The National Park Service has selected Jane Rodgers to serve as the superintendent of Joshua Tree National Park.
She began as the head honcho of 140-employee park staff on August 13.
Rodgers is a 1990 graduate of the University of California, Berkeley. She obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in forestry there before she joined the U.S. Peace Corps and was posted to the Republic of Niger.
After having returned stateside, in January 1994 Rogers went to work for the National Park Service, specializing in restoration ecology and landscape-scale conservation. From 1994 to 2003, she worked as a biologist at Joshua Tree National Park. From February 2003 until October 2008, she was an ecologist at Point Reyes National Seashore. She was the deputy chief for science and resource management at Grand Canyon National Park from October 2008 until October 2016. She returned to Joshua Tree in October 2016 as the chief of science and resource stewardship, remaining in that post until February, when she was made the acting superintendent upon Superintendent David Smith’s departure. Rodgers lives proximate to the National Park headquarters in Twentynine Palms with her wife, Kate Peterlein.
Rogers said she was conscious that she was being privileged to serve as the park’s first woman superintendent.
“With the park’s leadership team, I am looking toward further meaningful exchange and communication with the 15 Serrano, Chemehuevi and Cahuilla tribal communities whose traditional homelands extended to this section of the Mojave,” she said, referring to the tribes and local population as “partners in the management of the park.”
Joshua Tree National Park is host to 3.1 million guests annually, including ones from within California, across the nation and international travelers.