What do park rangers actually do? And how can you get involved? Tune in as we – Yellowstone park rangers Jake, Brett, Miles, and Ashton – introduce the park's brand-new podcast, "What We Do."

A tip for our listeners: If you want to work for the National Park Service, start by creating an account on USAjobs.gov, building your resume, and searching for open positions within the NPS. Visit go.nps.gov/WhatWeDoPodcast for more info.

Stay tuned for more episodes featuring park employees beginning March 20!

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Jake: From Yellowstone National Park. This is what we do. Hey, everyone, and welcome to the What We Do podcast. I'm Jake Frank. Our team of four will be interviewing ten people over the next ten weeks to take you behind the scenes to share stories from people who work for the National Park Service in the world's first national Park. So, first things first. Hi, team. How's everybody doing?

Ashton and Brett: Hey Jake!

Miles: Awesome.

Jake: Why don't we do some quick team intros? So, if we do, let's say your name, your title, or maybe your division. How long you've been in Yellowstone, what your favorite hobbies, ha no. And maybe if there's any other parks you've worked at. Miles?

Miles: All right. I'm Miles Barger. I'm the publications program manager here at Yellowstone in the Division of Resource Education and Youth Programs. I've been in Yellowstone for about three years this time around. I worked here earlier in my career as well. And I've also worked at Denali National Park and Black Kane of the Gunnison National Park and at Harpers Ferry Center. You can look that up if you want to know what it is.

Jake: Brett, what about you?

Brett: Yeah. So, I'm the newbie here. I've only been in Yellowstone for about two years so far. Before that, I was at Shenandoah National Park for 12 years, and I'm the digital media specialist here, which basically deals with the website social media, the NPS app and digital exhibits in the visitor centers. Ashton how long have you been here?

Ashton: Well, Yellowstone's actually my first park, and I've been here for about four years now as digital communications specialist for the superintendent's office. So, working on similar types of things, as Brett said, social media and the like. So, what about you, Jake?

Jake: I'm the I'm the old guy here, apparently. I've been here a little less than eight years, got here in 2016. I've worked at a handful of parks. I started in the Tetons and then went to Glacier, then Carlsbad Caverns, then up to Denali. Miles woot woot!

Miles: Yeah.

Jake: And then worked for Rocky. Also, Miles! Woot woot!

Brett: So, Miles has been following Jake.

Miles: Yeah, I’ve been following Jake.

Jake: And then Yellowstone. And then I got my first permanent job in Glacier doing media and then came here permanently. I also am a digital communication specialist like Ashton. I also work in the superintendent's office with Ashton, but it seems like everybody here on the team are all involved in media, web, social photography, videography, kind of everything podcasting. Now our resume is getting longer the longer we're here. So that's good stuff. Yeah. So now they know who we are. Let's give you some of the highlights of the park. So as far as the employees and the money. Yellowstone has about 750 employees each year and 350 of those are year-round permanent employees. And in addition to our paid staff, we also have about 450 volunteers that help with various things throughout the park. We have a federal appropriation, so the money that we get from Congress, you know, when a budget's passed is around $40 million, but it takes at least double that to operate the park each year. So, I think last year it was around $81 or $82 million. And, you know, if you're a budget person, you're like, how does it work, you know, to run a park on 80 million if you only get 40 million? And basically, we make up the difference through other revenue streams, like, you know, when you come to the park and pay an entrance fee or if you're a commercial, the if you are a commercial tour operator in the park. And then we also have philanthropic donations. So, people who donate to the park or our nonprofit Yellowstone Forever and all that money is not even including the major infrastructure project dollars, because some years with projects included, we spend upwards of like $125 million each year.

