Rebecca Jacobs Resume

Bio: I have been an ANPR member since 2012 and am a current life member. I have worked for the NPS since 2011. I worked several years as a seasonal serving as a dispatcher and a protection ranger. I am now a permanent NPS LE Ranger at Dinosaur NM as the Lodore Area Ranger in Northwest Colorado. I have had the privilege of working in 12 different NPS units around the country in my career so far. I previously served on the ANPR Board in the Seasonal Perspectives position and was a contributing coordinator for the Sante Fe Rendezvous.

Platform: As Secretary I would strive to take good notes and communicate them to the Board and membership to the best of my ability. As I write this from the 9th World Ranger Congress in Nepal, I would also hope to coordinate with secretaries of other ranger associations to ensure ANPR members can benefit from other perspectives and experiences.

Education:
B.S. Parks & Recreation Resources Management concentration in Natural Resources Management; NCSU; 1979
Ranger Skills - 1981
FLETC -1984
USDA Executive Leadership Program - 2004

Bio: Seasonal Park Aid - CALO & KLGR; Park Tech./Interp.-KLSE; Park Ranger, VSRP - CALO; Lead Ranger then Chief Ranger - GWCA; Site Supervisor - FRHI/FONE; Superintendent - BOWA and HAFE. Acting assignments/details in the Office of Congressional & Legislative Affairs, EPA Chesapeake Bay Program Office and Acting Deputy Superintendent at INDE. Served on curriculum development team for NPS Fundamentals Program including visiting course coordinator and instructor. In 2016 I retired from the NPS, but continue to promote, protect and advocate for our national parks through work in the Coalition to Protect National Parks & ANPR.

Throughout my career I have been a member of the Association of National Park Rangers becoming a Life Member in the 1980s. I have served on the ANPR Board as the Training/Education Chair and served on the planning committees for two Ranger Rendezvous. In 2016, I served on the World Ranger Congress Planning Committee hosted by ANPR. Currently I am ANPR’s International Ranger Federation Representative preparing for our participation the up-coming World Ranger Congress in Nepal.

Platform: This year the current Board of Directors changed the name of the “Special Concerns” board member position to that of “Government Affairs” to better reflect the work of this group and to build upon their work going forward.

The Board would like to enhance ANPR’s visibility in promoting policies and activities that support the “ranger profession” (“ranger” being used in its broadest definition for all NPS employees) to NPS leadership at all levels including WASO, regions(areas) and parks. The work of this committee will be proactive in its non-partisan advocacy to the appropriate members of Congress and various congressional committees that work on national park and personnel issues. We will build channels of communications by providing information that would be helpful in the decision-making process. We will voice our concerns related to policy decisions as to their potential impact on the work of NPS employees. This committee with Board guidance will develop a purposeful focused strategy in selecting which issues to engage. We will also strengthen our current partnerships with other organizations like NPCA and the Coalition on issues of mutual concern, but also seek out new partners whose goals align with ours.

While no person can do it all, if elected, it would be my privilege to serve a the Board Member for Government Affairs in guiding ANPR’s development of an advocacy strategy, enhancing and building productive relationships supporting national parks and our employees and furthering ANPR’s commitment to our membership that ANPR is the “voice of the NPS Ranger”.

Bio: My name is Mel Poole and I reside in Thurmont, MD. I retired from the NPS in 2015 after a 37-year career that included assignments in maintenance, resource management, and superintendencies at CATO, GWMP, and GETT. I had one NCRO assignments and two with the White House Liaison Unit in addition to frequent interaction with Camp David during my CATO assignment. Incident management assignments included Kentucky, Florida, Louisiana, California, and Alaska.

I have served on the Maryland State Park Advisory Commission for twenty years. Since 2016 I have worked with the non-profit Friends of Maryland State Parks where I do legislative advocacy.

Platform: I want to support the President and the Board in raising the profile of ANPR by reengaging with the NPS Office of Legislative Affairs, DOI, and our national conservation partners to share ANPR priorities and understanding how we can support NPS initiatives. Helping ANPR formulate positions on its needs and issues is a major priority.

I’d like to help develop a series of ANPR leadership transition plans to guide changes in leadership for the NPS Director level and above so that our messages are well developed and consistently delivered over the long term and through multiple personnel changes.

Renewing and maintaining regular contact and working relationships with key Congressional leadership and their staffs on both appropriating and authorizing committees is the key to a strong legislative strategy. Keeping them informed on ANPR issues and current events and understanding the constraints of the legislative systems would be a top priority.

