HOT SPRINGS - A
science and resource manager at Big Bend National Park in Texas,
has been named the new superintendent of Wind Cave National
Park.
Vidal Davila will
assume his new assignment on Sept.16. He succeeds Linda Stoll, who
retired in January following nearly 34 years of federal
service.
"I am thrilled and
excited beyond words to have been selected for the superintendent's
job at Wind Cave National Park," Davila said. "It has been a goal
of mine to be a superintendent at a major national park. I look
forward to working with the great staff at Wind Cave National Park
and the local community. Not only are there great cave resources,
but there are also many natural resources to manage. I am excited
about the new job and the new area to explore."
Davila began his
NPS career in 1974, as a seasonal park naturalist at Amistad
Recreation Area in Del Rio, Texas. For two of those seasons, he
worked as the YCC camp director for a 50-person camp. In 1977,
Davila became a permanent employee at Big Bend as a park technician
in the naturalist division. In 1982, he became the park's resource
management ranger. In 1985 he was selected for a regional trainee
management program and worked at the Southwest Regional Office in
Santa Fe, N.M. Following that program, he was assigned as the
resource management specialist at Guadalupe Mountains National Park
in Pine Springs, Texas, then at Great Basin National Park in Baker,
Nev. He accepted his current position at Big Bend National Park in
1996.
A native of
Pearsall, Texas, Davila holds a bachelor of science degree in
recreation and parks administration from Texas A&M University.
He is a member of the Association of Park Rangers and the George
Wright Society. Davila and his wife of 25 years, Jody Palmer
Davila, formerly from Decatur, Ill., have two children, Rachel
Hope, 17, a freshman at West Texas A&M University in Canyon,
Texas, and Gabriel James, 11, a sixth grader. Davila enjoys hiking
trails, coaching baseball, photography, traveling and
bicycling.
