The National Park Service (NPS)
The National Park Service (NPS) manages all national parks, many national monuments, and a number of other conservation and historical properties. The agency employs just under 30,000 people from a broad range of backgrounds, including scientists, archeologists, historians, park rangers, and specialized firefighters.
BUDGET: Approximately $3 billion, with an estimated $12 billion maintenance backlog.
The National Park Service Agent at a Glance
POWERS OF ARREST? Yes for Parks Police and Protection Rangers.
EXPECTED TO CARRY A WEAPON? Yes for Parks Police, sometimes for Parks Rangers.
ACCESS TO FUNDS? Can be supplied with a credit line if traveling or on an investigation or mission, up to a Standard expense without eliciting official review
OPERATIONAL BUDGET/RESTRICTED ITEMS? An Agent in the field and from an appropriate career may use Bureaucracy to requisition specialized vehicles or camping/survival gear from a nearby office. Vehicles can include SUVs, boats, horses, swamp buggies, and hydroplanes. NPS employees operating in the field in areas of dangerous wildlife can request rifles. Those in science careers may to requisition monitoring equipment appropriate to their specialties, including cameras, audio recorders, tracking equipment, remote sensing equipment, and animal traps.
The Organization
Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the NPS manages locations of national interest. NPS is administered within the Department of Interior, along with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the USDA Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Under the NPS director are a number of deputy directors, including those for Congressional and External Relations, Management and Administration, and Operations. Operations is by far the largest subdivision, covering the day-to-day issues of running the agency. Within Operations are functional subdirectorates such as the Natural Resource Stewardship and Science Directorate, Park Planning Directorate, Facilities and Lands, Visitors and Resource Protection, and the Interpretation, Education and Volunteers Directorates.
Offices generally cover geographical areas or focused functional issues. Independent offices include the Alaska, Intermountain, Midwest, National Capital, Northeast, Pacific West and Southeast Regional Offices. Other offices are found under the direcorates, and include the Law Enforcement, Security, and Emergency Services Office in the Visitor and Resource Protection Directorate.
Key NPS Divisions
» Visitor and Resource Protection Directorate
Division of Fire and Aviation Management
(DFAM)
Park Police
Law Enforcement, Security, and Emergency
Services
∙ Investigative Services Branch
» Natural Resource Stewardship and Science
Directorate
Biological Resources Division
Natural Sounds and Night Skies Division
» National Capital Regional Office
» Southeast Regional Office
Operatives
NPS employs architects, police (Parks Police), historians, scientists (biologists, botanists, ecologists, and others), firefighters, support staff, and administrative personnel. NPS employs a relatively large number of scientists and history-focused professions. Many types of ecologists, botanists and biologists work for NPS, both at headquarters and in regional offices and sites. Archaeologists, librarians, and historians are also employed in high numbers in order to help preserve locations or items of significance. These professions are usually located in Washington, D.C.
“Park Ranger” is a broad term for a multi-faceted and diverse career path. Park Rangers are responsible for protecting state and national parks; the natural resources, ecosystems, and wildlife within them; and the people who visit them. Park Rangers serve as law enforcement officers, environmental experts, and public-facing historians.
Although some modern NPS Park Rangers perform law enforcement duties (“Protection Rangers”), the varied environments in which they work require competency in a variety of safety skills. Within the Law Enforcement, Security, and Emergency Services Office, the Investigative Services Branch (ISB) employs federal agents who focus on long-term or complex crimes committed on NPS land.
Wildland firefighters within the National Park Service contain and suppress major fires. Crews are differentiated between Type 1 (the most experienced, including elite “hotshot” crews), Type 2, and Type 3. Each crew consists of 18 to 20 men and women. Type 1 Wildlands Crews include Helitack crews, which deploy via helicopter to gain early control of a wildfire. They are supported by helicopters to lift loads, redeploy teams, and drop water and other fire retardants. The famed Smokejumpers (a Type 1 crew) do not normally work for NPS, but are loaned from the USDA Forest Service or the Bureau of Land Management during emergencies.
Authority and Mandate
NPS is charged with a dual role of preserving theecological and historical integrity of places of national importance, while also making those locations are available and accessible for public enjoyment. There are about 60 national parks, but the NPS manages over 400 “units”: entities that include monuments, battlefields, historic sites, and special wilderness preserves. The National Park System includes all properties managed by the National Park Service, and includes areas within American-administered territories like Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam and the Virgin Islands.
Field Operations
Many NPS careers come with a considerable amount of autonomy. Many of the field careers, like ecologists, biologists, and Park Rangers, spend many hours on their own within the parks.
Historians, scientists and archaeologists are expected to keep up with their disciplines and travel routinely within the U.S. and internationally to conferences and symposiums. They also travel to various parks and facilities that are in need of their expertise.
NPS employees travel overseas as speakers or as advisors to foreign governments and conservation societies. International technical assistance projects focus primarily on counties in close proximity to the U.S., such as Mexico, the Caribbean, Russia, and Canada.
Wildlands firefighter crews are deployed for months at a time. Their living conditions on assignments can be primitive. While in the field, daily work shifts can average sixteen hours, sometimes extending to 48–64 hours. Sleep deprivation and exhaustion are common.
Areas of Friction
Although all units of the National Park System in the United States are the responsibility of NPS, they are all managed under diverse pieces of authorizing legislation or, in the case of national monuments, under the Antiquities Act or special executive order. Each park can be administered differently. Some allow economic activity such as tourism or mining while others do not. That can create friction and resernment with local communities.
