By Martha Craig

Connecticut native Dean Butterworth never set out to be a park ranger. He discovered his vocation—a perfect fit—after four years in the Navy, a brief period as a teacher, and a stint as a construction worker. When he was a child, Dean’s family often vacationed at national historic sites, such as Gettysburg and Harper’s Ferry, rather than in the wide-open, untamed spaces where Dean has worked for more than two decades. It was his friend, Joe, who introduced him to backpacking, including him on family adventures in the Adirondacks and White Mountains.

After high school, Dean attended the College of the Holy Cross on a Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps (NROTC) scholarship. He credits the Jesuits with inspiring him to be “a man for and with others,” and the NROTC program with making him comfortable with math and scientific data. Both have proved important in his work.

Dean received his bachelor’s degree in political science in May of 1990 and began his Navy service as a surface warfare officer aboard the amphibious transport dock, USS Ogden. He was deployed twice: to the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm and to the east coast of Africa during United Nations peacekeeping operations in Somalia. His first deployment included stops in Bahrain, Subic Bay, and Pearl Harbor. On his second deployment, he visited Pearl Harbor, Okinawa, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait City, Mombasa, Perth, Guam, and Pearl Harbor.

After completing his naval service, Dean enrolled in Connecticut’s “Boot Camp for Teachers,” an accelerated teacher certification program, and became a middle school teacher. But thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail brought a revelation: “I realized I wanted to work outside,” Dean recalls. He opted for construction and in 1998 moved to San Francisco, where his friend Joe was living. “This is great,” he thought. “I can ski and hike.” Dean soon began volunteering with the Golden Gate National Recreation Area in the Marin headlands. As he learned about the mission of the National Park Service, and how interpretive services advanced it, he had another revelation: “This kind of work matched my skills, interests, goals, and philosophy.”

He became an intern, a position which came with several perks. Dean lived in a bachelor officer’s barracks on Rodeo Beach in base housing (Golden Gate National Recreation Area was formerly Fort Barry, an Army installation). He had keys to the gated tunnel that led to the historic Point Bonita lighthouse. And, because the National Park Service shared the buildings where he worked with non-profits like NatureBridge, teams of research scientists, and others, he was able to see how organizations could work together, across administrative boundaries, for the good of the park. This lesson has been invaluable.

His internship led to seasonal work with the National Park Service, followed by a permanent position. Since 2008, Dean has worked at Olympic National Park. His wife Wendy, now a preschool teacher, was a seasonal park ranger when they met while working at Mount Rainier. The couple now has three children: Aidan, 15, who was born when the family was at the Grand Canyon; Grant, 13, who arrived during their time at Sequoia: and Sarah, 10, their Olympic National Park baby. With the onset of the pandemic, the family added a new member: Breha, their standard poodle.

In his current position, Dean works with teachers to create classroom and field-trip curricula; with other park education technicians to design field trips and encourage the public to embrace and support the park; and with partners, such as Boys and Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula and local environmental education organizations. He also works with the North Olympic Library System and the Friends of Olympic National Park to present the “Perspectives” speakers’ program, offering presentations that highlight the work of park personnel and scientists.

Dean loves working in the park, particularly on days when he can tear himself away from his writing and administrative tasks and venture out into the park with students. He also enjoys building relationships with partners. Through a collaboration with the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center, “Conservation from Here,” a touring art exhibit from artist Joseph Rossano, will travel from Theodore Roosevelt’s home, Sagamore Hill, to its first stop in Olympic National Park. The exhibit will trace changes in perspective on conservation and preservation—from Roosevelt’s day of trophy hunting to today’s very different perspective. Through the park’s partnership with the Boys & Girls Club’s “Adventures in Your Big Back Yard,” children will explore the topic by collecting environmental DNA (eDNA) from a creek and sending it off to a lab to be amplified and sequenced, a kind of non-lethal collection.

Dean has spent many memorable days in the park, but two stand out. He led a snowshoeing field trip along Hurricane Ridge, on a dazzling winter day, with his son and 90 other middle school students, many of whom had never been on snowshoes before. On the other extraordinary day, he was moved by the singing of Elwha Klallam tribe members at a ceremony commemorating the long-awaited removal of the Elwha River’s dams. Not long after the ceremony, he and his wife brought their children to the river and watched in wonder as Chinook salmon made their way to the shallows to spawn.

Dean finds inspiration in what he calls the democracy of the park. “As American citizens, we hold the national parks in trust, and it’s our job to preserve and care for them on behalf of the rest of the world,” Dean says. “People of different racial, national, and socioeconomic backgrounds can come here to share an experience of healing and rejuvenation, something we could all use right now. “

Washington’s National Park Fund (WNPF) has made many of the programs Dean works on possible. “My program couldn’t reach the number of kids it does without WNPF. They support our partnership with the Boys & Girls Club by paying for the kids’ bus transportation to the park, they’ve helped with fish work on the Elwha, and supported our marmot monitoring project. They are essential to our mission,” Dean observes. “Our job is to get people into the park, then stand back and let the park work its magic. With the help of WNPF, I’ve been able to hire more staff to help accomplish that.”