been responsible for drafting the document, out of the revision process; and 4) using the manufactured, negative, public comment to explain why the special interest revisions were necessary. (Chapter 3)

The inconsistencies in the Department's story were revealed on a number of fronts:

The participants at the October 4, 1990 meeting gave several contradictory explanations for the purpose of the meeting and could not substantiate those explanations with any documents. (Chapter 3 and 4)

Mr. Sewell originally denied, under oath, that he and his office revised the Draft Vision document. Document Exhibit # 122, written by Mr. Sewell's staffer, directly contradicted that assertion – specifically stating that Mr. Sewell's office was revising the Draft Vision document in line with special interest desires and Mr. Sewell was personally reviewing those changes. (Chapter 4)

Well after document # 122 was brought to his attention, Mr. Sewell changed his story in an unsworn statement and asserted that he had instead formed a "working group" in his office to review the Draft document, not to revise it. However, Mr. Sewell and members of the working group gave four separate, conflicting accounts of the group's mission. (Chapter 4)

The baseless attack on Ms. Mintzmyer for illegally lobbying Congress evaporated when Ms. Mintzmyer challenged the lobbying charge and the charge then disappeared. (Chapter 4)

The numerous shifting reasons for Ms. Mintzmyer's directed reassignment and the fact that Ms. Mintzmyer had announced her plans for retirement prior to her directed reassignment crippled the effectiveness of the Department's reasons for her transfer. (Chapter 5)

After the directed reassignment, the Department further retaliated against Ms. Mintzmyer by denying her a bonus and an SES step increase. Additionally, her subordinates in the Mid-Atlantic region were denied promotions and similar benefits and falsely told that Ms. Mintzmyer was to blame for them not receiving those benefits. (Chapter 5)

The commodity groups were stopped.  The facts about how the Vision document’s environmental and scientific provisions had been intentionally subverted by political appointees for the benefit of commodity interests had, therefore, been thoroughly exposed.  The congressional staff report contained footnotes to every major allegation and a huge attachment of documents detailing each fact.  Although that staff report was published, no further hearings or votes by the Sub-Committee were possible as the elections and the end of the session intervened.  Therefore, although the facts were out about the larger picture, Mintzmyer still had not been able to get the government to admit that Sewell’s statements about her had also been false -- an attempt to retaliate against her for speaking out.

A federal trial [color=#0000ff]Mintzmyer v. DOI I[/color], 1995 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1182; 66 Fair Empl. Prac. Cas. (BNA) 1804 (D.D.C. 1995), and MSPB proceedings [color=#0000ff]Mintzmyer v. DOI II[/color], 84 F.2d 419, 1996 U.S.App.LEXIS 11369 (Fed.Cir. 1996) followed.  What was crucial to the litigation, and what Ms. Mintzmyer still had not gotten, went beyond the findings about compromising the Vision Document -- she sought the government’s explicit admission ‘on the record’ that Sewell’s statements were false regarding the numerous accusations he leveled against her -- particularly when he gave testimony to investigators about her under oath.  After its own internal review, the government finally conceded this in written responses to interrogatories, and again when the government’s own lawyer, an Assistant U.S. Attorney, admitted this in [color=#0000ff]an exchange with Judge Kessler.[/color]

Consistent with the Subcommittee investigators’ published staff report, Judge Kessler made the following Finding of Fact at pages 4-5 of the federal district court decision,

 

Because early drafts of the Vision Document contained controversial recommendations, S. Scott Sewell, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks at the Department, took control of the drafting process in October [*5] of 1990. n1 It is fair to say that Plaintiff and Sewell had very different, and incompatible, views about the Vision Document. On March 21, 1991, Sewell, a political appointee, demanded that Plaintiff, a career Civil Service employee, be reprimanded for allegedly lobbying members of Congress in February of 1991, while attending briefings on the Hill with legislative aides and committee staff members to discuss activities in their area of interest. Upon investigating the serious charges made by Sewell, the Director of the Park Service concluded that Plaintiff had not been lobbying, had instead been engaged in appropriate informational activities, and that there was no basis for such a reprimand.

