Announcements
National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis, Honorary ASLA, has appointed Daniel N. Wenk as superintendent of Yellowstone National Park. Wenk, who has served as the agency’s deputy director of operations since 2007, will take the helm of the world’s first national park in early 2011. The 35-year NPS career veteran replaces Suzanne Lewis, who is retiring from the post she has held since 2002. |
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“Dan is a superb manager, well grounded in every aspect of park operations,” Jarvis says. “He has led our efforts to protect and preserve the resources entrusted to our care, ensuring that decisions are based on sound science and research and that the voices of stakeholders are heard. Dan has also had incredible success working with partners and communities to identify and achieve common goals. He is perfectly suited to take on the challenges and opportunities of Yellowstone and to lead the park into the future.”
Established in 1872, Yellowstone is America's first national park. Covering 2.2 million acres in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, it is home to a large variety of wildlife including grizzly bears, wolves, bison, and elk. Preserved within Yellowstone National Park are Old Faithful and a collection of the world's most extraordinary geysers and hot springs, as well as the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. The human history of the Yellowstone region goes back more than 11,000 years. The park has an annual budget of $37 million and 860 employees. Yellowstone’s three million visitors spend $345 million each year and support more than 6,300 jobs in the local economy.
Wenk began his NPS career in 1975 as a landscape architect at the Denver Service Center. He returned as director of the DSC from 2001–2007, where he oversaw the National Park Service’s centralized planning, design, and construction services and provided parks and regional offices with services including contracting and project management.
From 1985 to 2001, Wenk was superintendent of Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota. His leadership was integral in the design, development, and completion of a $60 million public/private partnership that raised $30 million in private donations and in negotiating two innovative concession contracts for the construction of facilities valued at $30 million.
Wenk earned a bachelor of landscape architecture from Michigan State University.
The HLA Group, providers of landscape architecture, planning, and environmental design services from offices in Sacramento and Beijing, has promoted Gregory Hauser, ASLA, and William Roach, ASLA, to principal landscape architects. 
Gregory Hauser, ASLA | 
William Roach, ASLA |
With more than 20 years of professional experiences, Hauser has been providing leadership in parks and recreation master planning, design, and implementation for 14 years for the HLA Group. Hauser has extensive experience in urban design, community facilitation, and residential and commercial developments. Hauser is a graduate of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo and is a past president and trustee of the American Society of Landscape Architects Sierra Chapter.
Roach joined the HLA Group in 2002 and provides project management and urban design services for public and private clients on projects ranging from large-scale transportation-related planning projects, such as Regional Transit’s south line extension, to site-specific planning and master planned developments. As the principal LEED-accredited professional, Roach directs the sustainable design team at the HLA Group. Roach is a graduate of the University of California, Davis, and is also a past president of the American Society of Landscape Architects Sierra Chapter.
Barrett L. Kays, FASLA, recently taught two courses titled “Sustainable Site Environments” to members of the North Carolina Chapter of AIA. Kays teamed with Mike Nicklas and Jon Hathaway of North Carolina State University to teach a state-of-the-art sustainable course. The architects were taught how to establish cutting-edge siting and ecological zero-net goals for their projects, how to select appropriate sustainable strategies to achieve the zero-net goals, how to implement ecological strategies and technologies, and how to determine the cost vs. ecological benefits of the strategies. Kays and Nicklas presented case studies on how they have created sustainable sites on numerous award-winning projects including a recent totally carbon-neutral, off-the-grid building and landscape at the Maharishi University in Iowa that illustrates how they achieved the Green Building Council and Architecture 2030 sustainable goals in 2010.
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