[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 118 (Tuesday, September 10, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Page S6324]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         TRIBUTE TO MARK WOODS

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I rise today to congratulate my good 
friend Mr. Mark Woods. Mark is currently the superintendent of one of 
the Commonwealth of Kentucky's most important preserves of natural 
beauty, the Cumberland Gap National Historic Park, a post he's held for 
16 years. The Cumberland Gap National Historic Park sits at the border 
of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia, although of course, the most 
breathtaking parts are within the Bluegrass State.
  Kentuckians will be sorry to see Mark go due to his recent and much 
deserved promotion: Later this month, Mark will assume his new duties 
as superintendent of the Blue Ridge Parkway. The Blue Ridge Parkway 
runs for over 450 miles through Virginia and North Carolina along the 
Blue Ridge Mountains. It is the most visited attraction of the entire 
U.S. National Park Service--more than Yellowstone, Yosemite, or the 
Grand Canyon.
  Mark is a 33-year veteran of the National Park Service and has worked 
in parks in South Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia as well as Kentucky. 
I am sure his family is very proud of him for this career 
accomplishment. Although I will miss working with Mark in Kentucky, I 
am pleased that citizens everywhere can still benefit from his 
knowledge and experience when they visit our national parks.
  I know my colleagues join me in congratulating Mr. Mark Woods for 
this opportunity and thanking him for his dedication to the National 
Park Service. Mr. Woods's career and accomplishments to date were 
recently profiled in a newspaper article. I ask unanimous consent that 
said article be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to appear as 
follows:

                  [From the Asheville Citizen-Times, 
                             Aug. 7, 2013]

               SC Native Named New Parkway Superintendent

                           (By Karen Chavez)

       Asheville.--A 33-year National Park Service veteran with 
     Southern Appalachian roots has been chosen as the new 
     superintendent of the Blue Ridge Parkway.
       Mark Woods, 53, now superintendent at Cumberland Gap 
     National Historic Park, which sits in Kentucky, Virginia and 
     Tennessee, will take over leadership of the busiest national 
     park site in the country September 22 at parkway headquarters 
     in Asheville.
       ``Mark has got some great experience,'' said Bill Reynolds, 
     National Park Service spokesman in Atlanta. ``He spent most 
     of his career in the Southeast.''
       Woods, who was raised in Greenville, S.C., received a 
     bachelor's degree in sociology from Lander University in 
     Greenwood, S.C., in 1982. He is married and has three 
     children.
       He began working as an interpretive ranger for the National 
     Park Service in 1980 at parks including Ninety Six National 
     Historic Site (Ninety Six, S.C.), Kings Mountain National 
     Military Park (Blacksburg, S.C.), Andrew Johnson National 
     Historic Site (Greeneville, Tenn.), and Cumberland Island 
     National Seashore (St. Mary's, Ga.)
       Woods will replace Phil Francis, who retired as 
     superintendent of the parkway in April. Monika Mayr, deputy 
     superintendent since 2009, has been acting superintendent 
     since April, and had applied for the position.
       The parkway has not had a female superintendent in its 78 
     years.
       Mayr, a 30-year park service veteran, said she has known 
     Woods for many years and thinks he will be a good fit.
       ``He's a very good leader,'' she said. ``He has always 
     wanted to work at the parkway because he loves the resources 
     here and he knows the staff is really good.''
       Woods also gets a hearty endorsement from Francis, who 
     oversaw the parkway for eight years and still lives in 
     Asheville.
       ``I've known him over 20 years. He's well respected,'' 
     Francis said.
       ``He's a very able leader of Cumberland Gap. It's not as 
     big as the parkway, but he's already had to deal with some of 
     the same issues on a different scale. Sequestration cuts 
     happened at all national parks, so he's had to make those 
     same kinds of decisions.''
       The federal sequester forced all national parks to reduce 
     their budgets by 5 percent for the remainder of the year, 
     starting in March.
       Woods will inherit the aftermath of the nearly $800,000 
     budget cut, which was accomplished through facility closures, 
     cuts to seasonal and permanent staff, cutbacks on visitor 
     services such as ranger programs and a decrease in the mowing 
     operation and maintenance of the parkway's scenic overlooks.
       He must also contend with a $450 million deferred 
     maintenance backlog, which has been growing for more than a 
     decade.
       ``Mark has a tremendous background in working with gateway 
     communities,'' Reynolds said. ``He also has background in 
     facility design and construction, viewshed protection, 
     wilderness management and general management planning. A 
     broad range of excellent knowledge and experience has made 
     him well suited for this job.''


                   SIMILAR PARKS ON DIFFERENT SCALES

       Woods has been superintendent of Cumberland Gap, known as 
     the gateway to the western frontier, since 1997.
       ``Cumberland Gap is the first doorway to the West, the path 
     that Daniel Boone and the pioneers used to access the West,'' 
     said Carol Borneman, supervisory park ranger at Cumberland.
       The park and the parkway have some similarities. Much like 
     the parkway, Cumberland Gap sits in the Appalachian 
     Mountains, and is steeped in Southern Appalachian history and 
     culture.
       Cumberland Gap was authorized by Congress in 1940 to 
     preserve the natural gap through the mountain that pioneers 
     used to reach the western frontier centuries ago. It contains 
     24,000 acres with nearly 85 miles of forested hiking trails. 
     For 50 years, a major highway passed through the Gap.
       But in one of the largest restoration projects undertaken 
     by the National Park Service, Borneman said, a highway tunnel 
     was built through the Gap in 1996, the old highway was ripped 
     out and the Gap restored to its Daniel Boone days as a 
     walking path. From one overlook in the park, Borneman said, 
     the Smokies can be seen on a clear day.
       The culture, history and views drew 860,000 visitors in 
     2012.
       Things will likely seem a little more crowded for Woods 
     when he gets to the Blue Ridge Parkway. The most visited of 
     the more than 400 units of the National Park Service, 
     including such popular parks as Yellowstone, Yosemite, the 
     Grand Canyon and the Great Smoky Mountains national parks, 
     the parkway had 15.2 million visitors in 2012.
       The parkway stretches 469 miles from Shenandoah National 
     Park in Virginia through the Blue Ridge Mountains, ending in 
     Cherokee, and contains 81,000 acres of land and 1,200 miles 
     of boundary.
       Established in 1935 as a scenic motor road, cars and 
     traffic continue to be one of its biggest issues. October is 
     generally the busiest month on the parkway, and Woods will 
     arrive just in time for the heavy fall foliage traffic.
       He will also face a major closure in one of the parkway's 
     most popular areas in the height of summer tourist season. A 
     20-mile stretch just north of Asheville, through the Craggy 
     Gardens area to Mount Mitchell State Park, has been closed to 
     traffic since July 12 due to slope failure, presumably from 
     the excessive spring and summer rain, staff say.
       Crews are now working on a temporary fix to open the 
     roadway by Labor Day for the fall leaf-peeping traffic, then 
     will close again while the road is permanently fixed.
       Borneman said Cumberland Gap is sad to see Woods leave.
       ``He is an incredible superintendent, so in tune to park 
     resources, and such a proponent of working with local 
     communities,'' she said. ``The parkway is lucky to be getting 
     him.''

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