Raising the profile of the ANPR in the government affairs arena is important if we want to improve the legacy for the next generation of NPS staff and the parks they protect.

Bio: I am currently living in St. Paul, Minnesota and working for the National Park Service (NPS) at the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area (MNRRA). I began working for the NPS in the summer of 2016 (1 year after college). My first position was in the middle of nowhere: Bullfrog, Utah at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. I fell in love with conveying the mission and values of the NPS as an interpreter. Between summer seasonal positions, I spent my winters volunteering at different National Parks. I have worked at Capitol Reef National Park, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and Cape Hatteras National Seashore. I’ve literally traveled coast to coast for this job and could not imagine any other career!

Now, I am a Student Trainee Outdoor Recreation Planner at MNRRA. I am also pursuing a Master’s Degree in Parks and Recreation Management through Clemson University online. This position has presented a new challenge! It is less defined than my other interpretation roles. I was accustomed to putting on my uniform and directly serving the public everyday. Now, I work in headquarters and communicate with local governments and park partners. I’m using my previous park experience to integrate the frontline, visitor experience into our park’s planning processes. It is a Pathways internship position, and I hope it will be the beginning of a long career with the NPS.

Platform: I hope to serve on the ANPR Board as the Board Member for Seasonal Perspectives. After attending Ranger Rendezvous 42 as a Supernaugh Scholar, I could not believe my luck! I was given the opportunity to spend a weekend with innovative, knowledgeable, passionate park rangers. Within the first day, I felt inclined to become more engaged. I believe ANPR has the capacity to transition our agency into a new era. This era, our second century, will hopefully preserve our history and create sustainable, productive change through advocacy and education.

I believe that ANPR can advocate for seasonal access to retirement benefits, in a similar way that they advocated for seasonal health insurance. Many seasonal employees contribute years of service before becoming permanent, but this time does not count towards retirement. Secondly, ANPR can play a role in educating employees. If specific training was offered every year at Ranger Rendezvous, such as Audience Centered Experiences (ACE) interpretation training, Section 106 training, or Operational Leadership training, it would incentivize early to mid-career employees to attend. This opportunity would empower seasonal staff to seek out and obtain training that may not ordinarily be offered to seasonal staff.

Lastly, I believe that ANPR can perpetuate by increasing awareness among seasonals. Since ANPR no longer provides seasonal health insurance, it is not necessarily proposed as a resource to new employees. Through my experience as a seasonal for three summers working and three winters volunteering, I have cultivated a strong network of early to mid-career rangers. We all discuss hiring authorities, share seasonal experiences, and strategize about navigating the hiring process. This community and mentorship exists within ANPR and we had no idea. I believe that as a member of the Board, advocating seasonal perspectives, I can facilitate a mutually beneficial relationship between ANPR and seasonal employees.

Bio: Jennifer grew up in Killingworth, CT spending a large amount of time with her dog at the local state park, Chatfield Hollow. She graduated from the University of Connecticut, Summa Cum Laude, with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Anthropology and American Studies, with an English minor. Jennifer worked as an Archaeologist for the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and was lucky enough to work internationally in both Portugal and Israel. Jennifer worked for Connecticut State Parks before attending the Seasonal Law Enforcement Training Program at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, AZ. She completed two separate internships at Grand Canyon National Park and has worked seasonally as a Protection Ranger at Grand Teton National Park, Manassas National Battlefield Park, and Acadia National Park. She has returned to Manassas National Battlefield Park looking forward to the mounted horse patrol. Jennifer loves her family, especially her pit-mix pup, Babe, her niece and nephews, and all her family and friends.

Platform: I am running for the Seasonal Perspectives Board Member Position. I believe I am a good candidate for three main reasons-my experiences, my coworkers, and the future. My total combination of 29 months of work, thus far, have been filled with both positive and negative experiences across the spectrum of personal, professional, and social aspects of the work and life of a US Park Ranger. I believe I would be sensitive to the interests and concerns of prospective, current, and career-seasonal Rangers. I am honored it is my job to help protect the nation’s resources, visitors and my fellow coworkers. Knowing personally and working professionally with my Park Ranger coworkers, throughout all the division's, is a very important aspect of performing good law enforcement work and is one of the most important aspects of the job for me. I would like to be the voice of the issues important to all my fellow coworkers. On the cusp of a large wave of Ranger retirement, uncertainty with the longevity of the Seasonal Law Enforcement Academies, and the rapid, ever-changing pace of technology, work and life, I would like to gain wisdom from the Rangers before me and around me to pass along to future Rangers.

