I became a national park ranger at age 19. I'm 28 now and have worked as a park ranger for six national parks, as a social science researcher for five others, and as a science communicator for a National Park Service natural resource inventory and monitoring network. I mention these things about myself because I began as a devout believer in interpretive philosophy as I learned it from the National Park Service (NPS). But now I have come to new conclusions about the problems faced by our field and how we should confront them. There is need for innovation.rnAs a young person, I am discouraged by the failure of the interpretive profession to have produced stable jobs and opportunities for those people who would seek them. We have become the omega dog, licking the teeth of our superiors and begging for scraps. I would like to offer some ideas about what I believe to be the most significant and relevant problems for our field in this moment in time, and some solutions that I also believe plausible. Let's begin with the problems as I see them.
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