The National Park Service Could Soon Have Its First Native American Director
Source: NPR
Charles "Chuck" F. Sams III could soon become the first Native American to head the National Park Service in the agency's 105-year history. Sams is an enrolled member of the Cayuse and Walla Walla tribes, which are part of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, and has decades of experience in land management.
The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources meets Tuesday to consider his nomination. The Biden administration nominated Sams in August, noting his leadership in state and Tribal governments, including as the former national director of the Tribal & Native Lands Program for the Trust for Public Land.
Sams' confirmation would bring change to an agency that hasn't had a permanent Senate-approved director in more than four years. The department has been helmed by a series of acting directors since the last director of the National Park Service retired in 2017.
Sams is a U.S. Navy veteran and lives on the Umatilla Indian Reservation with his wife and their four children. The announcement of Sams' nomination was met with celebration from Native groups as well as Sams' local community...
Read more: https://www.npr.org/2021/10/19/1047295006/charles-chuck-sams-national-park-service-native-american-director
- The Cascadia Advocate, Aug. 19th, 2021. Pacific Northwesterner chosen to lead the National Park Service by President Joe Biden.
Charles F. Sams will become the first Native American to serve as director of the National Park Service, serving under U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, herself the first Native American to head the federal government’s largest land management agency, if confirmed by the United States Senate.
Sams, an Oregonian, was nominated Wednesday by President Joe Biden, one of the few Pacific Northwesterners to be tapped so far for positions requiring the Senate’s consent in the administration. He is the former deputy executive director of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and presently a member of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council...
https://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2021/08/pacific-northwesterner-chosen-to-lead-the-national-park-service-by-president-joe-biden.html
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"Former national director of the Tribal & Native Lands Program for the Trust for Public Land."
