Connie Rudd: Defining a Career Path

This article was developed from an oral history interview with Connie Rudd, conducted by Lu Ann Jones in June 2020 as part of the Women’s Voices: Women in the National Park Service Oral History Project. The Project was made possible in part by a grant from the National Park Foundation, and recordings will be archived at Harpers Ferry Center.

Connie Rudd NPS

It could be said that Connie Lobdell Rudd lives by the mantra “open your eyes.” Her career with the National Park Service began in 1979 as a seasonal Park Ranger and led her to locations around the country until her retirement in 2014, in roles that included park ranger, planner at a regional support office, and park superintendent. Along the way, the continual desire to learn paired with her skillful communication have helped her define the course.

Early Years

Born in Fort Riley, Kansas, Rudd's connection to education began at an early age. Her mother was a high school English teacher and her father was a professor of history. Visits to national parks and historic sites were a part of her growing up. A 1960 visit to Mesa Verde National Park at the age of eleven set her life’s course:

RUDD: This was a world that was brand new to me. I never knew a thing about Pueblo Indians. I didn’t know about cliff dwellers. I was learning about the West. Of course, we went on a number of interpretive tours. A young seasonal ranger by the name of Dave Todd was our ranger to go down into one of the ruins, and I wish I could remember which one it was, but he was leading the group and he wanted to demonstrate how the women of that era ground corn, because the grinding pits were there and all of the original artifacts and so forth. He handed me a metate and showed me how to kneel down at the corn-grinding pit and put my feet against the brace at the back and then grind corn. He put some corn in the pit and I ground away, and it was magic. For a moment, I was transported back all of those years.

Connie Rudd: Early Visits to National Parks

In an oral history interview, Connie Rudd describes visits to national parks and historic sites as she was growing up.

Credit / Author:
NPS Park History Program

Date created:
06/05/2020

LU ANN JONES: Well, did your family continue to go to national parks? Did that continue to be a part of your growing up?

CONNIE RUDD: It was. It truly was. We did go to Shenandoah National Park the next summer. We visited Rocky Mountain National Park, Grand Tetons—and I’m speaking of kind of natural area parks—and many, many historic sites. So it was part of my growing up. I was also very involved in Girl Scouting, and I quickly turned my love from what I learned in that trip to the West to scouting.

I lived on the edge of Wayne National Forest, the only national forest in the state of Ohio, and I would just roam the forest and I would dream about protecting the forest. I mean, it was an odd thing for a young girl to do, but I did, and I enjoyed it, and we coupled that with Scouting outings and a lot of travel in the summer to significant spots.

These early experiences inspired Rudd’s involvement in Girl Scouting and later academic decisions. She attended Ohio University for a dual degree in English and physical geography, and then she continued to study physical geography by pursuing graduate work at the University of Illinois. “I just couldn’t leave the natural world behind. I loved literature, I loved writing, I loved communicating, and in the end, they turned out to be a very happy marriage between communication and a science-based background.”

NPS Beginnings and Grand Canyon National Park

After teaching high school students for five years, Rudd began her career with the National Park Service in a seasonal position as a dispatcher at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. As she witnessed the highly-developed interpretive program at that park, she came to understand what the education and interpretation programs at the National Park Service could be.

From there, she became a park ranger at Grand Canyon National Park. Rudd recognized the depth and complexity of topics associated with the Grand Canyon, and she found that her interpretive programs and contacts with visitors frequently led to questions that touched on policy and resource management.

Rudd addressed these questions by setting out to learn as much as she could, both on paper and in the field. At a time when the divisional lines of the agency tended to be well-defined, she worked to reach across those boundaries, modeling a practice that she would carry through her career.

RUDD: I think it was a time we were all evolving in much more interdisciplinary management of national parks. I didn’t know that’s what it was at the time. It was just I needed help to be as complete of an interpreter and public educator as I possibly could be….It was just looking around at what needed to be done and figuring a way to do it…The rest of my career, that was the way I managed parks, just trying to bust those silos down.

Connie Rudd: On Grand Canyon National Park

In an oral history interview, Connie Rudd tells Lu Ann Jones about experiences as a Park Ranger at Grand Canyon National Park, including how an understanding of policy became part of interpretation.

Credit / Author:
NPS Park History Program

Date created:
06/05/2020

LU ANN JONES: Well, one of the things that you told me that I thought was very interesting is when you were a seasonal at the Grand Canyon, which it’s such a huge park, that you just learned a lot beyond doing interpretation, as if that isn’t enough, but it was because you were on such a big stage there that you began to understand policy and all sorts of other things that were really part of the job, whether you understood it fully or not. I thought that was very interesting kind of thinking about that entry-level job.