My father was a California State Park Ranger and I grew up in parks on the northern coast of California. After serving four years in the US Air Force and another four years attending California State University, Chico earning a Master of Arts Degree in Industrial Education, I began teaching at Bakersfield College.

My journey as a seasonal Park Ranger began in 1986 in the last class of the year at Santa Rosa JC Seasonal Law Enforcement Academy. Immediately after graduation I reported for my first NPS job as Little Yosemite Valley Ranger in Yosemite NP, a semi-backcountry station behind Half Dome on the Merced River. My wife and two-year-old daughter held volunteer positions as campground host in Lower Pines Campground, giving us a place to park our small motorhome. The following summer my now very pregnant wife, daughter and I moved to Kings Canyon NP because there was no family housing for seasonals in Yosemite. There we spent four very happy summers in Grant Grove where I worked as front country road patrol before moving on to Crater Lake NP so I could return to my first love as a backcountry ranger. That same year, because of my park service experience, I began teaching classes in Parks and Outdoor Recreation at Bakersfield College. We spent fourteen seasons in CRLA where, in addition to backcountry law enforcement, I became certified as a high angle rescue instructor, NPS boat operator and helitack. During that time two of my children worked for the park also and one of them began an NPS career there.

Sadly, in 2004 Crater Lake eliminated the backcountry district so to remain a backcountry ranger in 2005 I again moved, this time to Lassen Volcanic NP as Butte Lake Ranger. Approaching retirement from college teaching, I stopped working as a ranger after 2005 to concentrate on building our retirement home in Glide, Oregon, not far from our beloved Crater Lake.

While living in Glide I have stayed in contact with the NPS by volunteering in ski patrol, snowmobile patrol, backcountry assessment and working as fire lookout, all in Crater Lake. Of course, my NPS career daughter, who is now married to an LE Ranger, also keeps me close to the NPS family. We all know that once you are a member of that family, the ties do not break.

With my love for and knowledge of the NPS I feel I have a lot to contribute to ANPR. With my 20 years as a seasonal ranger I think I understand issues which seasonals face as well as the relationship between the park service and seasonal employees. I have a very high opinion of seasonal employees, their dedication to the service and their value to our parks and I would be honored to represent them.

In accepting the nomination for the position of Seasonal Perspectives, I believe I have a lot to contribute from both my life experiences in the private sector and in pursuing my dream of becoming a permanent Park Ranger with the National Park Service. Having recently completed my 24-months under the LMWFA, I know what it means to pursue a dream as a seasonal Park Ranger in Interpretation yet encountering roadblock after roadblock to finding answers to what I thought were simple questions. Not only can I empathize with what seasonal go through, I know how to persist in finding solutions. As an ANPR Board member I can put my intentions into actions.

I look forward to finding that elusive permanent job now that I am eligible under LMWWFA. However, it should not have taken two years of constant digging to come up with a confirmable explanation of how the 24-months of employment is calculated under the LMWFA. I believe I can help ANPR serve as a means to communicate information that should not be so hard to find. A quick glance at seasonal questions on facebook sites indicates how common this problem is. I believe I am the person to best serve the ANPR Board to address seasonal concerns and issues and that I have great perspective and understanding to represent ANPR members. ANPR can serve to improving the service in the National Park Service.

With prospects of 9-month seasonal positions now being discussed among managers and supervisors, it is imperative that ANPR lead the way to ensure re-hire authority is linked with such positions. Without it, it will put another roadblock for seasonals after their first year in such positions. It will create a new complication to supervisors and managers who will have to have the position posted each year as the previous year’s hire will not be eligible for faster, quicker re-hiring and very likely will incur the expense of new background checks each year for those new employees. Those rangers will need to be trained each year. Many seasonals may not even know that by accepting an attractive longer season position, they may very well be putting their following year opportunities into the USAjobs blender. I want to help fix those issues before it becomes another problem for managers to deal with.

Recently the Merit System Protection Board (MSPB) published a “Perspective” article entitled “Building on OPM’s Hiring Improvement Memo,” reinforcing some of the principles of OPM’s guidance, and providing a couple recommendations of its own.
“OPM’s recommendations will help move agencies in the right direction, but there are additional steps that agencies, OPM and Congress can take to ensure that agencies are able to hire the talent needed to deliver the federal government’s critical missions,” MSPB wrote. “To reform hiring, the federal government needs to go beyond the prior emphasis on faster and cheaper and concentrate on better.”

Like MSPB, ANPR can work with OPM and legislators to ensure re-hire authority with the 9-month seasonal which is a “better” practice that ANPR can strive for and that NPS with benefit from. There are many tasks for ANPR to do in advocating for Rangers from all disciplines in the NPS. The re-hire of the 9-month seasonal is just an immediate need.

