David Vela announced Friday his departure from the National Park Service/NPS file

Editor's note: This updates with reaction from NPCA.

David Vela announced Friday that after 30 years in the National Park Service it was time to step down. His unexpected departure as de facto director of the agency was the latest upheaval the Park Service has endured under the Trump administration.

Vela told the Park Service workforce in an email that he was leaving.

"With the support of my wife of 40 years and my family, I have decided that it is time to hang up my flat hat for the last time within the month. In the coming days, Margaret Everson will be exercising the authority of the director," said Vela.

Everson comes to the Park Service from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, where she has served as principle deputy director since November 2018.

The change in leadership drew criticism from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

"The appointment of Margaret Everson as acting director of the National Park Service represents a further marginalization of NPS," Timothy Whitehouse, PEER's executive director, told Traveler in an email. "She is part of a rotating cast of characters at the Department of the Interior that allow (Secretary David) Bernhardt to maintain complete political control over the Park Service and reward those such as Everson who support using national parks as political props."

At the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks, Chair Phil Francis was surprised and disappointed by the news.

"It was great having a career NPS person in the job," Francis said of Vela, who also was the first Latino to reach the top of the National Park Service.

Vela's email cited no specific reason for stepping down, other than he felt it was time.

"Over the past 30 years, I have had the distinct privilege of wearing the 'green and grey' of the National Park Service while serving and protecting our nation’s most special places and all of the stories that they contain with you. One of the highest honors that I had was working with you and our beloved agency," he wrote. "Over this past year, we have endured some of the most challenging times in our agency's history from addressing a global pandemic to social and racial unrest throughout our country.

"Over the course of our 104-year history, we have never turned our backs on the challenges and opportunities facing the National Park Service," Vela continued. "And, we will not change our mission, who we are and what we fundamentally believe in as we embrace our operational realities in a second century of service.  However, I will not be continuing this journey with you."

National Parks and Conservation Association President and CEO Theresa Pierno thanked Vela for his service, but pointed out the Trump administration has lacked a Senate-confirmed Park Service director throughout its tenure.

“For more than three years, the National Park Service has been without a Senate-confirmed director, an agency whose 20,000 employees oversee 419 of America’s most treasured places — national parks, monuments, battlefields, military parks, historical parks, historic sites, lakeshores, seashores, recreation areas, scenic rivers and trails," said Pierno.

“Without a permanent, emboldened director, there’s no one to speak for our parks and park staff. And it’s our parks and public lands, and all who visit them that pay the price," she continued. "Our national park rangers, and the American people, deserve nothing less than a fully empowered leader approved by Congress to perform his or her duties to ensure the best protection and future for our national parks.”

Vela was the third individual to serve as de facto Park Service director under President Trump. While the president nominated him in 2018 to be the agency's director and he sailed through a Senate confirmation hearing, the full Senate never acted on his nomination and he was never renominated.

Mike Reynolds, a deputy under former Park Service Director Jon Jarvis, served as the agency's acting director through 2017. Early in 2018, then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke brought P. Daniel Smith out of retirement to serve as acting director, with Reynolds moving to Yosemite National Park as superintendent.

Smith stepped down in October 2019 and into a position as the Park Service's lead on the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, and Vela, at the time Grand Teton National Park's superintendent, was named to replace him. 

Now Vela is moving on.

"One of my favorite quotes is from President Theodore Roosevelt when he stated, 'People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care,'" he wrote. "It is my hope and prayer, that you will always know that my passion was always your safety and care.

"In my confirmation hearing to serve as director during the last Congress, I mentioned that you are 'the pride of the National Park Service.' I will never be able to adequately put into words how proud I am of you - whether a volunteer, seasonal or permanent employee. Whatever success I can claim in my over 30 years in the NPS is because of you - my colleagues. Thanks for the opportunity to serve on the front lines with you, and know that you continue to make me proud!"

Along with the frequent changes at the top of the Park Service, Interior officials forced changes at the agency's regional offices. In June 2018, Dan Wenk, superintendent of Yellowstone National Park, was told to move to Washington, D.C., to serve as director of the National Capitol Region of the agency with Cam Sholly, then director of the Midwest Region, succeeding Wenk at Yellowstone. Wenk declined and instead retired. 

At the same time, Interior officials moved Bert Frost, Alaska Regional director since 2014, to succeed Sholly in the Midwest Region after he balked at moving to Lake Mead National Recreation Area to be superintendent; Sue Masica, Intermountain Regional director in Denver since 2013, retired rather than be moved to another region; and Lake Mead Superintendent Lizette Richardson retired rather than take over Masica's position in the Intermountain Region.

"It’s not a good thing to do in terms of organizational health, in terms of morale," Francis said of the personnel moves at the time. "It’s not good to lose institutional memory. And it’s not a good thing to do at the end of people’s career.”

Everson has a track record with Republican administrations in Washington. Under President George W. Bush from 2006-08 she worked in the Interior Department as counselor to Dale Hall, then director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Margaret Everson will succeed David Vela as acting director of the National Park Service/USFWS

Prior to being appointed principal deputy director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, she worked in the solicitor's office at Interior.

Everson received a bachelor of science degree in biology with a focus in marine biology from St. Francis College before obtaining a law degree from Vermont Law School.