Nominee to lead National Park Service has deep roots in West

As superintendent of Mount Rainier National Park outside Seattle, Jon Jarvis twice climbed the 14,411-foot peak. As director of the National Park Service's Pacific West Region, he ordered that his 56 parks be carbon neutral by 2016, when the agency celebrates its centennial. He has tangled with a California senator over oyster farming in a national seashore and, according to colleagues, jeopardized his career by opposing a Bush administration management plan to commercialize the parks and emphasize recreation over conservation. During his 30 years in the National Park Service, starting as a ranger, he championed the effort to transform the "scenery management" approach of "old buffalo" superintendents into one where protecting natural and cultural resources is as important as attracting tourists. In nominating Jarvis for director of the National Park Service, President Barack Obama selected someone who appears to have few critics. "We couldn't have a better person," said Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which has jurisdiction over the nomination. If confirmed by the Senate, Jarvis will head an agency that faces troubling operational budget shortfalls, a multibillion-dollar maintenance backlog, low employee morale and fundamental questions about its future...McClatchy