“I lead with calm, and with empathy. Keep your sense of perspective and lead with integrity, kindness, and humor. Take the work very seriously, but don’t take yourself too seriously. Life’s too short. Find work with purpose and enjoy it every day.”
The time is 7am. The sun has just risen over Half Dome, with rays of light reflecting across the granite cliffs and moving water. As you prepare for whatever today will bring, you pass by Yosemite Falls, taking in its beauty just as you did the day before. This may not sound like your average daily commute to work, but for Cicely Muldoon, the superintendent of Yosemite National Park, it’s a typical Tuesday.
For the past four years, Cicely has served as the superintendent of one of the largest and best-known National Parks in the United States. Yosemite draws over 4 million visitors a year from around the world and is one of the most complex parks to manage in the country. The park’s 750,000 acres, 800 miles of trails, complex infrastructure, and unparalleled natural and cultural resources are cared for by a staff of over eight hundred National Park Service employees and another 1,000 concession employees, collectively the largest staff in any national park.
“It’s kind of like being a mayor of a small city”, says Cicely, except that city is 1,169 square miles of granite cliffs and ancient sequoia trees, and its citizens are a plethora of wildlife.
As a California native, Cicely made her first visit to Yosemite at just six years old. This visit cemented her love and appreciation for the outdoors, one that led her to pursue a career in the National Park Service. However, this career was something that she never anticipated, nor had previously believed to be an option because of the lack of women within the NPS. Fortunately, times have changed for the better.
After thirty-nine years in the NPS, Cicely is still enamored of it all.
“Yosemite is really a drama queen of a park,” says Cicely when describing the natural forces that shape the park. “At any given time, we can expect rockfalls, floods, windstorms, atmospheric rivers, extreme snowfall, large wildfires…the only thing you can predict is its non-predictability. Operationally it’s an incredibly complicated place but this adds to the excitement of the job. You never know what’s going to happen”, says Cicely with a smile.
Though her work never fails to excite her, Cicely expressed that her role as superintendent is nowhere near free of challenges, the winter of 2023 being an exceptional example. Yosemite was struck with a record-breaking snowfall –244% above average – the most the park has seen in fifty-four years. With almost forty inches of snowfall, roads, seasonal housing, and other structures across the park were destroyed, visitors experienced delayed and obstructed access, and employees were unable to maneuver around the park. With the threat of safety for both employees and visitors at hand, Cicely made the difficult decision to close the park and immediately shifted her focus to reopening it safely for visitors.
“It was my fourth winter there and there’s usually very little snow in Yosemite Valley, but last year it went up to my shoulders. I was shoveling like five times a day to keep a clear pathway out my front door.”
This was not the first time Cicely had to navigate a closure. During 2020, Yosemite closed for three months to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and keep visitors, employees and surrounding communities safe. But the crisis wasn’t without opportunity as well. For decades, Yosemite has struggled with severe overcrowding. Once the park reopened, they were able to shift visitation to a reservation-only system. Though it reduced visitation for safety reasons, it also provided visitors with a one-of-a-kind experience to connect with nature and wildlife free of lines and crowds.
Cicely stressed the importance of prioritizing the safety of park visitors in leadership decisions, but also that there is often not just one solution.
“Post-covid, people loved their parks even more. They flocked to the outdoors, and that’s fantastic because that’s how parks will be preserved in the future… but we have to find a way to manage visitation, so they have a great experience and so that we take care of these resources. It’s kind of an eternal challenge and it’s exciting to be here at Yosemite when we’re trying to slay this dragon of how do you deal with intensive visitation and still find a way to have equitable access by making sure we’re reaching all communities, not just people who are traditional park visitors.”
Despite challenges, Cicely continues to take pride in the work she does and the opportunity to make an impact. Cicely is only the second woman in Yosemite’s history to serve as superintendent, and it is not something she takes lightly Within the NPS, women in positions of leadership had previously been confined to smaller parks—it was largely uncommon for a woman to be named as superintendent of a park on such scale as Yosemite. Even as women have occupied more positions of leadership within the NPS, Cicely still experiences instances where her leadership is questioned.
“When people don’t know who you are, in my experience, if you’re standing next to a man, they assume that is the superintendent. Super common, that has happened to me my whole career. Mostly I just find it entertaining, but also informative on what people think a park superintendent is supposed to look like… I look like a park ranger. Anyone can look like a park ranger.”
The landscape of opportunity has changed greatly since Cicely entered the NPS. Cicely has been mentored by both men and women, one of which was B.J. Griffin, the first female superintendent of Yosemite. Throughout her career, Cicely described the many influential mentors and bosses that continue to inspire her every day. Though introverted at heart, Cicely finds pride in helping other women in pursuit of their own careers, being a good leader for her own employees, and helping to build the next generation of conservation leaders.
When discussing the future of opportunity for women in the NPS, Cicely’s response was filled with excitement and optimism.
“Keep raising your hand for new opportunities. I never would have seen myself in this role in a million years but it’s in you. It’s in you, even if you don’t know yet. Keep an open mind, keep your sense of humor, and say yes to any new opportunity that comes along because whether it’s good or bad, you learn so much if you keep building on your experience and break out of what’s comfortable.”
Even with only a short time in her role, Cicely’s work has been nothing short of remarkable. Her work continues to challenge her every day but relishes the excitement of it all. When asked if she would ever become accustomed to her work environment, Cicely reflected with a smile.
“I don’t think Yosemite will ever get old.”
Images courtesy of Cicely Muldoon.
Captured February 2024