By APRIL ERHLICH/Oregon Public Broadcasting
Oregon’s iconic Crater Lake National Park has lost its top leader.
The park’s superintendent, Kevin Heatley, resigned from overseeing Oregon’s only national park on Friday, citing cuts to parks’ staff. Since January, Heatley has seen Crater Lake’s permanent workforce cut in half, and onboarding seasonal staff was delayed by a month.
“Things are not OK,” Heatley told OPB on Monday. “This is not a normal situation. This is a paradigm shift that is having repercussions that will last for at least a generation.”
Then shortly after taking office, President Donald Trump’s administration fired thousands of government employees and encouraged others to accept buyout offers or face potential layoffs. Courts have required federal agencies to rehire some workers who were abruptly fired, but many workers have chosen not to return.
Heatley said he accepted the most recent buyout offer presented to federal staffers.
“This is not an easy decision,” Heatley said. “Being a superintendent of a major national park is not something you just walk away from on a whim.”
Crater Lake is a nearly 2,000-foot deep lake — the deepest in the U.S. — filled with rain and snowmelt at the heart of the Mount Mazama caldera. Over 500,000 people visit this remote mountain every year, making staffing critical to ensuring bathrooms are stocked, signs and bridges are repaired, and roads are clear of snow.
“We have people trying to cover way more than they should in order to keep things rolling,” Heatley said, adding that his facilities staff were often working 60-hour weeks.
This summer could see even more people who want to take a dip in the vivid blue lake, as this will be visitors’ last chance to swim or boat in the caldera until 2029. The National Parks Service is preparing to renovate the lake’s only access point — a project that appears to still be in the works, despite workforce cuts.
Heatley said he’s most concerned about Crater Lake’s lack of interpretive staff, who run educational programs that teach the public about the wonders of Crater Lake and its challenges.
“Crater Lake is at direct risk from climate change,” Heatley said. “We’re seeing changes in the lake itself. We’re seeing changes in the forest systems and the lands around Crater Lake.”
Heatley said he doesn’t have immediate plans for his next job, but he hopes it will be with an organization that advocates for public lands.
— This story originally appeared June 2, 2025 on Oregon Public Broadcasting.
Shame on you Lincoln Chronicle for using OPB articles to tell a story. They are not a news agency that tells the story without a Democrat bent. Thus should not be receiving tax payer monies to carry out their political agenda. I have followed and appreciated you since you first started. The fact that I couldn’t tell your political preference added credibility to your publication. You using OPB to tell a story changes the landscape.
Kevin Heatley resigned from a position he moved into in January because he wanted to take advantage of the most attractive buy out the Federal Goverment has ever offered. He recieved a buyout equal to nine months of pay. What is the salary of a GS-16 now? A similar buyout happened under the Clinton administration with little fanfare and generally public acceptance that it was a good thing. The “other firings” noted in the article were a group of employees that were on probabation and could be released for no specific reason. That is and has been an ongoing policy used primarily on an individual basis. As usual, OPB tells the story to make those not sharing their political agenda look bad.
Your comment is laughably full of falsehoods and inaccuracies. For starters, you’re citing a fictitious grade that the federal government hasn’t used in almost 50 years.