Saguaro National Park

Eusebio Francisco Kino

Frank "Boss" Pinkley

Levi Manning

The annual 2024 Director’s Management and Administration Awards recognize outstanding contributions to the advancement and service of management, administration, Information Technology, and Information Management by NPS employees. The Excellence Awards recognize employees who go beyond day-to-day duties to solve problems or create new opportunities. They do so with creative thinking and action.

Humor is a form of commentary that often reveals serious truths. Cartoonists combine artistic talents with razor-sharp wits to shine light on political and social issues. In most cases, those artists are external observers. In the National Park Service (NPS), employees in the 1960s to 1980s drew cartoons, published in official newsletters, that provide unique insights into NPS organizational culture, working conditions, and employees' concerns—many of which still exist today.

Between 1938 and 1941 the National Park Service (NPS) Western Museum Laboratories (WML) created many iconic posters. Often described as “the WPA park posters,” they should be called “the WML posters.” Research reveals more designs than previously thought (including several previously unknown ones), reevaluates what is known about the artists, and argues that modern reproductions have made the designs more significant to NPS graphic identity today than they were in the past.

When the climate changes enough, the vegetation communities growing in any given place will also change. Under an expanded bimodal climate zone, some plant communities in western national parks are more likely to change than others. National Park Service ecologists and partners investigated the future conditions that may force some of this change. Having this information can help park managers decide whether to resist, direct, or accept the change.

Saguaro National Park was established in 1933 specifically to protect an impressive stand of many large saguaro cacti – the “Cactus Forest” – at the base of the Rincon Mountains east of Tucson, Arizona. However, concerns about the decline of the Cactus Forest have been expressed throughout the history of the park. As a result, research on saguaros in the park began as early as 1939 and continues to this day.

Invasive, nonnative buffelgrass is spreading exponentially in the Sonoran Desert and creating unprecedented fuel loads in Saguaro NP. It is replacing native plants and converting a nearly fire-proof desert plant community into a highly flammable grass-scrubland. In 2014, the park began using a helicopter for herbicide application. Intensive monitoring is occurring as part of the plan to build fire-adapted human communities and maintain and restore resilient landscapes.

Saguaro NP is supporting development of a community wildfire protection plan (CWPP) for Pima County, AZ. The county is slightly larger than New Jersey and has nearly 1 million inhabitants, including a sizeable number who live in unincorporated areas. Initially, communities were developing separate CWPPs to identify and mitigate hazardous fuels and protect structures, but leaders felt that a unified effort would be more effective in addressing wildland fire potential.

Thanks to funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, NPS projects in the West hope to collect native seeds to aide in accelerating repairs to damage due to wildfire, mining, flood, or other causes.