Bears, fire and weather delays

She’s been the public liaison for Glacier National Park through 22 years and six park superintendents until today — Amy Vanderbilt’s last day on the job.

Vanderbilt, 55, is retiring with an eye toward other pursuits.

“It’s time to do something else,” she said Wednesday. “I had never envisioned that I would spend so much so much of my career at Glacier, but it’s been a wonderful ride.”

And often a wild ride.

As the park’s public affairs officer, Vanderbilt has been in charge of gathering information and serving as the park’s public voice for floods, wildfires and widely covered grizzly bear encounters and search and rescue missions. There also have been major projects, some controversies and major events.

But there’s more to the job — duties that don’t get a lot of attention — such as processing Freedom of Information Act requests and, for a time, working as the park’s film coordinator.

Vanderbilt estimates she got about 100 requests a year, many of them regarding minor matters but some that require extensive record-gathering efforts, such as an author’s request for reports on 16 bear incidents going back to the 1930s.

“So when people wonder what we’re doing over the winter, it’s a lot of other work,” Vanderbilt said with a chuckle.

Vanderbilt started her career with the National Park Service as a Glacier Park dispatcher in 1980, soon after graduating from Central Michigan University with majors in biology and natural resources with a focus on environmental education.

She transferred to Yellowstone National Park in 1983 and quickly found herself working as the acting public affairs officer during a very busy year.

There were two fatal bear maulings, the first controversial bison hunt just outside the park, winter use in the park was increasing to unprecedented levels, and there was intense international news coverage of the potential demise of the famous Old Faithful geyser.

Seismic activity around Yellowstone is believed to have caused the geyser to start erupting irregularly at the time.

“It became an international story that the most predictable geyser was going to die,” which of course, it didn’t, Vanderbilt said. “It really illustrated the phenomenal recognition of Yellowstone internationally.”

1988 turned out to be a big year for Vanderbilt on both professional and personal levels.

That summer, Yellowstone was engulfed by historic wildfires and, as the park’s deputy public affairs officer, Vanderbilt found herself responding to an media onslaught. Yet Vanderbilt carried on with her planned wedding on July 30 at the Mammoth Chapel, marrying Gary Moses, then a ranger in Yellowstone and now a veteran Glacier Park ranger.

Then it was back to work for the new couple and most everybody who attended the wedding.

“We were under siege and we had to keep fighting the fight,” Vanderbilt said.

Vanderbilt went to work as Glacier’s public affairs officer the following year.

She recalls one of her first big assignments was being a facilitator for an American Academy of Achievement conference attended by 700 people and headlined by Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf and other celebrities.

That conference led to the recruitment of Schwarzkopf as a spokesman for grizzly bear conservation.

In the years that followed, Vanderbilt found herself working through one event after another, usually during the booming summer months.

“Bears seem to be the constant ... and fires and floods are present,” she said, noting that the big fire year of 2003 turned out to be as challenging in some ways as the Yellowstone fires of 1988. Apgar Village and the West Glacier area were evacuated three times that summer due to the threat of the Robert Fire, and there were several other large fires in the park.

Another constant duty for Vanderbilt has been keeping the press and the public apprised of the annual snow clearing effort on Going-to-the-Sun Road. The annual opening of the road at Logan Pass has long been considered a signature date of importance for the park — but the opening often is delayed by avalanches and foul weather.

“My epitaph will say, ‘weather permitting,’” Vanderbilt joked, in reference to her constant caveat for the opening at Logan Pass.

Vanderbilt also has been involved with the major Sun Road rehabilitation project that has been planned and in progress for more than a decade, a project that is expected to be completed in the next couple years.

She also was involved in organization and media relations for the 75th anniversary of Sun Road’s opening and last year’s Glacier Centennial celebrations.

Vanderbilt said there was a time when she aspired to move up the ranks in the National Park Service, but her husband is fiercely attached to Glacier Park and the Flathead and she came to feel the same way.

Vanderbilt isn’t sure what direction she will take in retirement, but she plans to continue singing in the Glacier Chorale, she has volunteer interests and she has a desire to move into the private sector.

“I haven’t decided yet, but I am going to enjoy this summer as I have not been able to do,” she said. “I’ve long joked that I need to retire to really enjoy the park and that’s what I look forward to doing this summer.”

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by email at jmann@dailyinterlake.com.