Public affairs specialist moves from national forest to national park

It’s a sunset for Denise Germann and the Flathead National Forest, but a sunrise for her and Glacier National Park.

Germann has been the voice of the Flathead forest for the past seven years as its public affairs officer, and starting today she begins a similar position with the park. She succeeds Amy Vanderbilt, who retired in April after 22 years as Glacier’s public affairs specialist.

“I’m excited. I had park service experience and I’ve enjoyed my experience on the Flathead,” Germann said on her last day of work with the Forest Service. “I’m looking forward to it.”

Germann feels fortunate to get a highly sought after job at Glacier that will allow her family to stay in the Flathead Valley.

“I get to try something new and not have to move,” she said, adding that among National Park Service employees across the country, Glacier is considered a prime place to work. “It’s one of the gems of the agency.”

Germann will mainly be responsible for park relations with media and park partners, but she will also be charged with managing Freedom of Information Act requests and landowner issues.

“The lands part will be a new experience for me and I’m excited about it,” she said of her duties in working with the park’s neighboring landowners and the so-called “inholders” who own private property within the park’s boundaries.

She anticipates there will be considerable differences between working for the park and the Flathead Forest.

“The missions are very different,” she said, referring to National Park Service’s clear mission to preserve and protect park resources and the Forest Service’s multiple-use mission, which can be contentious when use interests are conflicting.

“Multiple use is definitely more challenging with the public,” she said.

The park’s goals are more clear cut, “and not more clear cut as in timber,” she quipped.

Germann has 24 years of experience working in public affairs and communications after graduating from the University of Nebraska journalism school in 1987.

She went to work for the National Park Service as a ranger and then moved into public affairs as well as a chief ranger position.  Her assignments included positions at Homestead National Monument of America in Nebraska, Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail in Omaha, Medicine Bow-Routt national forests in Colorado, the Forest Service Rocky Mountain Regional Office in Colorado, the Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site in Missouri, the Jefferson National Expansion Gateway Arch in Missouri, the National Park Service Rocky Mountain Regional Office in Colorado, the Harry S. Truman National Historic site in Missouri and the Mount Rushmore National Monument in South Dakota.

When she came to the Flathead in 2004, Germann had a hectic start as the forest’s public affairs officer.

The fire season of 2003 was historic with multiple complex fires burning across the forest. When she arrived, there was an accelerated push under way to prepare post-fire projects involving salvage logging and restoration work in burned area.

“It was just a zoo around here,” she said.

In the fall of 2004, there was a tragic plane crash in the mountains above the Middle Fork Flathead drainage that killed three Forest Service employees and the pilot and two surviving Forest Service employees walked out of from the wreckage.

The story attracted national media attention that required considerable “crisis communication” skills in public affairs parlance.

“That was a very intense first year for me,” Germann said.

Working on the Flathead has been an overall rewarding experience, she said, because of the diverse nature of the forest. It has wilderness areas, roadless areas, wild and scenic rivers, areas open for timber management, and it is home to grizzly bears and all other predators that were present before Lewis and Clark came to Montana.

“The Flathead is an awesome forest,” said Germann, adding that she particularly enjoyed the people involved.

But she’s looking forward to a long career in Glacier and a future in the Flathead with her husband, Dave, and her two teenage sons.

“I’m planning to stay,” she said. “Dave and I are settled and we like it here.”

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