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June 14, 2018
Yellowstone superintendent reassigned after announcing plans to retire
A new leader of the largest national park in the country was named on Wednesday, but the outgoing superintendent says he is being forced out just nine months ahead of his publicly announced retirement, the latest casualty of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s controversial reassignments of senior executives.
Dan Wenk, who has spent 42 years at the National Park Service and the last seven as the head of Yellowstone National Park, said he was notified in writing on June 4 that he was being reassigned to Washington, DC, for the last nine months of his career with little explanation, despite his repeated requests for details of his new job. The notification came just three days after he announced his plan to retire in March 2019.
“Even as far back as the summer of 2016 I said my intention is to retire from Yellowstone National Park, so I felt disrespected,” Wenk told CNN. “I felt I had a 42-year career of achievement, and … at that point in my career, them knowing I planned to retire, not being able to sit down and discuss a transition, I think it’s fair to say I felt disrespected.”
He told the Montana Journal — later confirming to CNN — that “it’s a hell of a way to be treated at the end of four decades spent trying to do my best for the park service and places like Yellowstone but that’s how these guys are,” adding that “throughout my career, I’ve not encountered anything like this, ever.”
