National parks usually become what they are because they hold some of the nation’s most amazing wildlife, and it’s for this reason that experiencing one for the first time can be life changing. Andres Vasquez first visited a national park in 2018 after his 21st birthday, and the experience definitely altered his life.
Vasquez, now an interpretive ranger at Mount Rainier National Park, was never the one to partake in outdoor recreation as a child. Growing up he would be outdoors when his family took him to soccer games or there was a birthday party at a city park. But he was always a bit different, despite not being in nature much he was incredibly interested in geography and the sciences, so for his 21st birthday he decided to visit Joshua Tree. It was the closest National Park to his home in Southern California and as soon as he stepped foot in it, he fell in love.
That one trip propelled him into the rest of his life. It started slowly, and then all at once. He came back from his trip and began to do more hikes, exploring the outdoors little by little when he had time, mostly in the summers.
“I fell in love with nature,” Vasquez said. “It distracted me from things I was going through personally and became a sanctuary where I could go away for three hours and my problems didn't seem as big, and my ideas became clear.”
Nature became his personal haven, and if he could have that become part of his full-time job, he was going to make that happen. He began his park service journey in 2019, working to communicate a salmon rehabilitation project in Muir Woods, just north of San Francisco. It was a learning curve for Vasquez because although he came from a communications background, he knew little about salmon, rehabilitation, or in general the science that went into the process. Not only did he learn about a topic completely out of his wheelhouse, but he learned some interpretation techniques, which helped him build his resume and score his next position at Alcatraz.
Alcatraz was his first interpretive job, and although the operations weren’t at full capacity because of COVID-19, he still experienced working at a popular park, which prepared him for his current position at Mount Rainier.
“A really cool thing about working in Alcatraz and Muir Woods is that it was in the Golden Gate division,” Vasquez said. “That division is so diverse and willing to introduce new perspectives, it was something I definitely wanted to be present at other jobs I took on.”
His Alcatraz position left him wanting to continue his interpretive work somewhere equally diverse and open to new ideas. He wasn’t sure what other parks were like, so he asked around to rangers he had met that were stationed around the country and heard back from a friend at Mount Rainier National Park. He was told the park was not only hiring, but had the exact environment what he was looking for, so Vasquez, now 25, applied to the position and began as an interpretive ranger in the summer of 2021.
“Other than being and working in a really beautiful park, I really like talking to people,” he said. “I think that when you're able to talk to people about something that interests you, that's when the passion comes out and you really start having fun with it.”
Although he knows the park service has a long way to go with minority representation, he also recognizes the slow improvements that have been happening the past few years.
“There’s representation here and I can definitely find people who are different from me and also some who have similar qualities to me, which to me is awesome,” Vasquez said.
He looks forward to the visitors that are coming from Mexico or Argentina — or any Spanish speaking country for that matter — because he knows that he can connect with them on a deeper level. Not only does speaking in Spanish to visitors make them feel more comfortable in the park, but they also bring Vasquez a little bit closer to home, and being so far away from his family, it’s something he welcomes with open arms.
He’s not the only one at the park who speaks Spanish, and like he said, it’s a fact that makes him feel safe, welcomed and hopeful for the future of minorities at the parks.
“I think that when we think about leadership in the future, we want more representation, and one of the most effective ways to do that is through education,” Vasquez said.
And education is exactly what he is doing at Mount Rainier. He loves the job he has and really can’t picture himself doing anything else for the rest of his life. Even in the offseason, all he can think about is his next park position, his next opportunity to learn and to teach.