El Dorado Lake Park Ranger Dustin Ward recently completed a two-year certification with the National Association of State Park Directors and North Carolina University.
“We just finished a week and a half ago,”Ward said.
The program included in-house classes and distance education, requiring Ward to travel to West Virginia.
He stayed for four days at Ogle Bay Resort where State Park directors from across the country led classes ranging from law enforcement, budgeting, maintenance and marketing to special event planning.
“The program dealt with almost everything you would deal with in a park management position,” explained Ward.
According to Ward, Kansas has been able to send two parks employees each year for the last several. Fifty slots are normally available, one for each state, and if one state fails to attend additional employees can go.
“We've been able to send two people each of the last two years,” said Ward.
The classes consisted of three days of regular and scenario-based courses and the fourth day was set aside for testing.
Exams were partially based on the distance education material which was supplied through CDs and videos containing presentations and lectures.
“There was about 40 hours of distant education,” said Ward. “And the format was similar for each of the two years.”
Ward scored a 94 percent overall placing him in a tie for third in the overall graduating class.
“The most valuable thing I received from the program was the opportunity to network with managers and directors form across the country,” said Ward.
“The State Park systems are very similar, but the most interesting part of the classes was to be able to see the different types of parks that are out there. A lot of other states are focused around natural resources and there are different management philosophies you have to apply to each one.”
“I really loved it,” he added. “It was a great experience and I love to travel and I love working for the State Parks, I couldn't pass it up.
“Also I grew up in Pennsylvania so it was kind of nice to go home and see the mountains again.”
The networking Ward took part in during the courses really did pay off and the group has started a Facebook group.
“We are going to use that as a preliminary means to communicate with each other,” he explained. “We got to know each other pretty well.”
El Dorado, Kan. —
