JACKSON, Wyo. — Former Grand Teton National Park superintendent and current acting National Parks director David Vela last week announced his plans for retirement.
It was a short 10-month run for Vela as the head of an agency that has been in turmoil since President Trump took office. Vela was nominated by the president for the top spot of the NPS but the Senate never got around to voting on him. Since then, the Park Service has gone through four directors, finally settling on Vela to serve as the interim director. Now that’s over.
Vela, a 30-year career veteran of the National Park Service, announced last week he was retiring.
“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 in the coming month,” Vela said in an internal email to NPS employees.
Margaret Everson, current principal deputy director of the Fish and Wildlife Service and a counselor to Interior Secretary David Bernhardt takes over the post beginning tod’ay.
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,” Vela stated is his farewell email. “Over the course of our 104-year history, we have never turned our backs on the challenges and opportunities facing the National Park Service, 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.”
