Strength Through Diversity with Superintendent Ed Keable

Behind the Scenery

"I know that there are some people who think that if you tell particular stories, like LGBT stories, that that is divisive, but I think given the nature of the culture of the United States and how we have come to be, that each of those strands of narrative are threads in the fabric that make this country strong.”

Join us for a conversation with Superintendent Ed Keable to hear about why the NPS celebrates Pride, how Grand Canyon is becoming more inclusive, and which side of the Canyon is his favorite!

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Ed: First thing I’ll say is being Gay is part of who I am, it’s not who I am... Julia: Hello there! I’m Ranger Julia, and for the last two years, I have been working as a seasonal interpretive ranger on the North Rim at Grand Canyon National Park. In that time, I’ve written a few social media posts in honor of LGBTQ+ Pride month, which takes place each June. This year, the post featured myself wrapped in a pride flag, with a short caption highlighting diversity and inclusion in the parks. While the post received widespread support from other parks, visitors, and our park partners, it was also met with vitriol, ignorance, and hate. People were confused about the post’s relevance to the Grand Canyon, and to the National Park Service in general. In response to these comments, I sat down with Superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park, Ed Keable, to discuss his thoughts on diversity and inclusion in terms of the NPS mission. To explain Superintendent Keable, I need to explain the role of a Superintendent. The National Park Service is a part of the Department of the Interior, and is spearheaded by one director, currently Chuck Sams. Under the director there are deputy directors, each with their own staff and area of expertise. Next down the list are the regional directors, who oversee many parks. Each park in the region then has its own superintendent. For Grand Canyon, that Superintendent is Ed Keable. You can think of him as the person in charge of Grand Canyon; Superintendents are essentially the chief executive officers of individual parks and can be appointed by the Secretary of the Interior. By the time I sat down with Superintendent Keable, he had been hard at work at Grand Canyon for about three years.

Acoustic guitar music.

Julia: Welcome to the North rim. First, can you introduce yourself? Ed: Sure! I'm Ed Keable, I’m the Superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park. Julia: Can you briefly tell me about your path to becoming Superintendent of Grand Canyon? Ed: Sure. So first, this is my first National Park Service job. So my path here is unusual. I spent the previous 23 years as a lawyer in the Department's office of the Solicitor, which is their legal office. And spent seventeen of those years in different executive level jobs, basically in various jobs, and managing the solicitor’s office, and had an area of practice that included administrative also, the nuts and bolts and how to manage federal organizations and then of course I manage the Solicitors Office. So I had that background. The superintendency at the Grand Canyon had been vacant for almost 2 years before I got here. The Department of Parks Service had advertised the job twice- weren't satisfied with the applicants they got, most of which were outside of the National Park Service. I think in either both -- one or both of them, nobody in the Park Service applied because it's a really hard job for lots of different reasons. So the secretary of the Interior has the authority to reassign executives in the department to any jobs they’re qualified to do, and the Secretary of the Interior is - what at the time was David Bernhardt and I've known him for almost 20 years. He was my boss when he was the solicitor of the Department of the Interior and I gave him legal advice when he was the Deputy Secretary and the Secretary. So he knew me really well, and as he thought about the challenges of the Grand Canyon, he thought, after failing to recruit anybody, who could he reassign into the job? And he told me that he kept thinking of my name as somebody who could do this job. So, 24 hours before he called me into his office, I got a call from my boss, my political boss in the solicitor’s office telling me "Hey, I think the Secretary is gonna ask you to be the superior of the Grand Canyon. And he's gonna ask you tomorrow.” So I had 24 hours to think about it and so the secretary did call me into his office on what turned out to be my birthday. And told me, “Hey, I really am having a hard time filling the Superintendency of the Grand Canyon, as I think about it, I think you'd be really good at it. So I'm going to ask you a question and you can say no” because the deal is with the senior executives in the federal government is, if the Secretary of the Interior asks you to take a job, to reassign you to a new job, you either have to say yes or you have to resign. Julia: Wow. Ed: That's part of the law that established the Senior Executive Service. So the secretary knew that I knew that because I'd given him advice in the past on how to reassign executives. So he prefaced his question with “you can say no,” but he asked me, would I take the job and I, having thought about it for 24 hours, I said yes. Julia: What was your first thought when you were told you would be asked that question? Ed: Wow! You know, I had been to the Grand Canyon twice as a tourist. The first time was in 1994. My husband, he wasn't my husband at the time, but my husband and I were traveling the southwest and we stopped at the north rim. And you know, I had one of those iconic Grand Canyon experiences where I walked up to the rim and was just awed by its grandeur and its beauty, and and had that sense of the divine that this is really a special place. And shortly after that I had a random thought: “This would be a really cool place to work and to live!” And 26 years later, the secretary of the Interior asked me if I would become the Superintendent of the Grand Canyon.

