A Conversation with the Smokies' Chief Ranger
Originally from the mountains of Pennsylvania, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s new chief ranger, Daniel “Boone” Vandzura, grew up hunting, fishing and nurturing a love for the outdoors.
After 15 years at Yellowstone National Park, where he started as a fee collector and finished as emergency services director, Vandzura made the move to North Carolina in 2015, serving as chief ranger of Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Wright Brothers National Memorial and Fort Raleigh National Historic Site. Last summer, he arrived in the Smokies, taking on the challenge of the chief ranger job of the country’s most visited national park. Vandzura leads the park’s Visitor and Resource Protection Division, which includes law enforcement, wildland fire, emergency medical services, search and rescue, backcountry operations, lands and rights-of-way office, and the emergency communications center.
What brought you to the Smokies?
Me and my family, we’re mountain people. We liked to hunt, hike, and camp, and we love the mountains, whether it’s being out on the trail and being along the streams or looking at the wildland flowers or the wildlife. Our happy spot is being in the mountains, and I’m excited to be back here. It’s a wonderful location, just rich history and culture. It’s just amazing.
What does your job entail?
I directly supervise seven folks, and overall approximately 95-100 staff members. It’s a wide portfolio. Whether it’s the leaf season in the fall, whether it’s fireflies, whether it’s search and rescues, whether it’s spring and the bears being out, every day is different, and that’s a wonderful aspect of the job. It’s day-to-day operations, and then overall planning for the park. One is the division that I run, the Resource and Visitor Protection Division, and then the other important aspect is being on the park’s management team, so as to have influence of the overall operation of the park so as to preserve and protect it and make the right decisions for the folks that are coming to visit here 30 years from now. I can’t do this job alone, meaning it’s all of our partners that we work with. We’re all in this together, and so working with partners is another big aspect of what I do. It’s reaching out to all of them so that we can communicate and work together.
Which of those varied aspects do you enjoy the most?
I enjoy helping people, whether that’s the visitors and just being out and talking to them when they’re having their wonderful experience where this is the first time they’re coming to the Smokies and they’re just so excited to be here. So that fills up my cup. Or it’s helping staff members so as to give them the confidence and the ability to be able to do their job, or it’s assisting them with projects to be able to get projects accomplished for the betterment of the visitors or the efficiency of the staff. Or helping people in the worst day of their life, whether it’s a search and rescue or medical incident or a motor vehicle accident. I told my kids, helping people, that’s what Daddy does all day long, is helping people.
It’s been a year since the Smokies started charging a fee for parking. How do you expect to see funds from that program impact your division?
The Park It Forward money has already helped us, meaning we’re filling positions and folks are coming. We have more folks still arriving in our Preventative Search and Rescue positions. So that’ll help out, being the people that are out on the ground, talking to folks on the trails or in our parking lot and answering their questions about hiking in the backcountry. It’s very exciting to be able to be filling these positions and bringing the staff here that is already having wonderful impacts on people that are out using the resource.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.