Staff Spotlight: Floyd Myers

Floyd Myers smiling in uniform

NPS Photo

Meet Floyd Myers, the Chief of Business Development and Partnerships for the National Parks of New York Harbor!

There are many ways that people find themselves working for the National Park Service, and Floyd’s pathway was from local government at the City of Mount Vernon, where he was the commissioner for the Department of Recreation. With the changing administration, he was interested in staying in the recreation field. He described himself as “an anomaly in the Park Service,” noting that because of his master’s in finance, his experience working with government politics, as well as working in the music industry and entertainment field provided him the opportunity to compete to become a businessman within the National Park Service. The NPS functions differently than the private industry and local government, and his various experiene helped him qualify.

He did not know a lot about the National Park Service when he was younger. He grew up with a park right in his town, but he pointed out that despite living in New York and having 32,000 acres of National Park lands, “being just like a regular native to New York, you don't look at it as National Park System, you just look at it as a monument, or a place to go. We don't even use the term ‘Park.’ You know. I didn't learn that until I got into the Park Service.” Some of the parks he had visited but did not realize were parks until he came to NPS were the Statue of Liberty National Monument and Governors Island National Monument, which are managed by the National Park Service.

The woman who hired Floyd took a chance on him. He was as he calls himself “green” at the time. He saw himself as an outsider. However, his work ethic was strong, and his first job at NPS was with the National Parks of New York Harbor in the Commissioner's Office as their business manager and partnership coordinator.

Before serving at several park sites, he was an NPS Urban Fellow, which is a program that looked at how urban parks will operate for the next 100 years. He participated in the program for a couple of years. He developed educational programs for youth groups. There were cohorts in Philadelphia, Detroit, New York, Richmond, VA, Richmon, CA, Jackson, Florida, and other urban parks. Then began a journey of working at parks in different capacities, including as acting and deputy superintendents.

One key to helping to make change happen for Floyd has been through partnership building, which he learned early on in his career, even before coming to NPS. His first job working at a park was as a Supervisory Park Ranger and Chief of Interpretation for the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site, during which he worked closely with the Tuskegee Institute National Historic Site and the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail. This was his segue into park operations. He then became the acting Superintendent for the Booker T. Washington National Monument in Hardy, VA. Then he went back to the Central Alabama parks to be the acting Superintendent for nearly two years. When the pandemic hit, he accepted an offer to be the acting Superintendent at Patterson Great Falls National Historical Park in New Jersey and then became the acting Deputy Superintendent at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park.

1) Floyd Myers with the Mayor of Montgomery
2) Floyd Myers with the Mayor of Tuskegee
3) Floyd Myers with Bernice King

NPS Photos

“A major part of my partnership piece is local government, state, Congress, but most of all working with youth programming.” At each of the parks he has served at, he has brought in youth programs through partners, including the Greening Youth Foundation, Groundwork USA, and the Student Conservation Association. At the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park, he currently has Groundwork USA members working on historic preservation on some of the historic homes in the Martin Luther King historic district.

Floyd Myers, a Park Ranger, and two Greening Youth Foundation interns at the 55th anniversary of Selma March event

NPS Photo

All the parks that Floyd has worked at are connected in some way through civil rights. What he has loved most about working at each different site is that though there are commonalities amongst them, each one has its own culture and community. In his roles as acting deputies and superintendents, he has had a chance to directly interact with the community he is working with, learn about their culture, and their personal stories. Even though he was the one overseeing park operations in many cases, he still felt connected to the people that he was working with and keeps an open door policy. This helps engage visitors and partners and allows them to feel heard and also increases interest in them wanting to visit or invest a site. Even though the history that that site represents can be challenging and hard at times, it can become more digestible when you are humanizing the experience.

Floyd Myers with a Park Ranger and two Greening Youth Foundation interns at a George Washington Carver Day event

NPS Photo

During his time at these sites, he created many youth programs. For example, he shared that at the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site, he “developed a room called the discovery lab, which is a youth partnership with Tuskegee University that teaches young people how to fly planes.” At the Tuskegee Institute, he had historic preservation work done by Groundwork USA to rebuild and restore The Oaks, which is Booker T. Washington’s home. He wrote a grant for $4 million for a new exhibit at the George Washington Carver museum, which is part of the Tuskegee institute.

There were numerous other projects, such as the one he oversaw for the Selma to Montgomery National Historic Trail, which is 54 miles. Before arriving to the park, he found there was an interpretive center located in Selma, and an interpretive center at the halfway point in Lowndes County, however, the Montgomery interpretive center was missing, so Floyd helped work and open an interpretive center there to “tie up the entire trail on the campus of Alabama State University.” In New Jersey, he found funding to complete a project to build a brand new overlook looking over the falls and a new facility for the facilities division for Patterson Great Falls National Historical Park. At Booker T. Washington, he supported a project to put up three miles of split rail fencing around the entire park.

Floyd Myers with YMCA campers

NPS Photo

He feels responsible for ensuring that the next generation of public land leaders is aware of the NPS and what it stands for sharing that “I take the opportunity to reach out cause a lot of these kids or young people…don't know about the Park Service, so this is their introduction.” They not only get to explore a potential career path, but they also get to do work on significant historic places. Most of the kids Floyd interacts with are from the urban inner city. While it may seem like national parks are mostly located in rural areas out west, because of large national parks like Yellowstone and Yosemite, there are actually more urban parks that many people do not know are parks. For example, New York alone has 24 different parks currently.

The NPS preserves not only the natural resources but also the cultural resources and history of our country. Though one might not consider New York to have a park as large as that of one of the ones out west, one example of an urban park in this state is Gateway National Recreation Area, which is 32,000 acres of park land and is similar to what you would find in one of the larger parks, because they have trails, biking, hiking, and kayaking all in one place.

On what it means to be part of the Black community and wear the green and gray uniform, for Floyd, “It's prideful…I have an opportunity that a lot of urban kids don't have [or] didn't have. It's also my responsibility to reach out to go back into my own community.” One of the challenges he faces with his work is that the workforce does not reflect the communities that the NPS serves yet and points out that it is also the leadership that does not reflect the communities NSP serves. “On one hand..‘I'm very proud of that,’ but on the other hand I'm like, ‘we still got a ways to go.’”

Floyd Myers with NPS staff smiling at the Martin Luther King. Jr. National Historical Park

NPS Photo

Floyd expressed that a major barrier to recruiting a more diverse workforce is the recruitment process, specifically hiring authorities. He emphasized the need to recruit youth either through youth programs, or expose youth to parks in general when they are younger. Many underrepresented groups do not have the opportunity to visit parks when they are younger and do not realize working for NPS is a viable option.

There are many aspects to recruitment, and hiring authorities are one benefit that is not always being used effectively. It is one thing to get the hiring authority, but another to have the experience that qualifies an individual for that job. Not all individuals need to go to college to work for the federal government, so work experience can be gained from anywhere. One does not need to be a park ranger or biologist to work at NPS. They can be firemen, mechanics, facility managers, caretakers, physicians, museum curators, historians, public affairs specialists, and so much more.

In everything that Floyd does, he brings passion, leadership, partnership, strategic planning, and a love for youth programs. Outside of the NPS, he owns and is the president of a music and film production company called Soul on Soul Productions, Inc., with his late brother.

Have a question about Youth or Young Adult Programs? Please e-mail us. Learn more about what we do here. Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @NPSYouth and with #NPSYouth.