I know most of you have not met me as I only joined ANPR a year ago. I expected to be in Everett, WA for Rendezvous 42. But after recently winning a laborious 4-year custody battle for my 8-year old son, I was not going to risk uprooting him to a new school of lesser quality. He’s been through enough turmoil. Therefore, while everyone was enjoying the Rendezvous that I so much wanted to be at, I instead found myself moving to a new residence. I did this for my son to benefit. You can expect a similar level of commitment to the ANPR Board so that ANPR members and NPS can benefit. I hope you will vote for me. I would like to meet you all at RR43 in Jacksonville, FL.

Bio: Jasmine Turner is a graduate of the University of North Florida who focused her degrees in History and English to learn about African-American history through an environmental lense. Her education assisted her as a Girl Scouts National Young Alumnae Volunteer from 2009 to 2011 where she consulted with the GSUSA National Board of Directors and Headquarters staff to encourage young girls of color to participate in outdoor recreation. These interests led to her undergraduate senior thesis about a Girl Scout camp that was founded by the African American community of North Florida that she presented to the Florida Historical Society at their Annual Meeting in 2012. In 2015, she became a living history reenactor for Fort Mose Historic State Park, the first free community of Africans in the continental United States. She was a Centennial Volunteer Ambassador for George Washington Memorial Parkway in 2016 and was hired as a Seasonal Interpretive Park Ranger at Arlington House, the Robert E. Lee Memorial and the United States Marine Corps War Memorial in 2017.

Platform: Over the past few years, I have listened to the stories of Seasonal Park Rangers about the negative treatment that they have experienced from park visitors, coworkers, and administration. For people who are committed to protecting our nation's natural and cultural resources, but yet receive no or little protection themselves, working in these conditions is demoralizing. As a board member of Association of National Park Rangers, I would work to find more resources to support the daily work of Seasonal employees so that they feel heard and recognized.

Tim Moore is a native of Brunswick, GA (yes for you LE folks he spent 18 years at Glynco). He earned a BA in American History and MA in Public History from American University in Washington, DC. He caught the park bug in 4th grade during an archaeology program at Fort Frederica NM and began volunteering there in high school. He first put on the green and grey for the National Mall and Memorial Parks during college as a SCEP Park Guide and has worked his way up to the Acting Site Manager of the Washington Monument and Old Post Office Tower. Tim loves traveling and typically roadtrips to Rendezvous. He’s been an ANPR member since his first Rendezvous in 2009 at Gettysburg and was the co-coordinator for the Santa Fe Rendezvous in 2016. You probably know him as that guy helping Nancy in Hospitality. Tim seeks your consideration for the Board Member for Professional Issues. As a mid-career employee, he’s experienced many of the efforts that go into new employee development but wants to see those efforts continued beyond the first couple years.

With over 25 years of expertise and substantial experience in building and maintaining effective professional relationships with senior leadership, managers, staff, stakeholders and partners. I believe that I am the ideal candidate for the Professional Issues position because I possess the skills and experience that transcend divisions, reaching all levels of the agency.

I bring a valuable perspective to professional development. I recently served as an Acting, Program Analyst for the National Park Service at the Department of Interior. This role required working closely with Congressional Affairs, various NPS Directorates, Regional Program Coordinators, Superintendents, staff across divisions, external partners, and stakeholders.

As a Park Ranger, I created strategic outreach opportunities, built and maintained partnerships with local private, public and charter, community groups, local, and state government. As the Volunteer and Intern Coordinator, I supervised, trained, provide technical guidance on career paths and served as a mentor resulting in permanent NPS careers and assisting with career paths. Creating transformational experiences for youth, individuals and groups,

Currently, as the Special Use Permits Coordinator, I am responsible for overseeing and coordinating more than 250 permitted programs, activities and events annually under the guidance of the applicable regulations, law, guidelines, title 36 of Code of Federal Regulations, NPS and regional area policies, legislation, and operational procedures. Working closely and independently to coordinate and communicate and resolved issues from resource protection, law enforcement, local municipalities, architects, engineers, vendors, contractors, and with technical expertise other staff.

As a collateral duty, I also implemented an Employee Reward Program at the park to encourage employees and supervisors to formally recognize great work and good deeds. The award program has been very successful in engaging, building and maintaining moral, as well as positively impacting and improving the working environment and culture.

My goal is to help the next generation of Park Rangers professional streamline their NPS career path, in expanding their professional network, offer resources for career development and build on their area of expertise.