Park Rangers
Overview
Introduction
Park rangers have a diverse set of duties, which include law enforcement, education and interpretation, emergency response, maintenance, and administration. They help care for and maintain national, state, county and city parks. The profession of park ranger often involves the specialization of a discipline. Thousands of park rangers are employed by the National Park Service, other federal agencies, or for state, county, and city agencies in charge of their respective parks.
Quick Facts
Median Salary
Employment Prospects
Minimum Education Level
Experience
Skills
Personality Traits
Earnings
The salaries for National Park Service employees are based on their levels of responsibility and experience. Employees are assigned salary grade levels. As they gain more experience, they are promoted to higher grade levels or to higher salary steps within their grade levels.
The NPS uses two categories of levels. The first, called the General Schedule (GS), applies to professional, admi...
Work Environment
Rangers work in parks all over the country, from the Okefenokee Swamp in Florida to the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. They work in the mountains and forests of Hawaii, Alaska, and California and in urban and suburban parks throughout the United States.
National park rangers are hired to work 40 hours per week, but their actual working hours can be long and irregular, include holidays and ...
Outlook
Park ranger jobs in the federal system (National Park Service) are scarce and competition for them is fierce. The National Park Service has reported that the ratio of applicants to available positions is sometimes as high as 100 to one. As a result, applicants should attain the greatest number and widest variety of applicable skills possible. They may wish to study subjects they can use in othe...
