Journal Staff Report

A Cortez native who began her National Park Service career as a radio dispatcher at Mesa Verde has been named director of the service’s Denver-based Intermountain Region.

National Park Service Director Robert Stanton announced that Karen Wade, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ray Patten of Cortez, has been selected as the new regional director of the Intermountain Region. Her most recent position has been as superintendent of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the most visited park in the nation. One of the agency’s most experienced executives, Wade will take up her new assignment Oct. 25.

As Intermountain Regional Director, Wade will oversee 86 diverse park units dispersed throughout an eight-state region that includes Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming. The region is home to some of the nation’s oldest and best-known national parks, including Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon and Mesa Verde.

"Throughout her career, Karen Wade has been a strong, energetic leader, and has demonstrated innovation and wisdom in handling many challenges," said Secretary of the Interior, Bruce Babbitt. "She also has shown courage in standing by tough decisions to protect parks under her care while building strong community support for conservation goals. We are very fortunate to have such a capable manager to fill this very challenging position."

Wade, a 26-year Park Service careerist, Colorado native and graduate of Montezuma-Cortez High School, has served as the superintendent of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park since July 1994.

The half-million-acre park contains the largest tract of unbroken forest in the eastern United States. It hosted more than 9 million visits in 1998, and is beset by the worst air pollution problems of any national park.

"Karen Wade was our choice for this important position because of her dynamic leadership abilities, especially in natural resource management," said Stanton, who recently unveiled the Natural Resources Challenge, a plan for revitalizing natural resource programs in national parks.

Under Wade’s direction, Great Smoky entered into a long-term partnership with hundreds of scientists to survey every organism (more than 100,000 species) to develop a natural resource plan for protection. The effort earned her the NPS’s prestigious Superintendent of the Year Award in 1998.

Wade previously served as superintendent of America’s largest national park, the 13-million acre Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve in Alaska.

She has held other superintendent and park management posts at Guadalupe Mountains National Park (Texas), Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine, and Hampton National Historic Site, both in Maryland, Shenandoah National Park (Va.), and the Appalachian Trail Project Office (Washington D.C.)