From VIP to NPS

I received this letter over the weekend from Jay Satz, Regional Vice President of SCA:

Hello Colleagues,

I thought you would all enjoy seeing this photo shot by Kristin Mitchell of four year SCA alumnus Jaya Ghosh (Seattle Conservation leadership Corps, 2005-2008), in uniform this summer as an NPS interpretive ranger at North Cascades National Park.

Jaya participated in four years of our academic year program and spent her summers at Mount Rainier (twice, one as an apprentice crew leader), Hopewell Furnace NHS and the Glennallen Resource District (BLM) near the northern slope in Alaska. Along he way she also applied and received a City of Seattle grant for trail repair in one of Seattle’s city parks, presented on her Mount Rainier Recovery Initiative experience with two of her peers at Earth Vision and the Northwest Wilderness Conference and was a keynote speaker at Seattle’s Fiftieth Anniversary celebration and our kick off Earth Day event, sharing the dais with Mayor Nickels and Congressman Inslee.

It's always gratifying to see a "graduate" of volunteer service with the National Park Service get to put on the green-and-gray! In fact, many, many of us who have careers with NPS began as volunteers, often with SCA. I, myself, first worked as a volunteer at the South Rim Visitor Center at Grand Canyon National Park. I crossed paths with Jaya several times during the two summers she worked here, and am not surprised that North Cascades picked her up as an employee the first chance they got. Congratulations, Jaya!