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Hello everyone, myself and husbad are almost due to make career switches to park rangers. While he's interested in becoming a Law Enforcement Ranger, I'm interested in Interp. We are starting to apply for various jobs and the only rangers we know personally are all in Hawai'i and have held jobs there for a long time. It seems the information they are telling us may not be applicable on the mainland, as you may know Hawai'i can be a horse of a different color, so we are hoping to find and talk with someone through email or phone about some questions we have about transitioning into the field, what it's like having seasonal jobs as a career and info like training and housing, etc.
Are you or anyone you know a ranger of any kind that wouldn't mind sharing some wisdom and knowledge? Please let me know!
That book is great, but it's really not for answering logistical questions that we have. And we've talked and chatted up, even worked with many park rangers.
Some of the things that book will not answer, for instance? There are some mysterious unclear stipulations around 1039 positions and no ranger we've talked to can say if you can work multiple consecutive 1039's within the same department (for example a 1039 at Glacier, then immediately a 1039 at Yosimite) or if you have to go from 1039's bouncing from dept to dept, esspecially if you have a recurring 1039 at the same location as a season before, for the same season the next calendar year.
Some parks don't offer housing, other offer it under strict requirements, for law enforcement some require you use their housing to be on call. What are the guidelines for pets most of the time (i know it varies from location to location) and would it be reasonable most places to live and travel from job to job in an RV to cut out that mess where it's not required?
And as much as it's said the rules and procedures for all National Parks are the same, they are not administered that way all the time. The way the NP's in HI did things were a lot different from everywhere else, so it's safe to assume there are differences amongst parks on the mainland too. Then, of course most people who work in this field don't stick to just one department, but bounce between BLM, fish and wildlife, refuge's, etc.
I have 2 good friends in Florida who are both Park Rangers,one state one county, at this point they are both laid off due to budget cuts, you may want to explore the need for park rangers before throwing a lot of eggs in this basket..
I'm not a ranger, but I dated one. Does that count?
National park ranger is very different from state park ranger. 50 different states are going to be 50 different ways for state park ranger.
Either way, there are very few permanent positions. Most rangers are seasonal. Pay is very low because there is a huge waiting list of people who want to get on and are willing to work for nothing. Generally, they hire people with a minimum of a bachelors degree in a natural science that can be applied to their park (biology, geology, zoology, etc)
Housing is provided in remote locations, but it is pretty primitive. At some of the parks the temp rangers are in shared dorms. Pets are probably a separate issue in each park, so you'd have to ask. I suspect they could be a problem, since they don't fit into the lifestyle and most parks do not allow pets on the trails.
You are looking at a "dream" job for a lot of people so a lot of competition from very qualified people willing to work for nothing.
Additional note: I worked as a volunteer at Catoctin National Park and the park administrator and one ranger were the only full time positions and that is a park that is open and used heavily all year round. All other labor was volunteer.
I understand it's seasonal and low pay (seasonal is actually preferred for us!), none of that is new to me as I am not new to the parks system. I've been a volunteer myself for 8 years and I am not haphazardly putting my eggs in one basket. Though I appreciate the concern, there are still many jobs available, even many with 20 plus postings for some single locations. I think I'm understanding that a public forum may not have been the best forum for questions like these. Thanks though, I appreciate your responses.
Location: SF Bay Area /on the banks of Waikaea Canal
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Galactastica
I recognize your moniker, Oregonwoodsmoke and Eureka1 from the Hawaii threads...my mother and her family were born and bread on Kaua'i.
I finished up a very profitable 32 year career with the federal government. The last 12 years were with the National Park Servicce, before that I split the prior time with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, Forest Service and seasonal time with the Bureau of Land Management.
Of all the agencies I worked for NPS was by far the "oddest duck." Now I will admit to you I only worked at the same park , in the same region for those final 12 years before I retired. I thought the agency had a very pompus attitude about itself - something that bothered me. With those other agencies (BLM, FWS, FS) the unit's manager may have had a pompus attitude about themselves but I noticed the NPS agency as-a-whole had a very conceded attitude about themselves.
As far as the 1039 rule, that attitude seemed to come into play. When I worked for the NPS the 1039 rule was interpreted by HR however they wanted to interpret it. This was frustrating for me as I was a high level management staff officer at the park yet HR was able to decide what 1039 hours meant. With the other agencies I worked for there was a Region-wide definition of what constituted 1039 hours and there was a trend to allow the seasonal employee to benefit from the 1039 rule. For instance if I completed a full 1039 hours as a Park Aide (Entrance Station) GS-4 during the summer and I was able to find a job within the park on the Trail Crew at a different grade level (ex., WG-3) during the winter the other agencies would allow me to start another1039 hour period. With the park I worked at this was not allowed...don't ask me why because HR was able to set the rules as they wanted to interpret it (so frustrating).
As far as park housing went this was also another frustrating point. Housing was based on a "lottery system" but I couldn't help but notice there were always "exceptions being made." In addition to this housing rent was based on the average cost of housing in the local area. This was a scam because if the local housing was expensive then the park housing was expensive. The park housing we had was really bad (leaking, dry rot, etc.) yet those folks that were in park housing had to pay what was the locals had to pay (and the locals had some nice houses). Oh by the way HR was overseeing the park employee housing program...
As far as LE Rangers go I always thought of them as kind'a odd. They always seemed so "cop-ish." I worked with a few LE Rangers that started in the 70s and 80s and they were pretty cool folks (what we called "old-school rangers." The younger ones I worked with the last few years seemed to be more "cops" than park ranger (they were alway so into their firearms and drug interdiction training). If your husband hasn't already done so he might benefit from paying his own way to an accredited Seasonal Law Enforcement Ranger Academy so he'll be more competitive when applying for entry-level LE Ranger positions.
Finally with your extensive volunteer time I am surprised you aren't more competitive for a Visitor Center position at HAVO. I had the opportunity to lateral over to HAVO if I had wanted to continue working beyond my 32 years but choose to hang it up instead.
As I do somewhat miss this type of work in retirement I have applied for Entrance Station Ranger positions with my local park district this summer! As I had been working in upper management all these years it will become a relief to just work in a lower level summer job with no supervision, budgeting, resolving employee conflicts, not dealing ith 1039 hour issues for my seasonal employees, park housing complaints, etc...
You should be able to find information from various websites. Check out officer.com forums which will likely have some stuff (maybe dated) on LE specific positions. There is a federal LE forum at officer.com that you might be able to join and post in. I have been interested in the position in the past and things seem to change. I noticed that originally you could just be hired. Not sure what federal academy they sent you to, but that was how things were done from what I recall. Then maybe ten or so years back, I looked on-line and found out they had some sort of academy you had to attend first, then you were hired. I read a few messages about how you can be "full-time" at first, but you will never been full-time at one park for a while. Stuff I read was that you might get assigned to areas with few visitations during the winter months, and they you had to put into transfer if you wanted the more popular parks like Yellowstone, Glacier, GSMNP, etc.. Once the busy tourist seasons were over, off you went to somewhere else. I recall that it took some time to get permanently assigned to one of these areas. Please keep in mind, this was stuff I recall about being a law enforcement ranger, things might be different for the non-LE positions.
I did read something about being seasonal at first (read part-time), then maybe full-time between parks, then finally getting full-time at some of the parks that are more seasonal than others. Also, look into other similar jobs on USAjobs website. Even the Army Core of Engineers have rangers. The jobs seem to be for individuals/couples with no kids, who don't care to move around a lot for many years before finally landing a full-time position.
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