Acoustic guitar music.

Julia: Ed Keable's tenure as Superintendent started just after the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, so he is no stranger to working through new and complicated challenges. What are you most proud of accomplishing during your time as Superintendent so far? Ed: There's a lot to choose from. We're doing just amazing work across multiple issues and fields. I think if I had to pick one - by the way, this question is a lot like, you know, who's your favorite child? - But if I had to pick one, it would be the work we're doing around the welcoming Indigenous people back into the Park. Grand Canyon National Park, like so many other federal land units, certainly National Park units, was established over 100 years ago against the will of the people who lived in this place from time immemorial. And the Park Service then, like other federal agencies, for 100 years kept them away from what they still today view as their home. And that's caused all sorts of challenges within Indigenous communities; dispossessing them from their home, keeping them away from their home for 100 years. I believe it's created social and economic challenges that tribal leaders are dealing with today. And so this park, before I got here, began working really hard at trying to welcome Indigenous people back. We have an initiative to create the first Inter-Tribal Cultural Heritage Site at Desert View at our east entrance gate on the South Rim, and in order to really accomplish that in a meaningful way, the park established an Inter-Tribal Working Group; representatives from the 11 Associated Tribes to the park have formed to work with the park to help give us guidance on how to really effectively welcome people back. And that process has taken time to mature because there was distrust between the tribes and the park, but the park has been really mindful to work that process well. So we work with our park partners, the Grand Canyon Conservancy, to fund a facilitator who themselves are indigenous, not from the 11 associated tribes from other from another tribe, but that's really important for our tribal partners to have a facilitator who understands their perspective generally. And so, the park is a part of that dialogue. We're not leading that dialogue, and in fact, in many ways, we're working with the tribal leaders to lead that process. We're taking our lead from them. So at the Desert View Inter-Tribal Cultural Heritage Site, the Tribal leaders of the Inter-Tribal Working Group have established a strategic plan, we’re following that strategic plan. They've established a theme, which is that “we are still here.” It's important to them that that not only our visitors, but the park, understands that this is their home, and they are still here and so that has informed how the Park Service is engaging with them. And when I got to the park, that work had been going on for a number of years and within a couple of weeks I went to Desert View, got the briefing on what's going on there, and my only question walking away from that briefing was “Why are we doing this only at Desert View? Why aren't we doing this throughout the whole park?” So we've made sufficient progress with Desert View and we're following that strategic plan. We're now engaging with the Inter-Tribal Working Group to expand what I call the Desert View Vision to the rest of the park and we're having really meaningful conversations with some of the associated tribes to identify co-management opportunities and we're beginning some long term plannings on how to implement co-management effectively including infrastructure issues. So if we want our Indigenous partners to come into the park and work with us, for example, they're going to need housing. So as we manage our housing program for the future, we're building into our future housing needs opportunities for our Indigenous partners to come to and live into the park. Julia: This might be similar to that last question, but what are you most looking forward to working on still? Ed: So I have three main priorities as I'm leading Grand Canyon, I've identified 3 priorities. You know there are lots of other work that we're doing and it's all important, but in order to be an effective chief executive officer, which is essentially my role as Superintendent, you have to have a clear sense of priorities, and so my number one priority is this Indigenous Program that I spoke to earlier. My second priority is climate change. The Grand Canyon National Park is part of the Colorado River Plateau. The Plateau has been going through drought for 23 years. It's called the Millennial Drought. It's had tremendous impacts across the basin, including in the Grand Canyon. And so I'm working with the scientists in the park and with other federal partners and other stakeholders in the region to help shape key policies around water allocations, particularly water distributions, through the