CONNIE RUDD: That is true. By the time I was at Grand Canyon, that was my second position ever with the National Park Service. My first job was a GS-3 dispatcher, seasonal, at Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. First of all, I came to understand what the education and interpretive programs in the Park Service could be, because it was a highly developed program at Indiana Dunes. When Steve got a job at Grand Canyon, I applied at the same time for interpretation, and, lo and behold, I got it.

You’re right, that was a huge stage. There was so much going on at Grand Canyon that was important not only nationally but globally. Glen Canyon Dam just upstream had closed the gates and began filling that huge reservoir behind it, which ultimately changed the ecology of the Colorado River as it coursed through all of Grand Canyon. It was very controversial at the time. I was interpreting it daily. Initially, I didn’t understand the politics behind it, and I didn’t understand the opposition to it. I was quizzed frequently by folks in the audience who were very versed in water law and water policy in the West. So I quickly went over to the Resource Management Division and started picking brains there, going through the wonderful library at Grand Canyon to learn.

There were many issues that cropped up like that. I got to the point where I realized that just in a casual contact with the public at the front desk, global issues could be laid at my feet, and I had no training in a lot of that. I remember appealing to the superintendent’s office, not necessarily straight to the superintendent, because I was scared of him [laughs]—and he was a wonderful man. Dick Marks was superintendent at the time. But I remember talking to the assistant superintendent and saying, “You know what? We’re getting a lot of what I would consider to be policy questions. They ask why the park does this or why the park doesn’t do that, or they’ll ask even bigger questions about the Department of Interior or the Park Service in general, and I just feel like I could use some more background on this.”

The communications director there kind of looked around and said, “I’ve got a great idea. We’re going to put together a policy notebook for the front desk.”

So we got briefing statements, literally the ones that were being prepared for the superintendent and for our public information office, and we got copies of all those briefing statements right down at the front desk and it became part of seasonal training. And I tell you, I had no idea how big of an agency I had stepped into, and I was thrilled by it. I got over being scared [laughs] and decided just the most I could learn about it, the better I could help the public understand the unique position that the National Park Service has in not only protection of natural and cultural resources, but kind of bringing that same message to the world.

Rudd became a permanent NPS employee at Grand Canyon National Park. When she moved to a new position at Rocky Mountain National Park, she knew that the National Park Service was the place for her.

RUDD: It was a new stage, a better grade. I actually had more responsibility there than I’d had at Grand Canyon, and that was the step—that’s where I said, ‘You know what? I’m committed to this as a career. There’s no going back. I’m not going back to a bricks-and-mortar classroom. My classroom is outdoors, and I feel like I can make a difference.’

This coincided with a period of evolution for the agency’s approach to interpretation. Rather than presenting endless details, Rudd explained that the new philosophy sought to offer context and invite visitors to be interpretive partners. She continued her professional development through training sessions at Harpers Ferry Design Center and Stephen T. Mather Training Center.

Connie Rudd: Approaches to Interpretation

Connie Rudd describes an approach to NPS interpretation called "Compelling Stories," which aimed to present a topic to it was situate in a larger context and grounded in each visitor's experience. In conversation with Lu Ann Jones as part of an oral history interview.

Credit / Author:
NPS Park History Program

Date created:
06/05/2020

CONNIE RUDD: Later, when I was Regional Chief of Interpretation for the Rocky Mountain Region, I initiated an entirely different look at interpretation called “Compelling Stories,” and the purpose of that was not necessarily to name a flower or to name a geologic strata or a gun in a historic house or the buttons on a uniform of a Civil War soldier; it was to get immediately to two things. One was why was this important in the larger context, and, number two, to literally facilitate a process that the visitors, with the ranger, could do their own interpretation. They would learn enough contextually and what the significance of whatever it was, the resource was or the story, and be able to draw some conclusions on their own. I knew it was going to stick better that way. It’s just like classroom education. Students that have an experience are going to remember it better than just reading or listening and taking a test. So we kind of moved interpretation out of that realm to a far more dynamic approach, which was really based on the importance and the value and how it fit into a larger context and what it could mean personally to them, why it was important to them and why it mattered.

Regional Office

When Rudd became a regional chief of interpretation, she found support for this more interactive approach to interpretation along with the opportunity to training others in the field. She and her fellow regional chiefs advanced a new vision of interpretive planning that connected exhibits and programs to a larger interpretive plan for the park, rather than being limited to facility-based planning such as waysides or visitor centers.

RUDD: One of my goals has always been, after spending time with the public, that they become stewards of our national treasures.

