Yosemite Chief to Retire amid Park Shakeup

He rejects Great Smokies post because of 'conflicting priorities'

by Carl Nolte
San Francisco Chronicle - October 4, 2002

In a highly unusual move, Yosemite superintendent David Mihalic, one of the top managers in the National Park Service, has turned down an assignment to run Great Smoky Mountains National Park and, instead, is retiring.

Mihalic balked at taking the new job at Great Smoky because of new political pressure to build a highway through the park wilderness, something he and the park service had opposed years ago.

Now the highway plan has returned and has the backing of powerful politicians in North Carolina.

Mihalic is 56 and said Thursday he had made no plans to retire until he was moved from Yosemite and offered the Smokies job.

His decision offers a rare glimpse into a top level shakeup in the park service and apparent political pressure from the Republican administration to reassign or replace top park service executives.

Mihalic is a member of the elite Senior Executive Service, which covers 26 of the top park service managers and superintendents.

Mihalic, who earns about $120,000 a year, was regarded as a rising star in the park service. He was handpicked for the Yosemite job in 1999 by Bruce Babbitt, secretary of the interior in the Clinton administration, and charged with finishing a sweeping plan to manage the park.

His next assignment was to trade jobs with Michael Tollefson, the Great Smoky superintendent. But the switch was reportedly leaked by a congressional staff member, and Mihalic said he learned about his new job in a newspaper.

When he heard of the problems he would face at Great Smoky Mountains park, Mihalic turned down the job.

"My career has been dedicated to protecting the nation's special places and the national park idea," he said. "After being briefed on the key issues I am to tackle at the Smokies and the conflicting priorities which I would face, I have decided the best course of action at this time would be to retire."

The Great Smoky park, located in the Appalachian Mountains in Tennessee and North Carolina, is the country's most popular national park with 10 million visitors a year, and an assignment there is considered a plum job in the park service.

However, it also faces major issues, including air pollution, a controversial land swap and a plan to build a highway through the largest roadless area east of the Mississippi River.

Mihalic said the park service opposed both the land swap and the highway 15 years ago when he was assistant superintendent.

Now, he said, "Those decisions are back on the table." Other sources familiar with the matter said the mountain highway and the land swap are key issues to Rep. Charles Taylor, a North Carolina Republican who represents the district, and Sen. Jesse Helms, a Republican who is the state's senior senator.

Mihalic apparently felt that political pressure was behind these two projects, and he was unwilling to carry them out. "Revisiting these decisions, " he said, "is a very bad precedent."

When he balked at the Smokies job, Mihalic said he discovered that other senior posts in the service were not available. "I had no option but to retire, " he said.

Others familiar with the park service's top management said that a number of other managers had also been reassigned or forced to retire in the last month as part of an administration effort to realign the service to views more in line with the Bush administration.

Though the park service is supposed to be removed from political interference, the big parks -- Yellowstone, Yosemite and the Great Smokies -- have often felt the harsh breath of political winds.

Mihalic served only three years as Yosemite's top manager. He said Thursday he hoped Tollefson, the new superintendent, would have a longer term.

"Yosemite needs a little stability," Mihalic said.

Tollefson will take over at Yosemite on Jan. 3. He and Mihalic are old friends. "Mike will make a great superintendent," Mihalic said.