Todd Brindle Named Superintendent of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area

Todd Brindle

NPS Photo

News Release Date: February 3, 2011

Contact: Leslie Dubey, 409 951-6805

Todd Brindle, a 33-year veteran of the National Park Service (NPS), has been named superintendent of Glen Canyon National Recreation area in southern Utah and northern Arizona, NPS Intermountain Region Director John Wessels announced on January 10.

Brindle, whose career has taken him to a dozen national park sites from Florida to California, begins his new assignment, which also includes the superintendency of Rainbow Bridge National Monument, on Feb.13.

"Todd is a steady and seasoned professional who knows how to work closely with park partners, neighboring communities and congressional staff and constituents," Wessels said. "His broad range of management skills and experience are absolutely invaluable at this complex, two-state park, one of the largest and most visited in the West. We are fortunate that he will be at Glen Canyon, working hard to preserve some of the best of our nation's natural and cultural resources."  

Brindle began his NPS career in 1975 as a seasonal laborer at Fort Jefferson National Monument in the Florida Keys. He has since worked in Sequoia, Channel Islands and Yosemite national parks in California, Everglades National Park in Florida, and Guadalupe Mountains and Big Bend national parks in Texas. Most recently, he has been superintendent of Big Thicket National Preserve in Texas since 2006. Brindle also was superintendent of another Texas unit, Fort Davis National Historic Site, from 2003 to 2006. His other NPS duty stations have included Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument in Arizona and Amistad National Recreation Area in Texas.

"I am honored to become the superintendent of these two spectacular and popular Park Service locations in the red-rock landscape of the Southwest," Brindle said. "I still fondly remember a Lake Powell houseboat trip I took with my wife and parents more than 25 years ago. We spent several wonderful days exploring Glen Canyon and Rainbow Bridge. I look forward to working with park staff and partners, park communities, the Arizona and Utah congressional delegations and the Navajo Nation to manage and preserve these superb resources for future generations also to enjoy."

His NPS travels have given Brindle extensive management experience in all aspects of park operations, including interpretation and visitor services, cultural and natural resources, and resource and visitor protection.

Brindle attended Penn State University and received his bachelor's degree in political science in 1975 from the University of Florida. Todd's wife, Linda, also is a veteran of the Park Service and works at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. Their daughter, Crystal, attends Colorado State University.  

In his new role as superintendent of Glen Canyon and Rainbow Bridge, Brindle will oversee the management of the second-largest park site in the NPS's eight-state Intermountain Region (Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Wyoming). Established in 1972, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area encompasses more than 1.25 million acres on the Colorado Plateau, in the heart of the nation's most rugged canyon country. Lake Powell, which stretches 186 miles behind Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River, invites a broad variety of water-recreation activities along its 1,960 miles of shoreline. The recreation area has a staff of 153 and an annual operating budget of more than $11 million.

Glen Canyon's operations include those of Rainbow Bridge National Monument, a 160-acre site that lies within the boundaries of the recreation area. It preserves the greatest of the world's known natural bridges, a salmon-pink sandstone span that rises 290 feet above the floor of Bridge Canyon near Lake Powell. In 2010, the NPS marked Rainbow Bridge's centennial year as a national monument.