Category Archives: Park Personnel

Park Personnel

Honoring Veterans Who Work at NY State Parks & Historic Sites 

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This Veterans Day, New York’s Office of State Parks and Historic Sites honors and recognizes our military veterans around the country. We are fortunate to have a number of veterans as members of our Parks family, and we thank them, not only for their service, but for sharing how their military experience informs their civilian roles within our agency.  

Andrew Bresset, Neil Briggs, and Francis Cleveland.

 
Andrew Bresett is an Army veteran and a maintenance worker at Lakeside State Park in Waterport.  He says his service taught him perseverance. “No matter the situation, we can always get through it,” he said. “I can get through any challenge that’s thrown my way.” 

Neil Briggs is an Army veteran and a seasonal maintenance worker at Selkirk Shores State Park in Pulaski. As an equipment operator in the Army, he brings a wealth of experience to his position. He says that a highlight of his service was loading a multi-million-dollar computer onto a C145 airplane guided by a ‘Full-Bird’ Colonel. 

Francis Cleveland works at Robert Treman, Buttermilk Falls and Allan Treman State Parks in the Finger Lakes. Before that, he served in the Marines. “I was a ‘jar head’ for six years,” he said. “I appreciated the comradery we all had. Gung Ho!” He credits his service with his strong work ethic and attention to detail. “I take my work seriously. Things need to be done right.” 

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Park History, Park Personnel

Hispanic / Latinx Staff Reflect on Roberto Clemente During Hispanic Heritage Month

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Hispanic Heritage Month, spanning mid-September to mid-October, is a time for Latinx people in the U.S. to celebrate their roots. Through the vantage of Hispanic / Latinx staff, we reflect on the namesake for Roberto Clemente State Park — the sole park in our system named in honor of a Hispanic icon.

Roberto Clemente State Park first opened in 1973 as the Harlem River Bronx State Park. In that same year, the New York State Commission met to rename the park after the famous Puerto Rican Hall of Fame Baseball player, Roberto Clemente, who tragically died in a plane crash off the coast of Puerto Rico taking aid to Nicaragua. 

The decision to rename the park after Clemente was not because he was a famous baseball player, but because he believed in helping people and doing good. He was truly a humanitarian. “Anytime you have an opportunity to make a difference in this world and you don’t, then you are wasting your time on Earth,” he once said.

I am joyful to be a Latina “Boricua” and oversee the first State Park built in New York City, and especially proud that it holds the name of Roberto Clemente. When I was a young child, I remember my mother speaking about how, although we came from a town next to his, our cousins lived in the town Roberto Clemente came from. I often remember him and think of my baseball card collection.

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Historic Sites, history, Park Personnel

With Muskets and Wool Breeches, a Historical Interpreter Connects Visitors to Antiquity

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The digital chirrup of my alarm shakes me from my slumber. I dress, kiss my wife goodbye, get in my car and drive to work. After burning my tongue on hot coffee, I step through the doors of my workplace. This, however, is no ordinary door. It is a wooden drawbridge across a dry moat, guarded by five iron cannons pointed directly at me as I hurry to clock in.

Old Fort Niagara’s first entrance, a drawbridge over a dry moat.

The second door I must pass is a stalwart oaken gate attached to a great stone tower built by British engineers in 1770. I step into our office, the façade of the old provisions warehouse that once supplied every English fort in the Great Lakes region. Once inside, my colleagues and I receive the morning’s briefing and decide who will dress in what uniform and who will carry what firearm onto the field today. 

Allow me to introduce myself:  My name is Derek, and I am a historical interpreter at Old Fort Niagara. It is my job to portray — in a living, breathing image — the lifestyle of a soldier in the eighteenth century.

Blog post author Derek Schultz, historical interpreter at Old Fort Niagara.

I suppose I should begin where it makes most sense to begin; getting ready for “battle,” so to speak. In the case of our current garrison, this involves layering a linen shirt, wool socks, wool breeches, a double-layered long-sleeved wool vest, a double layered long-sleeved wool overcoat, a leather belt and cartridge box, leather buckled shoes, and a wool felt hat. Perfect for summer weather! 

