By Pat Jenkins
The Dispatch
Palmer "Chip" Jenkins Jr.’s long trek through the nation’s parks system is bringing him to Mount Rainier National Park as its new superintendent.
Jenkins, whose first job in a 31-year career with the Park Service was farther north in the Cascade Mountains, has been named by the National Park Service to replace former superintendent Randy King, who retired in January. Jenkins will start his new duties in March.
"Chip brings with him his years of experience working in the Pacific Northwest” and elsewhere, said Martha Lee, acting regional director for the agency’s Pacific West Region. “His leadership acumen and established rapport with many key partners in Washington will serve the park well.”
Jenkins began his career as a seasonal park ranger at North Cascades National Park, where he later served as a superintendent. He also has worked at parks in Colorado and Indiana, in Washington, D.C. as a special assistant to the Park Service director, and on some of the Park Service’s development and restoration projects, including expanding the Fort Clatsop National Memorial to encompass the Lewis and Clark sites along the Washington and Oregon sides of the Columbia River. At Yosemite National Park in California, he helped develop a regional transportation system.
Most recently, he has been the Pacific West Region deputy regional director. Based in Seattle, he has overseen the region’s park resource management and planning. He also supervises park superintendents in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. Since last March, Jenkins has been on temporary assignment to Yosemite as that park’s acting superintendent.
"In my current job, I’m often away from home. Mount Rainier has always been a beacon of sorts for me,” said Jenkins. “When I see it, I know I’m home. And now, that can’t be more true. I’m honored to have the chance to work with the people who make Mount Rainier a magical place.”
He said he is looking forward to exploring Mount Rainier and the surrounding area with his wife, Laurie Lee Jenkins, who also works for the Park Service, and his two sons – Hayden, a student at the University of Washington ,and Logan who is in high school.
King, an Eatonville resident, was Mount Rainier’s superintendent the past seven years before ending his career of 40-plus years in the Park Service.
Mount Rainier is the nation’s fifth-oldest national park, created by Congress in 1899. It encompass 235,625 acres, 97 percent of which is designated officially as wilderness. The rest is part of a National Historic Landmark district.
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