The cold weather may mean less people in the nine Allegheny County Parks, but the new park rangers intend to help visitors enjoy themselves all year.
The county started a park ranger program in the spring — three full-time rangers and several seasonal ones. The full-timers will be on duty through the winter.
Braden Meiter, 33, is the lead supervisory ranger and oversees the new program. Mr. Meiter started with the parks in May; a few days after the north senior park ranger, Paul Trusty, had started in his new role. Max Bader, 30, completed the trio of full-time rangers when he started as the south senior park ranger on Nov. 9.
The program was conceived by the county last year.
“We wanted to enhance the park experience for users of our parks. Our parks are so big, and we wanted to bring them down to size,” Andy Baechle, county ranger program director, said.
With only three naturalists in the nine parks, Mr. Baechle said the county felt rangers would be able to provide more programming, more face-to-face time with park users, and assist users in learning and understanding park rules and regulations.
The three full-time rangers are funded by the county and considered county employees.
Mr. Baechle said they hope to hire a fourth ranger in 2016 who will focus on educational programming offerings from the parks.
Mr. Meiter of Beaver Falls came to the area from the Delaware Gap National Recreational Area, where he worked in a similar role. Prior to that, he worked as the recreational manager for a private club in the Poconos region.
“We are building the program from scratch, so we have been taking a look at what types of programs we want to develop, how we are going to do outreach to schools, things like that. We are developing it as we go,” he said.
Mr. Meiter and Mr. Trusty hit the ground running. Shortly after they were hired, 12 seasonal park rangers were brought on board in a joint effort through the Student Conservation Association and funded by the Richard King Mellon Foundation. The seasonal rangers worked from mid-May to mid-November, dividing their time between the nine parks. The rangers provided programming, showed a presence on the trails and worked with the public answering questions and being, as Mr. Meiter called them, “the face of the parks.” The three full-time rangers will continue to fill these roles.
A major focus of the rangers is programming. Classes or mini-workshops on various topics are offered by the rangers to the community, hoping to get people to try new activities and visit the parks more often. Most are free or low-cost. Since there is no “off season” for the three rangers, their efforts will continue all through the winter months. Upcoming programs include full moon hikes, snowshoe hikes, and winter hikes.
“We do your typical park programming that is recreation-based, but we also do cultural-based programming. We also help with orientation in the parks and provide directions,” Mr. Meiter said.
Mr. Meiter’s office is at Boyce Park while Mr. Trusty, who oversees Hartwood Acres, Deer Lakes Park, Harrison Hills and North Park, is housed in the administration building at North Park. Mr. Bader oversees the parks in the south region and has his office in South Park.
But while all three have offices, on any given day they may be out on the trails checking on their condition and other issues, talking with visitors to the parks or at schools and other public venues presenting one of the many parks’ educational outreach programs.
Mr. Trusty, 34, lives in McCandless right outside of North Park. Although he grew up in Fargo, N.D., Mr. Trusty had lived in the Pittsburgh area for three years prior to starting with the parks as an environmental consultant.
His new ranger position is perfect for the outdoor lover. Even on his days off, more than likely you will find him on one of the trails. Mr. Trusty already knew the trail system in some of the parks and has spent the past few months getting to know them even better.
“I love the outdoors. I like to spend as much time outside in the parks as I can,” he said.
The rangers are meant to work with and serve as a resource for the other park employees.
While out on one of his hikes, if Mr. Trusty or one of his colleagues spots a downed tree, or notices plant diseases or an invasive species, they makes a note of the problem to share with the appropriate park employees who can take care of the issue.
“We also work closely with the Friends groups and other groups to see how we can help them and how we can all work better together for our parks. For example, I helped with the Halloween race at Harrison Hills Park,” Mr. Trusty said.
Mr. Meiter agreed.
“The nice thing about the rangers is that we compliment the other employees like the naturalists,” he said.
Mr. Bader recently moved to Greenfield from Denver where he worked for Denver Mountain Parks. A native of Indiana, Mr. Bader looked to the park system after completing his bachelor’s degree in biology, education and philosophy. He has worked in parks and recreation for eight years.
“I decided to work full-time where I was spending my summers and where I was passionate about. That was parks and rec,” he said.
His love of nature and education in biology and teaching are a perfect combination. Mr. Bader draws on all of his skills and experience in his new position with the parks.
“Taking a program from zero to implementation is a lot of work. Braden and Paul have done an amazing job and I am hoping to be able to help them continue,” he said.
As the ranger program develops, Mr. Meiter said it is his hope that they can create and refine the programming, institute more outreach programming and get the community more involved with the care of the parks.
“We want to develop good stewards of our parks. If we get more people outdoors, we get more people involved with the parks and we can preserve our natural resources,” he said.
For more information about the programs offered by the park rangers at the Allegheny County Parks visit: www.alleghenycounty.us/parks.
Kathleen Ganster, freelance writer: suburbanliving@post-gazette.com.
First Published: December 31, 2015, 5:00 a.m.
