National Parks Traveler

Rita Beamish is a journalist based in San Mateo, Calif. She worked for The Associated Press in Los Angeles and in Washington, D.C., where she covered the White House during the George H.W. Bush administration, as well as politics and campaigns, foreign policy, and environmental policy. She is a former adjunct professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She launched her reporting career at California newspapers, the Ventura Star-Free Press and the Los Gatos Times-Observer.