Rarely does a job ad cause so much consternation.
The National Park Service announced recently on the federal government's job Web site that it is looking for a "special assistant to the associate director, tourism."
The job description said the person would act as a "liaison between the NPS and the tourism industry." The job requires candidates to be able to "expand tourism programs that promote private sector support of the NPS mission." Qualified applicants should have "knowledge of all aspects of the tourism industry." And, it said, they must be able to "teach the practices, operations and expectations of the tourism industry to NPS management."
The job would last two years, although the term could be extended. It is at the upper end of the civil service ladder -- GS-15 -- with a salary of $103,947 to $135,136.
Some national park watchdog groups have been reading the ad like tea leaves, nervously wondering whether all those references to the tourism industry and the private sector indicate where the department is headed in President Bush's second term.
Many were critical of his administration's management of the system during the first term, accusing it of cozying up to private interests. The groups fought back, for example, when the administration decided to allow snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park. They protested when it allowed the National Football League, Pepsi and other corporations to use the Mall in 2003 to promote the beginning of football season. They questioned the agency when it announced early last year that it had inked a promotional deal with the Travel Industry Association of America.
Now, some are reading the ad as evidence that the National Park Service plans to give private interests a permanent seat at the agency's policymaking table.
"It's pretty clear they want to push that [working with the tourism industry] more and harder than it's ever been done before," said Bill Wade, a former superintendent of Shenandoah National Park who now heads the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees.
Wade fears the agency and the industry will attempt to drum up attendance at the parks, despite the service's budget woes and struggles to maintain its current services. "It's a bad situation to be, on the one hand, trying to recruit more visitors and then, at the same time, have less of a capability to take care of those people or protect or respond to emergencies," he said.
Others worry the tourism industry will use the post to press for more events akin to the one on the Mall. "We're afraid of growing corporate sponsorship of national park events," said Jeff Ruch, executive director of the advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
The agency scoffed at the complaints, and Park Service spokesman David Barna said the position is not new.
"It's so we have a better understanding of the needs of the travel industry, and we're not apologizing for that," Barna said. "The travel industry brings tens of millions of visitors our way every year and if we can make those people's visits a better experience, then that's what we should do."
Edie Shean-Hammond, the agency's acting director of tourism, said the position would also help steer visitors to the lesser-known parks.
"Most people think of the national park system as the 'Y' Parks: Yellowstone, Yosemite and the Grand Canyon," she said. "This is a way to encourage them to visit the whole national park system."
