Bighorn Canyon leader to become new deputy superintendent in Yellowstone

Posted 12/29/20

While most of the nation turned their eyes to the big game on Super Bowl Sunday last February, Mike Tranel was in the first day of a temporary assignment at Yellowstone National Park.

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Bighorn Canyon leader to become new deputy superintendent in Yellowstone

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While most of the nation turned their eyes to the big game on Super Bowl Sunday last February, Mike Tranel was in the first day of a temporary assignment at Yellowstone National Park. The job lasted about three months, until May 7, when he returned to Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area and the job he had since 2018.

But Tranel must have made a lasting impression. Now he’s returning to Yellowstone as second-in-charge of the nation’s first national park. Yellowstone recently announced his new assignment, likening him to the park’s chief operating officer. The promotion to deputy superintendent is huge for Tranel.

He’ll be leaving behind the four national park properties of the Powder River Group, made up of Bighorn Canyon, Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, Devils Tower National Monument and Fort Laramie National Historic Site.

“Hopefully they’ll find someone better than me,” Tranel told his staff at Bighorn Canyon while on a teleconference a week ago. The position will temporarily be filled by Jan. 17. But he’s  leaving behind some big shoes to fill, staffers say.

“He’s super well respected by everyone here,” said Todd Johnson, management analyst at Bighorn Canyon. “He’s not a micromanager. He allows everyone to provide input. Part of being a great leader is being a good listener and he is very empowering.”

“Obviously, we’re sad,” Johnson said. “But this is a great new job for him and his family.”

Tranel said his new duties will include all facets of managing the park, meaning his position will be more of a team effort from him and Park Superintendent Cam Sholly. “Yellowstone has plenty going on to keep both of us busy,” he said in a recent interview. “The day-to-day operation of the park is typically the deputy superintendent’s responsibility. But Cam [Sholly] runs things a little different and I know from my earlier experience that I’ll definitely be involved in some of the external issues as well. There will be a bit of a tag-team approach.”

Yellowstone is one of the largest operations in the National Park Service, with 750 employees and a total budget exceeding $65 million.

“We’re very pleased to welcome Mike [Tranel] and his family to Yellowstone,” Sholly said. “Mike has managed a wide range of complex operations and programs spanning Alaska to Washington, D.C. He has also worked very successfully across boundaries with many partners, something essential to Yellowstone’s success.”

 

Shared backgrounds

Tranel has been with the park service for 35 years. He and Sholly have a lot in common. Both have been with the service for most of their careers and understand the system. Each worked in Yellowstone early in their careers, in the backcountry and in entry level jobs — giving them an appreciation of the duties of employees from the ground up. And both are passionate in protecting the park’s natural resources.

Yet, maybe more importantly, the top positions at Yellowstone are now filled by regular guys. Neither is full of pretense; they don’t like to be thought of as figureheads. They are uncomfortable when the camera is trained on them.

That’s good news for both employees at the park and the millions of visitors putting the nation’s first national park on their bucket lists. Since arriving at the park in 2018, Sholly, the son of a former Yellowstone chief ranger, has made it a point to develop better living conditions for employees in the park. One of his main projects has been to improve employee housing for the more than 400 workers who live in Yellowstone. The improvements were much needed, he said earlier this year, and tied to the park’s ability to attract and retain talent.

Sholly has also worked to make the experience better for visitors, improving wireless connectivity and, recently, quickly making changes to get the park open to the public just three weeks late during the nation’s shutdown due to the pandemic. Those plans largely paid off as few infections were reported, gateway community hospitals weren’t overrun with COVID-19 patients as some predicted — and the park had a decent year despite seeing next to no international visitors. The park set attendance records in both September and October and only saw overall attendance slide by about 6% for the year.

Tranel and Sholly know each other well. They met when they both worked at the national headquarters in D.C. in 2008 and have orbited in the same regions while working their way to Yellowstone. Since Tranel took the reins of the Powder River group, the two have worked together frequently in Wyoming and Montana.

Yet, while they have a lot in common, one of the reasons Sholly recruited Tranel was their differences.

“A fair consideration for Cam [Sholly] is he wants a diversity of thought on his team,” Tranel said. “We definitely have some things in common, but as far as how we think and how we approach things, there are some clear differences that I think complement each other.”

 

A special place

When the move was announced on Yellowstone’s Facebook account, more than 2,200 people showed their support.

“Congrats! He will certainly miss the quiet beauty and solace of Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area,” said Cody resident Pam Noesner.

The response took Tranel — who has about two dozen friends on the social media site — by surprise.

“I’ve never, I’ve never … that’s unprecedented,” he said.

But what most of the replies to the news have said is how special Yellowstone is to them and how important it is that it be protected.

When Tranel arrived in the park during summer breaks while attending college in Iowa, he allowed himself to dream of perhaps becoming a ranger at Yellowstone. But he never dreamed he could make it back as an administrator.

He geared his education specifically to work in the park service, hoping to find a position anywhere in the system. He’s a history buff and would have been thrilled to work in a Civil War battlefield or historical monument.

“There’s a lot of cool sites,” Tranel said. “I knew that I wasn’t going to go to Yellowstone right away. Everybody applies for Yellowstone — and with a lot more experience than I had coming right out of school.”

Tranel stayed at most of his jobs for many years. The roughly two-year stint with the Powder River Group was an anomaly among longer tenures in Alaska and Montana. He’ll be selling his home in Red Lodge and moving to Fort Yellowstone housing near Mammoth Hot Springs.

His family will be fully immersed in the park. It will take some getting used to. Maybe not so much for Tranel and his family, but for those in the neighboring residences.

Tranel, a lifelong rocker, is bringing his drums this time.

“People have asked about my music, you know, saying ‘Oh, are you still playing drums?’ You know, like, it’s something you would stop doing,” he said. “Why would you stop?”

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