Washington, D.C. -- James T. (JT) Reynolds, former superintendent of Death Valley National Park and long-time National Park Service employee, has been elected to the Board of Trustees of the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA). The board is the governing body for the nonprofit, which is the nation’s leading voice for our national parks.

“For years, JT Reynolds has been a respected leader in the National Park Service, particularly in the areas of youth outreach and education,” said NPCA President Tom Kiernan. “We are extremely fortunate to have him join our board and will greatly benefit from his insights on national park management.”

For nearly 40 years, Reynolds has served a variety of roles for the National Park Service.  Most recently, since 2001, Reynolds served as superintendent at Death Valley National Park. Prior to his tenure there, he worked as deputy superintendent at Grand Canyon National Park and as superintendent at the Park Service’s Colorado Plateau Support Office. He retired in January of 2009.

Throughout his career, Reynolds worked to connect young and diverse individuals with our national parks. He developed programs to bring inner-city high school and college students to local parks; worked to make the parks more relevant to people of color; and instituted programs to recruit minority candidates to the Park Service. He fully supported the idea of embracing national parks as living classrooms, which was recently identified as a priority by the National Parks Second Century Commission.

In 2005, Reynolds received NPCA’s Stephen Tyng Mather Award for outstanding stewardship of our national parks.

Since 1919, the nonpartisan National Parks Conservation Association has been the leading voice of the American people in the fight to safeguard our National Park System. NPCA, its members, and partners work together to protect the park system and preserve our nation’s natural, historical, and cultural heritage for our children and grandchildren.

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