Glen Canyon Dam that come through the Grand Canyon to get to Lake Mead. And so we're doing a lot of work in that space, I'm personally doing a lot of work in that space. And our third priority is deferred maintenance. Like so many other parks in the system, this park hasn't maintained its infrastructure for decades, and the infrastructure is falling apart. Just as one example, the Trans-Canyon Waterline, which draws water from the Canyon to the rims, breaks. The water lines break on a fairly regular basis. Last year, there were thirteen major breaks in the water line to the South Rim and there were three in August. And it takes the water utilities crew time to fix them and to reprime the pumps. And through August, we weren't for the most part of August, filling the tank farms in the South Rim and so as we used water in the South Rim during that period of time, the water levels in the tank farms dropped and they dropped sufficiently close to the level that we require for structure fire support in the park that that I was within, I would say, two or three hours of shutting down the South Rim in September. Julia: Wow Ed: And so fortunately, the water utilities crew, which does amazing work, fixed the last break and primed the pump in enough time that we started filling the tanks farms before I signed the order, so we averted disaster by the skin of our teeth. That's just one illustration. We've got 4 wastewater systems in the park, all of which have not been invested in and are failing. We've got an electrical grid that was designed and built in the 1970s for a park in the 1970s, and we're moving into an era where we're building infrastructure that requires electricity, more electricity than we currently have, and we're looking to support our visitors, who are increasingly bringing electrical vehicles to the park and we're redesigning the park's fleet to be more energy efficient and going electric with our fleet as well, including our bus fleet. So we need more and better and reliable electricity, so we're in the process of changing the entire electrical grid in the park, so -It's - we'll be spending hundreds of millions of dollars in the next four or five years, doing the work that should have been done regularly, consistently for the last 40 or 50 years. Julia: Right. What is your favorite Grand Canyon story; either a personal story, a story you've heard... what comes to mind? Ed: Yeah, you keep asking me to name my favorites... Julia: A favorite story? Ed: So I think that this might be a cop out, but my favorite story of the Grand Canyon is the way the staff and our partners pull together to really work to make this an amazing place, right? So our mission in the Park Service is to preserve the natural and cultural resources of the park and to make it available to our visitors now and into the future. And you know, that's a remarkable mission, especially at a place like the Grand Canyon, which is one of the seven natural wonders of the world and a World Cultural Heritage site, and one of the icon parks of the National Park system and the staff here is really incredibly talented and dedicated, and there are multiple disciplines that have to work together and this is not an easy place to live. I mean, while we dedicate ourselves to that mission, we’re remote, we have internet connectivity challenges. The developed areas in on the North Rim and the South Rim both have limited resources, right? There are no doctors here, no dentists here, there's no movie theater here, there's no cinema. For the South Rim where I live, I have to drive an hour and a half to see my doctor or my dentist, or go to a movie, or do any of those things that people in the United States oftentimes take for granted. You know, add the Internet connectivity challenge, especially for our younger employees who grew up with a special relationship to connectivity, it makes it a hard place to be. I mean, fortunately it’s also the Grand Canyon, you get to be out into the resource, you get to hike, you get to recreate and that is a great compensation, but it's still a hard place to live. But the staff here is, as I said, they're really talented, really dedicated and being a part of an organization where we work collaboratively across disciplines to accomplish that mission of preserving the natural and cultural resources and making it available to our visitors now into the future is in and of itself it's a remarkable story and I'm proud to be part of it. Julia: Yeah, I definitely agree with you on that. This is also my first Park Service job and I get the feeling that I'm being a little bit spoiled by starting at the Grand Canyon. Ed: Well, you just, you just have to never leave the Grand Canyon! Julia: Well, exactly so it's it's almost like a double-edged sword because it's such a great experience, but nothing will ever compare to this, even with all the challenges. Definitely agree with that.

Acoustic guitar music.

