His name is Jon Jarvis, and it sounds like he has a long record of service in the national park system.

He has been an employee for the National Park Service for over 30 years. He is currently serving as the regional director for the Pacific West Region, where he is responsible for all 54 National Park System units and programs in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, Nevada, Hawaii and the Pacific Islands of Guam, Saipan and American Samoa. Jarvis oversees 3,000 employees with a $350 million annual budget.

Prior to this, Jarvis was the superintendent of Mount Rainier National Park in Ashford, Washington. He has also been the superintendent of Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho where his position required close coordination with local ranchers, the Bureau of Land Management, rural communities surrounding the National Monument and the Department of Energy.

He also served as the superintendent of Wrangell-St Elias National Park and Preserve in Copper Center, Alaska, which involved mining, aircraft, subsistence hunting and fishing rights, native villages as well as rural communities.

Earlier, Jarvis was chief of natural and cultural resources at North Cascades National Park for over five years, where he was the chief biologist of the 684,000 acre complex of two recreation areas and one national park.

Environmental and outdoors groups are mostly praising Jarvis’ appointment, the one blemish on his record involves a dispute over a privately owned oyster farm in California that operates in part within the boundaries of Point Reyes National Seashore. Jarvis was forced to apologize for criticism of a park service report that opposed the oyster operation, but that seems a small blemish on the career of a man who by all accounts is proactive in his advocacy for the health of the national park system. Good luck to Mr. Jarvis, and may the national park system fourish under his care.