Lovin’ the great outdoors: Working as an interpretive park ranger

Published 5:00 pm Tuesday, June 30, 2009

“Basically, I get paid to hang out with people having fun on their vacations,” said Dane Osis, interpretive park ranger at Fort Stevens State Park in Warrenton, when asked about his favorite part of the job. “Plus, I get to work in one of the best state parks.”

As a park ranger, Osis’ main responsibility is to protect and preserve the parkland. This means protecting the people from the resources, and the resources from the people. This is accomplished through enforcement of rules, emergency response, maintenance work and general administrative work.

The goal of the interpretation portion of his job is to provide a wide range of informational services and interpretive programs for park visitors. This includes giving directions, providing safety tips, leading tours and educating visitors on the park’s plant life and history.

Osis started working for the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department during the summer of his freshman year in college. He spent his summer months during college cleaning bathrooms between Beverly Beach and South Beach State Parks in the Newport area.

After getting a degree in liberal studies at Oregon State University, that left him with the question, “What do I do now?”

“I was looking at getting my teaching certificate and decided to apply for a full-time ranger job just to see what would happen,” he said. “After being hired, I realized that I still get to be a teacher without having to work in a classroom.”

He has been a full-time park ranger for eight years, and an interpretive ranger at Fort Stevens for five years. Before working at Fort Stevens Osis worked at state parks up and down the Oregon coast. He was a maintenance and operations ranger at Beverly Beach State Park and an interpretive ranger at Harris Beach State Park in Brookings, Ore.

A typical summer work day for Osis includes leading a kayak tour on Coffenberry Lake, running a junior rangers program, doing some office work and finishing up any maintenance work that needs to be done. He then spends the afternoons enforcing park rules and roving; walking around the park informally educating people about the park and its history.

“I like this job because no day is the same,” he said. “The winters are spent cleaning up from last summer and preparing for the next, while the summers are busy dealing with visitors and executing events planned in the off season.”

Considering the work is so varied, knowing at least a little bit about a lot of things is very important. The ability to multi-task is also beneficial in this job.

“Customer service is still the foremost quality needed to do this job,” he said. “We deal with hundreds of thousands of people a year, so keeping a good rapport with them is important.”

But most importantly, park rangers must have a love for the outdoors and the precious resources they are protecting.

“Oregon is lucky to have some of the greatest state parks in the nation,” said Osis. “And I am lucky to spend everyday in one of them.”

Being a park ranger: a few quick facts
What park rangers do:
Park rangers and other recreational protective service workers monitor recreational areas to provide assistance and protection to participants and the recreational area.

Working conditions:
Park rangers spend long hours on their feet, sometimes in inclement weather. The work can be stressful during peak camping weekends. Park rangers must be able to handle all sorts of problems in a quick and professional manner.

Education:
Workers must have short-term on-the-job training to gain necessary skills for this occupation. However, those with related work experience have a competitive advantage.

Employment opportunities:
Reasonable employment opportunities exist largely due to the need to fill replacement job openings.

Salary:
In Oregon, park rangers start out making between $10.10 and $13.96 an hour, depending on experience. Interpretive park rangers make between $14.60 and $21.18 an hour.