Cassius M. Cash
Cassius M. Cash is Yosemite Conservancy’s incoming President & CEO, effective in January 2025.
He has served as the Superintendent of Great Smoky Mountains National Park for 10 years. While at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Cash launched the parking Park it Forward program, which has brought in more than $17 million to date, with 100% of the revenue staying in the park to fund new positions and needed projects. He worked with Friends of the Smokies to create the Trails Forever and Forever Places endowments, which have funded the restoration of countless trails and historic building.
Under Cash’s leadership, the park completed 33 miles of the Foothills Parkway, reopened the Look Rock Campground, and completed more than $60 million of projects funded by the Great American Outdoors Act.
In 2020, Cash launched the Hikes for Healing program to provide a space for people to have open conversations about racism, diversity, and inclusion in a place long recognized for its incredible diversity. The park provided an ideal backdrop for rich conversations among the 60 individuals who participated in the healing hikes, along with hundreds of others who visited the Smokies Hikes for Healing website for information or to download resource guides to lead their own healing hikes.
Cash previously served as Superintendent for Boston National Historical Park and Boston African American National Historic Site where he worked with the City of Boston to open a new visitor center in historic Faneuil Hall. That facility now welcomes more than 5 million visitors a year. Cash also worked with several park partners to secure $4 million to reopen the African Meeting House, the oldest black church still in its original location in the country.
Cash began his federal career in 1991 with the U.S. Forest Service as a wildlife biologist at the Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington State. He went on to work with the Forest Service for 18 years in various leadership positions.
He served as an administrative officer in Nebraska, district ranger in Georgia, and a civil rights officer in Mississippi. Cash was the deputy forest supervisor at the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest in southern Oregon before transferring to Boston. Earlier, Cash served as the deputy regional director and chief of staff in the Northeast Regional Office.
Cash holds a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, and later attended Oregon State University to study wildlife management.
Cash and his wife, Vonda plan to reside in the San Francisco Bay Area.
