A new superintendent — 25-year National Park Service veteran Jeff Mow — has been selected to lead Glacier National Park.

Mow is currently superintendent at Kenai Fjords National Park in Alaska. He will begin his assignment in Glacier on Aug. 25.

“Jeff’s wide experience in many roles across the National Park Service make him an excellent fit for Glacier, one of our most beloved national parks and a focus of great pride and interest among Montanans,” said John Wessels, Intermountain Region director for the Park Service. 

“He has proven himself a very effective communicator and manager, able to build consensus both inside parks and with our partner organizations and park gateway communities. I know he will work well with Glacier’s local, national and international partners, stakeholders and constituents at this very special place in the northern Rockies ‘Crown of the Continent.’”

Mow, who has been superintendent at Kenai Fjords since November 2004, is eager to return to Montana.

“My first visit to the park was in 1988 as a wildland firefighter on the Red Bench Fire near Polebridge,” he said. “Twenty-five years later, it is such an honor and privilege to return as superintendent and a newest member of Glacier’s outstanding management team. I can’t wait to join with the park staff and partners as we meet numerous challenges and opportunities facing the park in the next few years.”

Mow said Glacier is considered an attractive destination in the National Park Service.

“I think Glacier National Park is one of the iconic units in the National Park Service. Many refer to it as one of the crown jewels in the service and the country,” he said. “Really, the opportunity to put in for it, I couldn’t resist. Several superintendents have actually retired there, so that’s how it’s seen.”

Mow said across the National Park Service, fiscal challenges are prominent, and he expects that will be the case at Glacier.

At Kenai Fjords, he has worked with climate change impacts on rivers and streams, and he is aware of how receding glaciers are changing the landscape in Glacier Park.

Mow, 54, is a native of Los Angeles. He is a 1981 graduate of Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., where he majored in environmental education. 

He attended graduate school at the University of Michigan, focusing on geology. During college and graduate school, he spent four summers in southwestern Montana as a geologic field assistant with the U.S. Geological Survey. 

After teaching geology at a community college and working for four years as an instructor at the Yosemite Institute, Mow moved to Alaska to begin his National Park Service career.

His first post was as a seasonal ranger at Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. From there, he moved to Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park in Skagway as a full-time park ranger. Next came Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve in Bettles, where he served as district ranger, chief of operations and subsistence manager.

In 2001, Mow was named the National Park Service’s Bevinetto Congressional Fellow, moving to Washington, D.C., to work with the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. 

In 2002, Mow returned to the park management as superintendent of Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument in Colorado. Since becoming superintendent at Kenai Fjords, Mow’s additional duties have included Department of Interior incident commander in the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, as well as acting superintendent of Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska last year.

At Glacier, Mow will oversee the management of more than 1 million acres of park land, a staff of about 155 and an annual operating budget of more than $12.5 million.

Mow will succeed Chas Cartwright, who retired as Glacier superintendent at the end of 2012. Kym Hall has been acting superintendent since then.

Mow, a member of Rotary International for about nine years, has served as president of his local Rotary Club in Seward, Alaska. 

He and his family, a wife and a 15-year-old son, are passionate about winter sports, including cross-country and downhill skiing and ice skating. They also enjoy biking, hiking, camping and paddling. Most recently, the Mows have become fans of high school athletics.

“We are looking forward to coming to the Flathead Valley,” he said.

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