Judge Kessler ruled that Mintzmyer had been retaliated against by senior NPS officials because of her efforts -- by denial of the SES step increase (as the Subcommittee investigative report had found.)  Her voluntary retirement from the NPS, which was not addressed by the Subcommittee, did not constitute EEO discrimination.  Finally, in closing, Judge Kessler made special reference to the type of tactics employed against Ms. Mintzmyer -- and the officials who had been involved:

 

The incident involving security for President Bush was of an entirely different nature. It was offensive and deeply insulting to a loyal American who had spent her life in service to her government. It was unfathomable to the Court.

I am a park ranger and I agree entirely with the description of issues above.
But I guarantee you that I would never in a million years tell that to a visitor. That would be grossly unprofessional. I smile and tell them that I love my job. Even if the park service is broken, that doesn't mean I don't still endeavor to do my job- give visitors a rich experience that they leave impressed and happy with. If I tell them that NPS is badly run, they may write their Congressmen and say that the park is wasting money. And guess who will lose their jobs if budgets are cut? Not the supervisors are hurting morale. No, the lower rangers will. Like me.

"[size= 14px; line-height: 18px]Our senior "leadership" is dismal. Never in a 30+ year career has there been such shallow field experience at both WASO and in most of the regional offices. Regions have reverted back to the bloated entities that they once were and yes, jobs still get created out of thin air for the spouses of regional office employees. In the Intermountain Region only one of the senior leaders has any kind of recent field experience and many of them fail to even get out to at least one park a year. Is it any wonder these people lack credibility among park staffs?"  [/size]
[size= 14px; line-height: 18px]How can so much trouble follow a Superintendent guilty of all the above issues and still get his golden handshake and continue on in Environmental Politics?   I will pray for the individual that has followed in his footsteps catching the grief that was laid before him in an attempt to restore or erect something of character and value that would serve the US as it deserves.  Tall order and it won't be words alone.  I am hopeful in what I see in the individual's successor that I described.  [/size]

To the last two anonymous posters -- these words I clipped from this morning's NPS Digest still ring true for the vast majority of NPS personnel:

Today’s observation was made by publisher Alfred Knopf during his tenure as chairman of the Secretary’s Advisory Board on National Parks:
"It is hard to imagine more dedicated people than those who run the parks. 
I have never met a single one whom I would not be glad to meet again,
and I have invariable regretted the time to say goodbye.  The range of
their interests, their high intelligence, their devotion, make them a
separate and wonderful breed."

During my NPS years -- and throughout other jobs I held in my lifetime -- there were always some people who had no business being where they were.  But I discovered there was no point in letting them prevent me from doing the very best job I could do.  And there was also nothing stopping me from trying to do all I could to bring the attention of these people and their actions to other folks who might have been in a position to do something about them.  Sometimes it was very unpleasant and a couple of times I risked a lot of personal harm.  Sometimes I succeeded and sometimes I failed.  But I tried.

If it is bad enough, there is always PEER out there.  They might be able to help.  And they might not.  One of my law enforcement trainers said, "The hardest part of being a cop is learning to grit your teeth."  That's true in virtually any calling.  I wasn't an alcoholic, but the Serenity Prayer of AA is hanging on my wall.

So hang in there.  Keep trying.  Grit your teeth.  Say the prayer.  But never give up.  If everyone who cares were to give up, nothing would change.

What is the Safety and Occupational Specialists job like at NPS

The National Park Service is a terrible place to work. There is absolutely no career later unless you are part of the the NPS club. It is stressful work environment to balance a career and family life. There is absolutely no leadership training for advancement. Neopotism is ramped. It is a good place to work as seasonal to get some experience or if you are retired. But, I would not recommend anyone to work for the NPS full time, unless you can pay your mortgage or kids college tuition in sunsets. I would never let my kids work for the NPS as a career.