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Cool Science, Park Personnel, Stewardship

“Shark Smart” with NY State Parks: A Trip to the Bimini Shark Lab

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Ashley Longo, an environmental educator working for New York State Parks’ Long Island Regional Environmental Education Office was awarded a scholarship opportunity to attend a Teacher and Educator’s Course at the Bimini Biological Field Station Foundation in South Bimini, Bahamas. Through her participation, NY State Parks was represented along with 13 other educators out of nearly 200 applicants. More commonly known as the Bimini Shark Lab, this world-renowned research facility was established in 1990 by Dr. Samuel Gruber and has contributed to advancing the world’s knowledge on elasmobranchs (sharks, rays, skates, and sawfish) through several research projects as well as providing educational opportunities for future scientists and the public.

When you hear the word, “Shark” what comes to mind? Does it evoke a sense of fear in you? Does it stimulate your curiosity? Is your immediate first thought about how they are so negatively portrayed in the media and how unjust it is?

Sharks are some of the most talked about animals on the planet, often portrayed in a very negative light. With increasing sightings of them off Long Island in the past couple of years, misinformation and public fear can spread, something first started by the movie Jaws. It should be made clear, however, that increased shark sightings are actually a sign of a healthier ecosystem!

Blog post author Ashley Longo, an environmental educator working for the Long Island Regional Environmental Education Office in front of the Bimini Shark Lab sign in South Bimini, Bahamas.

Sharks (rays & chimaeras too), the elasmobranchs, are one of the most advanced groups of animals in the world, with specialized sensory adaptations, reproductive methods, and migration patterns not seen in other living creatures. More than half the species of sharks in the world don’t grow bigger than three feet (one meter) and most live in the waters of the deep sea, never seeing the ocean’s surface or a human being. There’s a lot more to sharks than many people realize, including myself, and I am excited to be bringing that knowledge back to the beaches of Long Island after being at the Bimini Shark Lab in the Bahamas.

Life at the Bimini Shark Lab

South Bimini, Bahamas is located alongside the Gulf Stream some 46 miles from Miami, Florida. The level of biodiversity is high surrounding Bimini and because of this many shark species can be found around Bimini and the rest of the Bahamas. Many shark species will migrate between Bimini and the United States. In 2011, the Bahamas declared their waters as a shark sanctuary, becoming the 4th country in the world to do so at the time. The value of a shark alive is worth far more than a dead shark in the Bahamas, with the diving industry there being among the highest earning in the world. As the Shark Lab has so cleverly coined, the Bimini is not infested with sharks, but INVESTED!

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Art, Nature Centers, Park Personnel

Princeton Students Interpret Jones Beach Through Environmental Poetry and Art 

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Poetry and literature have long been used to explore the natural world in ways that can circumvent the pitfalls of scientific and technological determinism. Similarly, in the history of architecture and landscape architecture, new modes of drawing and rendering can add contour and depth to insights from the environmental and biological sciences.

In Spring 2023, Jeanne Haffner, Special Assistant and Director/Chief Curator of the Jones Beach Energy & Nature Center and S.E. Eisterer, Assistant Professor for Architectural History and Theory at Princeton University, collaborated on a seminar for Masters and Ph.D. students called “Histories of Embodied Energy: From Turtles to the Grid.” The course followed the mission of the Jones Beach Energy & Nature Center, investigating “the relationships between human beings, energy systems, and environmental stewardship.” Students toured the Center and surrounding site, and then chose an artifact from Jones Beach to work with for the semester. 

Having chosen an artifact, students wrote poems and created a drawing about it. But instead of producing abstract scientific diagrams or architectural renderings, they instead reflected upon alternative ways of representing the environment—ways that prioritize artistic, rather than strictly scientific, approaches. Maryam Popoola, for instance, sees an owl pellet not simply as an object for dissection but as a metaphor for the ever-changing nature of form. Valen Zhang’s poem and drawing considers oysters’ dynamic interactions with the ocean, beach, and built environment. For Marcos Garcia, beach grass on a sandy dune becomes a nexus between humans, lifestyles, and ecological impact. Masa Crilley depicts a horseshoe crab not in isolation, but in a long history that connects underwater worlds, Native American fishing practices, and industrialization.

This selection of poems and visuals reminds us of the continuing connection between art and environmental science, as well as the complex entanglements between environmental, social, and technical systems.

–Introduction written by Jeanne Haffner, Ph.D., Special Assistant and Director/Chief Curator, Jones Beach Energy & Nature Center (NYS Parks) and S.E. Eisterer, Assistant Professor of Architectural History and Theory, Princeton University

–Poems and visuals below created by Maryam Popoola, Valen Zhang, Marcos Garcia, and Masa Crilley

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