Julia: Moving on to the questions of Pride and diversity and inclusion, I have noticed working on various Pride projects for here and Zion, that people often ask what does this have to do with national parks? Why are you posting about this? Why not just post pretty pictures of the Grand Canyon? So why do you think representation is important to national parks? Ed: The National Park Service excels at telling the story of America. And we tell the whole story. We haven't always told the whole story, but we are committing ourselves to doing that. And the United States is largely an immigrant country, so diversity is one of the great strengths of the United States, and so it's important for the National Park Service to tell that whole story in order for all of us to understand that underlying strength of the country. And it's it's easy for us to lose sight of why diversity is important and how that makes America strong. And so the park service’s efforts to tell the whole story of the country is an important service that we provide to the country and I know that there are some people who think that, you know, if you tell particular stories, like LGBT stories, that that is divisive, but I think given the nature of the culture of the United States and how we have come to be, that each of those strands of narrative are threads in the fabric that make this country strong. And so it's important for the Park Service to tell those stories. Julia: So the second question that I have is pretty similar to the first, but more specifically about Pride as opposed to general representation. Does Pride, LGBT Pride, have a place in the National Park system and what do you think that place is? Ed: Of course it has a place. Gay people are and always have been, an important thread in the fabric of the country and our story, I'm gay myself, our story is important to tell, and it's as important to tell as any other story. So I think it's great that the Park Service is telling that story. Julia: How do you think we can best create an environment where everyone is welcome and safe and free to tell those stories? Ed: It's a really good question, especially given the history of the National Park Service, which has not been always as welcoming to that narrative; that broad narrative. The National Park Service currently has an initiative underway, called RISE, which stands for respectful, inclusive, safe and engaged National Park Service, and RISE is an effort within the Park Service to help across the system to create that environment where every employee, regardless of their background, feels respected, included, safe and can engage. I think that's a really important initiative because not everybody has felt that welcoming environment and not everybody has felt included. Not everybody has felt as safe and so not everybody has engaged. And so we're working on a number of initiatives to create that environment for all employees and as I've told employees in the Grand Canyon, it both in -in my e-mail communications and when I talk to them individually and when I talk to them in work groups, from my perspective, the linchpin of the rise initiative is the R, respect. If every employee treats every employee with respect at all times, the inclusion, the safety and the engagement will follow. It's not always an easy thing to do because people are people, right? We all have personalities. We all have likes and dislikes, we have people we don't like. We have stress on our in our work lives that sometimes lead us to be not our best selves, and it's easy to lapse into behaviors that can be disrespectful and that can be corrosive to relationships and to cohesion in work units and ultimately to the success of the park. So I work at stressing for myself and encourage others to stress respecting each other at all times, and because that's not easy, it's not always easy, it's important to remember that respect isn't just a matter of me communicating respectfully or behaving respectfully towards you, but also me respecting you as you're engaging with me. You know, allowing sometimes for you, or you allowing sometimes for me to have bad days, or allowing you to have whatever dislikes that you have acquired over the course of your life or you allowing me to have whatever dislikes I have and trying to figure out how to navigate as we engage with each other how to how to work through those differences. If I like some things and you don't, or if I have a communications practice or pattern that doesn't resonate with you. I'm 62. It's going to be hard for me to change my communication strategy and however old you are, I'm not going to ask, it's not really appropriate for me to ask you to change yours necessarily. I mean, maybe around the edges we can work around our communications, but fundamentally we are who we are and we need to learn to respect who we are. That gets back to that strength of diversity. When all of the diversity that we bring to the table starts working in an environment where we can respect each other. We learn different things from each other. We learn different insights about the work that we're doing, and it makes us a stronger organization. So the key is trying to navigate that respect in a way that doesn't diminish the need for each of us to be valued. I used to have, well I worked in the Army before I took a job in the solicitor's office and I manage the park and along these ten lessons that I learned in the United States Army. #8 on my list is that all of us are valued and none of us are irreplaceable. And I think that's a really important concept and principle. Certainly for me, it’s proven to for me to remember as I work