Miles: Yeah, and let's talk about Yellowstone's resources. Yellowstone itself is a pretty big park for 2.2 million acres, not the largest park in the lower 48. I think we're Second Death Valley is 3 million or something, but we are pretty big. 2.2 million acres. And even more than that, Yellowstone is at the heart of the surrounding area, which is known as the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, which is, you know, if we didn't have these made-up, straight-line boundaries of the park, it's where our wildlife migrate and where we share a lot of our processes and things like that. So, it's a huge area geologically speaking. Yellowstone is an active volcano, and it sits atop a cooling magma chamber and when water's heated by the cooling magma chamber, we get hydrothermal features like geysers and hot springs. So that's it's a wildlife and those are what we're most famous for in the geysers. And hot springs are what Yellowstone stone was originally set aside to protect. And Yellowstone is actually home to 10,000 hydrothermal features and over half the world's active geysers.

Brett: Yeah. So, if the volcano goes off, will be the first to let you all know.

Miles: I don't think we'll be able to let them know.

Brett: We'll broadcast live as soon as that happens, to let you guys know. So, make sure you subscribe so you can find that out. Yeah. So, Miles talked about wildlife. Obviously, if you want to see wildlife and those predator prey relationships, Yellowstone is one of the best places in the world to see some of those interactions play out. So, you know, we got wolves, we got grizzly bears, we got cougars, we got bison, elk, bighorn sheep, even wolverines, which I haven't seen. But hopefully fingers crossed I will soon all sorts of wildlife. But it's also this is super, a super special place because of the history. So wherever 10,000 years before Yellowstone became the first National Park, which happened in 1872, it was a place where American Indians lived and hunted and fished and gathered plants and quarried obsidian and use the thermal waters. And even today, there are 27 Tribes with historic and modern connections to the land and resources within the area that we now know as Yellowstone.

Ashton: Yeah, and in addition to Tribal history, Yellowstone is also home to a combined 25 historic sites, landmarks, and districts on the National Register of Historic Places. There are a lot of really neat, historic buildings and landmarks and things like that all throughout the park. So, we have a lot of cool, natural and cultural resources, and that's what brings a lot of people to visit the park. On average, we receive about four and a half million visits every year, and about 95% of that is in a six-month period between May and October. So, a lot of visitation in the summer, not so much in the winter, but I think that's the best time to visit. In my personal opinion.

Jake: I concur. Yeah, winter is pretty awesome.

Ashton: A report showed that tourism, the Yellowstone contributes about 6,000 jobs in our gateway communities. So those are the communities that exist just outside the park at all our entrances and about $600 million to the local economy in 2022. That's a lot.

Jake: That is a lot of money.

Miles: A lot of money and a lot of people. And so, we, of course, have to have all the infrastructure that you need for all that huge amount of people. And because of that, we have tons of stuff in the park. Of course, we have well over 400 miles of roads. We have lots of lodging, buildings, places to eat, bathrooms of horse trails, all sorts of stuff. And our portfolio of all that stuff totals over $4 billion worth of infrastructure.

Jake: Billion with a B?

Miles: Billion. With a B.

Jake: Wow, that's a lot.

Miles: Roads, bridges. Then there's the things you don't even think about, like water and wastewater systems, of course, campgrounds, hotels. Then there's all the employee housing and all the facilities needed for the employees. So, we're basically our own little mini state up here. Since 2020, we have invested over $1.5 billion with a B into improving Yellowstone's infrastructure. For you and also for future generations of visitors. And there's even more projects in the pipeline.

Brett: Yeah, so that's a lot going on. And obviously we can't manage all that alone. So, you know, we rely a lot on tribes, elected officials, nonprofit groups, local communities, states, other federal agencies. They all help us to take care of Yellowstone. And, you know, when you think of Yellowstone National Park, you think of the natural features, the cultural features. But there's also really important things like hotels, restaurants, gas stations, general stores, and our concession partners are all of those. And our nonprofit partner, Yellowstone Forever, offers educational programs and runs the park stores as well, the bookstores that you see at the visitor centers. So, they also support the park through philanthropic dollars that are really important to us.

Ashton: Yeah. So, as you can see, there's no shortage of things to talk about when it comes to Yellowstone. We could go on and on probably all day. There's a lot to talk about and there's a lot of content about all this stuff and more on natural and cultural resources in the park. And you can find a lot of that information on our park’s website, which is nps.gov/YELL.

Jake: Yeah, and, and then, you