First Official Week GWMP

My first day at George Washington Memorial Parkway was May 25th. My first week of the ProRanger internship has been nothing but wonderful. I have worked with many different employees of GWMP. On my first day I recieved a thorough tour of the National Park and was able to see almost all of the various memorials. My favorite memorial is the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial and this is my favorite because I learned that the sculptor created the statutes of the Marines in an unusual and creative way. The sculptor started from bone, then added on the muscle, and then finally added on the clothes. He did this so that the Marines would look as realistic as possible. Another interesting fact that made me fall in love with this particular memorial is the fact that people can send in their own personal American flags to be placed on the flagpole of the memorial.

On my second day Tia and I worked with Jackie Cunningham Davis, GWMP's Education Program specialist. We learned about her role in different education programs, such as S.C.E.P and S.T.E.P., the part she plays in special events, and about all the details and inner workings of the bookstores located throughout our National Parks. The following day we worked with Ernest Jutte and Desiree Seifert. The two spent a good amount of time explaining all the different aspects of Human Resources. We traveled to S.H.R.O. in Mannassass and worked in the office and learned how Human Resources can be described as "the jack of all trades and the master of none" (as Desiree put it).

Tia and I have now moved on to work with GWMP's wonderful maintenance crew. We worked in the auto shop and got down and dirty. Tia and I worked as a team as we changed the oil, changed the filter, and greased the underpart of a large maintenance truck. Today we worked with Kate, GWMP's landscape architect, and Luis, GWMP's civil engineer. We attended a meeting with Kate in downtown Arlington that was all about the ongoing renovation of Jone's Point. We later visited Jone's Point, Humpback Bridge, and Great Falls to learn about the technicalities of these projects. I have learned so much in my first week in the National Park Service and know that there is much more to learn. This is a picture of me working in the auto shop with Joe and Jones. More pictures will be posted tonight! Thanks for reading!