with people, I really do value everybody I work with and learn from them. So I need to respect them, but I also have that same need. I need to be valued, I need to be respected and and so I think we just need to keep working at that and the RISE initiative that the park service are promoting, I think creates the framework for that. Julia: You mentioned the fact that you are a gay man, you have a husband. I was wondering if you'd be willing to talk about if your identity has affected your experience in this position or in general through your positions in the government. Ed: I think it has. So I'll say, the first thing I'll say, being gay is part of who I am, it's not who I am. Julia: Yes. Ed: And I have had the great fortune of not being discriminated for being gay, whether it's in the Army, in my professional capacity, whether it's in the Army, in the in the Department Solicitors Office or in the National Park Service. I have been discriminated against in my personal life and that has given me an appreciation for people who have also felt discriminated against and so that context has given me an empathy that I think is important, as, you know, as particularly as we do things like implement the rise initiative to be open to listening to what people's experiences have been, so that we can try to identify solutions to creating a more respectful, inclusive, safe, and engaged workspace. So, I think that's been helpful for me to have had those experiences. I didn’t like them at the time, but you know every every positive and negative experience in a person's life helps shape who you are. And so, I think those experiences as, as I said, have given me empathy, and that's helped me to be, I think a better, more inclusive leader. Julia: I think that the fact that you mentioned that being gay is a part of who you are and not all of who you are is very important. I wrote the Pride post for Grand Canyon this year and it's a picture of me wrapped in a pride flag and a lot of people commented saying things along the lines of “imagine if your sexuality was your whole personality!” Which is silly because that's not true for anyone, I don't think, but I feel like there tends to be this idea from a lot of folks that if you mention being queer in any way, that that must be your whole shtick. And so I think it's important that we talk about folks who are not straight as just being people, people doing great work, like all the things that you've mentioned, that you've been working on at Grand Canyon, it's... has nothing to do with your sexuality, but then, like you were saying, the empathy that you get from that experience does have to do with your job, so I think that's a very important thing to bring up and I appreciate that a lot. What advice do you have for the next generation? Broadly or for young LGBTQ folks, what comes to mind? Ed: Be who you are, proudly. I served in the Army during the “don't ask, don't tell” era. And it was difficult hiding who I was to my friends, it felt dishonest. It was dishonest. And when I left the Army and told my friends that I was gay, none of them cared. And I committed at that point to live my life openly and honestly and I've never looked back. So you know, as a general rule my, my, my approach to life is to move forward and that's what I'm doing and I encourage everybody to live your life proudly and openly and honestly. Julia: And the last question is which side of the Grand Canyon is your favorite side of the Grand Canyon? Ed: All of the Grand Canyon is my favorite side of the Grand Canyon! You know, there are,. I just encourage our employees and our visitors both to explore all parts of the Grand Canyon. The North Rim is a special place, to be sure it's the it's the place I first saw the Grand Canyon, so it will always have a special place in my heart, and it's just a great place. But the South Rim has a lot to offer too, especially in the Desert View area. The Inner Canyon, hiking into the Canyon, especially some of our less traveled trails where you can be a little bit more remote, are great experiences. And of course, the river experiences are remarkable. I get on the river twice a year as Superintendent, have really come to value those experiences. As Superintendent, I try to I try to travel to as many parts of the park as I can because I believe I need to really be in as many parts of the park to really fully understand it. So I encourage that of all employees. So you need to get out in the park more! Julia: I know I got to go down to desert view for a week and help out them down there and I was thinking, wow, this is really cool! You know, it's so different! The views are so different. But then it was like 95 degrees and I was like, I'm going back to the North Rim, Ed: Yeah. Julia: It's too hot! Ed: One of my one of the lessons I learned in the river is you have to embrace adversity in order to enjoy the experience. Julia: Yeah, definitely. Is there anything else that you would like to add or talk about? Ed: No, I just want to thank you for inviting me to join you for this discussion. It's been fun and hopefully for your listeners, it'll be a little educational. Julia: Yeah, I hope so! Thank you for agreeing to come talk with. Ed: Sure, it's been a pleasure. Acoustic guitar music. Julia: Many thanks to Ed Keable for sharing his stories. Musical interludes in this episode were created by MrSnooze. The Behind the Scenery Podcast is brought to you by the interpretation team at Grand Canyon National Park. We gratefully acknowledge the native peoples on whose ancestral homelands we gather, as well as the diverse and vibrant native communities who make their homes here today.