Connie Rudd: On Inspiring Citizen Stewards

Connie Rudd explains how one of her goals of improving interpretation is leading people to view themselves as stewards of the resources that the National Park Service protects.

Credit / Author:
NPS Park History Program

Date created:
06/05/2020

CONNIE RUDD: I just thought there are better ways of telling some of these stories and getting the public to understand and be part of it. One of my goals has always been, after spending time with the public, that they become stewards of our national treasures. It doesn’t matter where they are. They understand that there’s value to it and they become citizen stewards. They don’t have to wear the hat, but they can be part of maintaining everything that the Park Service manages, protects, and loves.

While she was at the regional office, Rudd was accepted to the Executive Potential Program. The interagency training further prepared her for the park management responsibilities she would have as a Park Supervisor.

Park Superintendent

In the mid-1990s Rudd moved into the ranks of park upper management when she became Deputy Superintendent of Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. She soon discovered how novel a woman in that position seemed. Two weeks after she arrived at the park, a local civic organization invited her to speak at a lunch meeting. The choice of topic was hers, and she chose to address the relevant but controversial subject of air quality.

RUDD: I got there and they served a nice meal. . . . But when I went into the meeting, I said, “Why have you invited me? Why didn’t you invite the superintendent?”

One of the fellows said, “Oh, we just wanted to see what a woman deputy superintendent looked like.” [laughs] It’s so funny. You do?

And I said, “Well, here she is.” [laughter]

As a woman, working in the field of interpretation with many other women, Rudd had not felt gender was an issue in her effectiveness and career path. Things changed when she moved to higher echelons.

RUDD: I was the first woman in many of those upper-management jobs. Thankfully, I wasn’t the last.

Connie Rudd: On Rising to Upper Management and Gender

Connie Rudd reflects on her experience of rising to and working in upper-management jobs, at a time when there were few women in that career level in the National Park Service.

Credit / Author:
NPS Park History Program

Date created:
06/05/2020

CONNIE RUDD: Interestingly, at Shenandoah, as deputy superintendent, I was Chief of Operations. Both superintendents I worked for there literally were external to the park, and when it was budget time, we’d all sit down together, but from day-to-day operations, that was my job. Every division chief answered to me, and we were the management team. [laughs] There were some male subordinates that had a hard time working for a woman. It just wasn’t in their character. It wasn’t in their DNA. It wasn’t the way they were raised, and in some instances, they were extremely rude to me, pick up their tools in the shop and walk out the door if I walked in the door. But they were few and far between. It was an issue sometimes, but it never got in my way, mostly because I wouldn’t let it. I’d just say, “Eh, we’ll do a workaround here.” A lot of that was personal growth and professional growth, learning how to handle that. People have preferences on any team. So I wasn’t going to wear it like a badge of difficulty. I was the first woman in many of those upper-management jobs. Thankfully, I wasn’t the last. [laughter]

In 2003, Rudd went on to serve as Superintendent of Oklahoma City National Memorial and Chickasaw National Recreation Area in Oklahoma, followed by Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and Curecanti Recreation Area in Colorado beginning in 2006. Her years of development in interpretation and communication, as well as active involvement in her peer group, situated her to manage the complex challenges faced by these sites: partnerships, water rights, and care for the resources and staff, to name a few. Rudd retired in Colorado in 2014, where her focus shifted to her lifelong interest in photography.

Rudd’s career in the National Park Service illustrates that a successful path does not have to be designed or anticipated from the start. Her openness to experience, continual learning, and caring for others guided each step of the way.

Connie Rudd: On Daily Learning

Connie Rudd comments on the continual learning of experience and time; both in individual lives and for the National Park Service as an agency. In conversation with Lu Ann Jones as part of an oral history interview.

Credit / Author:
NPS Park History Program

Date created:
06/05/2020

CONNIE RUDD: We all learn as we take steps. I think for a lot of us, even though we’re an over-100-year-old agency, we have a solid mission. We’re committed to that mission. Every single one of us learns daily, and it’s not the same Park Service as it was 40 years ago when I came to it, nor was it 100 years ago. We, as an agency, have to learn and grow and live with our neighbors. We used to be islands. We did. We just managed with inside our boundaries. That was it. If you didn’t like it, too bad. It’s not the way we do things now .

Lu Ann Jones is the oral history program coordinator for the National Park Service Park History Program in Washington, DC. Learn more at the NPS Oral History Website.

Where this belongs

• Black Canyon Of The Gunnison National Park
• Chickasaw National Recreation Area
• Curecanti National Recreation Area
• Grand Canyon National Park
• Oklahoma City National Memorial
• Rocky Mountain National Park

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