Biden to nominate Sams to head National Park Service

President Biden intends to nominate Charles Sams as director of the National Park Service, an Interior Department division that is important in many rural communities.

Sams serves as a council member to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council, as appointed by Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat.

Sams has worked in state and tribal governments and the nonprofit natural resource and conservation management fields for over 25 years.

Previous roles include deputy executive director for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR), communications director for the CTUIR, environmental health and safety officer/planner in the Tribal Planning Office for the CTUIR, president/CEO of Indian Country Conservancy, executive director for the Umatilla Tribal Community Foundation, national director of the Tribal & Native Lands Program for the Trust for Public Land, executive director for the Columbia Slough Watershed Council, executive director for the Community Energy Project and president/CEO for the Earth Conservation Corps.

He is also a former adjunct professor at Georgetown University and Whitman College.

Sams holds a bachelor of science in business administration from Concordia University-Portland and a master of legal studies degree in Indigenous Peoples Law from the University of Oklahoma. He is a veteran of the U.S. Navy and serves on the boards of the Oregon Cultural Trust and Gray Family Foundation.

He is an enrolled member, Cayuse and Walla Walla, of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.

–The Hagstrom Report