News Release

Ashley Adams named deputy superintendent for Nez Perce National Historical Park, Whitman Mission National Historic Site and Big Hole National Battlefield

Deputy Superintendent Ashley Adams

NPS photo

News Release Date: September 3, 2019

Contact: Kelly Kincaid, 208-843-7014

LAPWAI, Idaho – The National Park Service (NPS) has selected Ashley Adams as the new deputy superintendent for Nez Perce National Historical Park, Whitman Mission National Historic Site and Big Hole National Battlefield.

Adams has been on a temporary assignment to the three parks since June from the Bureau of Land Management, where she serves at the monument manager for Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument near Palm Springs, California.

“Ashley has strong leadership skills and a unique range of experience working successfully with external partners and tribes,” said Mike Gauthier Superintendent of Nez Perce NHP. “We are delighted to welcome her into the Department of the Interior’s Columbia Pacific Northwest Region and superintendent ranks.” 

Prior to her time at Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument, Ashley managed signature partnerships for Yosemite National Park as the liaison to the City of San Francisco for the Hetch Hetchy Program, and also as the liaison to the Yosemite Conservancy, the park's primary friends group. She has worked as a wilderness coordinator for the NPS Wilderness Stewardship national office; served as an NPS national office liaison to the University of California, Merced for the National Parks Institute; worked as a backcountry ranger and trail crew laborer for Glacier National Park; and conducted research on lemurs in Madagascar.  

Ashley grew up in Montana and is excited to return to the National Park Service and northwest. “I am honored to take on this new role and have the opportunity to work with the diversity of communities in Idaho, Washington, Montana and Oregon,” Adams said. “It is a privilege to serve as a steward of these significant places and histories, and to promote cultural knowledge and understanding of the Nez Perce people.”  
 
She will assume the new assignment permanently in November. 

Ashley has a master’s degree in environmental management from Duke University and a bachelor's degree in human biology from Stanford University.

Established by an act of Congress in 1965, the Nez Perce National Historical Park focuses on a people who live in a landscape that ancestors called home. The story of the Nez Perce is told through thirty-eight sites scattered across four states - Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. The National Park Service administers nine of these sites.
 
Big Hole National Battlefield was established 1910 and designated a national monument in 1939 to commemorate the battle fought as a part of the Nez Perce Flight of 1877. Although a separate unit of the National Park Service, Big Hole National Battlefield is considered one of Nez Perce National Historical Park’s sites.
 
Whitman Mission was established by law in 1936. The site tells the history and impact early 19^th-century Christian missions had in the Pacific Northwest. The mission grounds and Whitman Memorial are located in Walla Walla, Wash.