Last updated: March 21, 2023
Person
Kathy Billings
NPS Photo
Quick Facts
Significance:
Second woman to be superintendent of DEVA
Kathy Billings was the DEVA superintendent from 2013 until 2015 when she retired. She was the predecessor of Mike Reynolds, the current superintendent as of the writing of this biography (2020).
Billings got a B.S. in Biology from the University of California at Los Angeles and both her and her husband Dick grew up in Southern California. She worked for the National Park Service for approximately 31 years, working in Big Bend National Park, Joshua Tree National Park, Organ Pipe Cactus Monument and Great Basin National Park — all four deserts of the United States.
Billings worked at the superintendent of the USS Arizona Memorial site at Pearl Harbor, dealing with tense relations with the Navy when the USS Missouri was being relocated to the site of the USS Arizona Memorial site. She began dealing with this dilemma in 1995, even before her official start date in 1996. She worked diligently to preserve the solemn character of the gravesite of over one thousand sailors who were killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor, while trying to balance the symmetry of the ship that ended the war that began for the US with the Arizona. She worked there from 1995 until 2011, dedicating the majority of her career to founding and facilitating the development of the USS Arizona Memorial, later part of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument. This was again changed in 2019 and the USS Arizona is now part of the Pearl Harbor National Memorial.
After 2001, she became the superintendent of Great Basin National Park. She worked there through 2003, when she was appointed to work at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. She was the superintendent of Organ Pipe Cactus until 2008. From 2008 until 2010, she is documented as the superintendent of Pecos National Historical Park. In 2010, she returned to the Pacific West Region as the superintendent of Kaloko-Honokohau and Pu’uhonua O Honaunau National Historical Parks. She was stationed in Hawai’I until 2013, when she moved to DEVA. She retired in 2015, when Mike Reynolds became superintendent of DEVA.