Mike Ward selected as VNP superintendent

NPS Report

Mike Ward has been selected as the new superintendent at Voyageurs National Park.
Ward, now superintendent at Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site in St. Louis, Mo., will report for his new assignment on Aug. 17. He follows former Superintendent Kate Miller, who retired from service earlier this year.
Ernest Quintana, regional director of the National Park Service's 13-state Midwest Region, said Ward has proven himself to be an effective leader and will be a real asset at Voyageurs.
“Mike has had the unusual experience of seeing a new park enter the system and moved to completely developed and operational during his tenure at the Grant site,” said Quintana in a news release. “His strong background in park planning and developing park partnerships will serve him well in this new assignment.”
Ward says he looks forward to leading Voyageurs. “I am honored to have the opportunity to work at such an incredible national park full of fabulous resources and opportunities to experience these wonders,” he said of his new assignment. “My family and I look forward to becoming new members of the community at International Falls and the surrounding area and I look forward to working alongside those communities toward our common goals.”
Ward’s first experience working for the National Park Service came through participation in the Youth Conservation Corps at Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield, Ill., in 1983. His interest sparked, he served as a seasonal employee at the park until he landed his first permanent assignment as maintenance worker at Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site in 1992. He became site manger at the park in 2002, and was promoted to superintendent in 2005.
While working at Ulysses S. Grant NHS, Ward developed, trained and led a maintenance/restoration team which performed work on four historic structures at the park and on projects throughout the Midwest Region, most notably at Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve and Nicodemus NHS in Kansas, and at Harry S. Truman National Historic Site and Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield in Missouri. His efforts led to his being named a co-recipient of the Director’s Cultural Resources Award in 2000. During his tenure at Ulysses S. Grant NHS, Ward was also named co-recipient of the 2002 John Wesley Powell Prize for Preservation from the Society for History in Federal Government. The restoration of Whitehaven, Grant’s home at the site, was judged to be an outstanding contribution to furthering history in the federal government.
Of his work at Ulysses S. Grant NHS, Ward said: “Today, visitors to Ulysses S. Grant NHS have the opportunity to experience a real life setting combined with a world class museum that tell the Grant’s story within their time period of American history. We achieved this through a combined effort of the park service staff and assistance from partners across the nation and from within our local community.”
An Illinois native, Ward studied political science and architecture before embarking on a career of public service. He and his wife, Betsy, have two children, Connor and Libby. They enjoy outdoor activities, sports, music, culture and the arts. All say they are looking forward to experiencing the great outdoors at Voyageurs.
Authorized in 1971, Voyageurs National Park’s 55-mile northern boundary was a portion of the historic water route of voyageurs, French-Canadian canoe men involved in the fur trade. The park represents some of the oldest exposed rock formations in the world. Bedrock has been shaped and carved by at least four periods of glaciation, and the topography of the park is rugged and varied: rocky outcrops are interspersed between bogs, beaver ponds, swamps, more than 500 islands, small lakes and four large lakes. In the years since the last glaciation, a thin layer of soil has been created which supports the boreal forest ecosystem of Voyageurs National Park.