An Introduction

Hello everyone!

My name is Tom Kidd.  I am a 22-year-old senior at Temple University and excited to be in the seventh cohort of the ProRanger program.  To let you get to know me a little better I’ll talk about one of my passions at Temple which is InterVarsity (IV).  InterVarsity is an organization in which I have been in at Temple for all four years. To make a it short, IV is a Christian group on campus that has the main goal of trying to have a positive impact on the problem of social injustice throughout the community.   The slogan that IV uses is “a Community of Reconciliation”. We talk about many topics that I am passionate about such as race, power, community, injustice, and faith. We talk about how these problems affect the surrounding people and us personally. It is an incredible experience that opens up your mind.  IV does so many great things that make people’s lives better which is incredible to watch and be apart of. My closest relationships at Temple are because of this organization and the people within it. Just some of the things we like to do are large group events every Thursday, potlucks at the IV House once a month, trash pickups, thanksgiving dinner, and volunteering at schools for MLK Day.

This is my bible study doing a trash pickup on Diamond Street.

This is some of the people who helped/attended this past year’s Thanksgiving dinner at Berean Church.

All of this above is a testament to the fact that I love to impact people and promote change.  These traits are what drew me to want to become involved in the criminal justice system. I wanted to become some sort of public servant to give back to the community.  A passion that then sprung up from this is environmental justice. So with that being said what attracted me to the program is simple: I am a big advocate for environmental protection and I want to be involved in the criminal justice system.  If you put those two interests together you get working for the National Park Service as a ranger. This program is such an incredible opportunity to achieve being a ranger in the NPS that is was too enticing to pass up.

I have always admired national parks but I have only had the opportunity to go to Valley Forge, Independence Hall, and most recently New River Gorge in West Virginia.  Therefore, I was ecstatic to hear that I was selected to go on a summer internship to be able to see another one.  When Ranger Fernandez told me that I was going to the Santa Monica Mountains it took a lot of willpower to not to show an absurd amount of excitement.  It only took one simple google search to know that I have a great opportunity to be able to spend three months on an internship there.  I don't know a lot about the Santa Monica Mountains as of right now except that it is a complicated park which is why it is so interesting to me.   I would love to learn what the park is like,  what is the jurisdiction like, what kind of action the NPS takes to protect the mountains, what wildlife is there, how they are recovering from the Woolsey Fire, and how the employees at the park interact with the visitors (and vice versa).  I would also love to learn how the rangers operate in the mountains on a day to day basis and enforce the specific laws at the park. 

I am ready for the excitement to begin and to share my experiences with everyone!