NPS has a strong relationship with its sister agency, the USDA Forest Service, despite the fact that the two often have overlapping areas of responsibility
Playing the NPS
You don’t happen upon a job at NPS by chance. NPS is composed of some very specific and coveted career paths. People who like the outdoors enjoy working at NPS. Computers and archives absolutely have their place, but that’s not why you sought this career. NPS tends to hire people that tend towards the meticulous. Even in muddy, dusty or downright dirty careers, there is a sense of propriety.
Because of its focus on locales and specific pieces of history, NPS instills a sense of ownership and parochialism in its employees. You see the world through the lens of the park or piece of history you protect. This is especially true for Rangers. A career as a Park Ranger means you are front and center in the public’s eye. There are only a relative handful of careers like Park Ranger, so you probably consider yourself quite lucky to do the work.
If you are a firefighter, you are one of the best of the best. You face some of the largest and nastiest fires anywhere in the world. Mortality is a very real threat. When it is go-time, you are at war with an inhuman, uncaring, voracious entity. During summer and autumn (fire season), you work long hours in austere environments for months on end. You know the importance of teamwork, since backup is either days away or simply does not exist. You have the scars to go toe-to-toe with any of the combat arms. The demands are intense. A stable family life is often not possible for NPS firefighters
Fewer than 40 ISB agents cover the entire United States. There are more Protection Rangers and Parks Police, but even their numbers are paltry compared to the FBI or Marshals. NPS has a dearth of resources. It lacks extensive IT or forensics support. Because of the remote nature of the work, there is little chance to call in reinforcements.
“Frontcountry” criminals do their deeds in places with electricity, a luxury the “backcountry” does not afford. ISB and Protection Ranger crime scenes are often at the bottom of steep cliffs or in the middle of rivers. The underfunding of the Park Service means that ISB Agents and Rangers often personally carry equipment through the backcountry, sometimes at night, in the rain or snow. Truth be told, that is part of the allure. You are part of a scrappy service that looks for you to take lead on the entirety of an investigation, from initial discovery to gathering and analyzing evidence, paperwork, and hopefully arrest. If there is a need for a long-term deep cover assignment, that is you, too. You do it all.
Suggested Professions
Park Ranger
Park Rangers are the front lines for NPS. They are expected to be jacks of all trades when it comes to law enforcement and security.
PROFESSION: Police Officer.
SUGGESTED BONUS SKILLS: Athletics, Navigate, Science (Ecology), Survival.
EQUIPMENT: Per TOOLS OF THE TRADE: FEDERAL AGENT
on page 85 of the Agent’s Handbook
Interpretive Ranger
Interpretive Rangers (also called “Cultural Rangers”) are public-facing rangers who spend equal times educating the public and protecting their site.
PROFESSIONAL SKILLS:
» Bureaucracy 50%
» First Aid 60%
» Forensics 50%
» History 60%
» HUMINT 60%
» Navigate 40%
» Persuade 60%
» Science (choose one) 60%
» Search 50%
» Survival 60%
BONDS: 2
SUGGESTED BONUS SKILLS: Firearms, First Aid,
Medicine, Survival.
EQUIPMENT: Uniform, badge, camping tools, a small library including books on the history of the area, survival techniques, and ecology, biology, and botany.
Investigative Services Branch (ISB)
ISB’s Protection Rangers have gone through extra training to investigate crimes and build prosecutable cases.
PROFESSION: Federal Agent.
SUGGESTED BONUS SKILLS: Athletics, Navigation,
Stealth, Survival.
EQUIPMENT: Per TOOLS OF THE TRADE: FEDERAL AGENT
on page 85 of the Agent’s Handbook.
Biological Resources Division (BRD)
BRD’s biological scientists and ecologists preserve the natural splendor of the national park system. BRD also uses its practical expertise to advise policy makers on how best to preserve history and natural locations.
PROFESSION: Scientist.
SUGGESTED BONUS SKILLS: History, Law,
Search, Survival.
EQUIPMENT: Scientific equipment appropriate to
your profession, survival and camping equipment.
Wildland Fire Division
NPS fire management includes hand crews, wildland fire modules, engine and helitack crews, as well as the elite hotshot firefighters.
PROFESSION: Firefighter.
SUGGESTED BONUS SKILLS: Athletics, First Aid,
Survival, Swim.
EQUIPMENT: Rugged and well-worn wilderness survival gear (tent, brush pants and shirt, food, back-country pack and harness, goggles and safety glasses, shovel, camelback, and water bladders). Firefighting gear includes Personal Protective Equipment (PPE: helmet, hood, pants, coat, gloves, boots, air pack/respirator, and air filter/mask), halligan bar, Pulaski axe, McLeod tool, multitool, infrared camera, forehead lamp, firepump/firedrip, a radio with a chest harness, an emergency fire shelter, climbing gear (pitons, pulley kit, lots of types of rope, helmet, a harness), and a well-stocked personal medical kit.
Federal Archaeology Program
Federal archaeologists identify undiscovered locations or items of significance and preserve or restore historical artifacts and locations.
PROFESSION: Historian.
SUGGESTED BONUS SKILLS: Archaeology, Navigate,
Search, Survival.
EQUIPMENT: Lots of aging books and camping gear.
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:47, Mon 22 Apr 2019.
