The Point Reyes National Seashore will have its first ever full-time deputy superintendent starting next week. Anne Altman, a Fairfax resident and 20-year National Park Service veteran, most recently served as a business management analyst for the agency. Ms. Altman will help strengthen the business and administration side of park management, while Superintendent Craig Kenkel will continue to focus on public-facing matters like planning, interpretation and education, the superintendent said.
“It’s going to be fun for me at Point Reyes to put some of my theoretical management consulting experience into practice,” Ms. Altman told the Light.
Superintendent Kenkel said a closer look at the park’s commercial services, including ranching leases and concessions, will be a key element of Ms. Altman’s work. “How we’ve been managing leases and holding leaseholders accountable is something that has been scrutinized by the community,” Superintendent Kenkel said. “This will really strengthen our oversight of those agreements.” He added that Ms. Altman would make sure that the park’s leases and commercial use authorizations are “smart financially for us.”
Though the park once had an assistant superintendent, there has never been a deputy superintendent. But after Superintendent Kenkel arrived last year, he initiated a search for one. Commercial uses like agriculture and concessions like the Five Brooks Horse Camp generate important park revenue that can cover their associated expenses, he said, but the park needed a dedicated person to manage those agreements. “We’re making pretty significant decisions that involve money and staff,” he said. “Someone at that level advising us, sort of like a C.F.O. or a C.O.O., was missing.”
Ms. Altman will also oversee resource protection and facilities, taking over the management of septic maintenance, water monitoring and commercial lease agreements, which have become flashpoints in debates over the future of agriculture in the seashore. “I don’t want to say Anne will be looking at back-of-house stuff, because when things go awry, it becomes front-of-house stuff,” Superintendent Kenkel said.
The new position will give him more time for long-range planning and work with regulatory bodies like the California Coastal Commission. The ranching debate has also charged those matters: the park’s planning processes have drawn lawsuits by environmental groups and the commission has decried the park’s water quality strategy amid concerns over contamination caused by cattle.
Ms. Altman, who was born in St. Louis, Mo. holds an environmental science degree from Stanford University and a master’s in business administration from the University of California, Davis. She brings a wealth of experience with the commercial side of national park management, having worked on the business and management side of Bryce Canyon National Park and Rocky Mountain National Park before serving as the chief of commercial services for the Pacific West Regional Office from 2004 to 2013.
Though concessions and commercial tour operators are widespread in the national park system, agricultural uses are less common. Just a handful of park units, like Capitol Reef National Park in Utah and Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve in Washington, still permit grazing operations. And only Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio, which Superintendent Kenkel formerly led, allows full-fledged farming.
“The scale and scope of Point Reyes ranching is a little bit unique,” Ms. Altman said, “but it is written into the park’s enabling legislation. It’s a little bit of a unique challenge.”