News Release

Retirement of Two Long-Serving Joshua Tree National Park Employees

NPS photo

News Release Date: September 11, 2018

Contact: George Land, 760 367-5507

This September will see the culmination of the careers of two of the park’s longest serving staff members. Human resource specialist Rebecca Patterson and park ranger Jimmy Pritchett will retire after over thirty years each at Joshua Tree National Park.

Pritchett began his career as a student aid in 1982 and later converted to a permanent park ranger working in both the protection and interpretive divisions of the park. Jimmy also served as an Equal Employment Opportunity Counselor for the park and Pacific West Region as well as involvement with the park search and rescue team, (JOSAR).

Rebecca Patterson began her NPS career as one of the founding members of JOSAR. Patterson became a part of the permanent staff specializing in employee labor relations and personnel security as the human resource officer for Joshua Tree National Park. In 2002 she was additionally assigned the responsibilities of program manager, for service-wide, recreational, fee management security. With the exception of a year contracting for the Department of Defense, Patterson spent her entire NPS career at Joshua Tree.

Superintendent David Smith said, "When I first came to Joshua Tree as a volunteer 20 years ago, both Becky and Jimmy were already seasoned experts on the park. They have both had amazing careers serving visitors, their coworkers, and the high desert communities. I speak for the whole park in saying that we have been very lucky to know and work with both of them over the years. It will be a huge loss to the park - but we wish them the very best on the next chapter of their lives."