Clay Jordan Selected as Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks Superintendent

SEQUOIA AND KINGS CANYON NATIONAL PARKS, California September 11, 2020 – The National Park Service (NPS) has selected Clay Jordan to serve as the superintendent of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks starting November 8, 2020. Currently, Jordan is the deputy superintendent at Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

“Clay is a seasoned leader with significant experience in all facets of the National Park Service including wilderness, visitor use management, partnerships and resource management,” said Acting NPS Regional Director Linda Walker. “Throughout his career, Clay has built coalitions with other federal agencies, state and local governments, partners and communities. His collaborative spirit will serve Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks well.”

In 2019, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks welcomed more than 1.8 million visitors from across the country and the world. Home to world famous giant sequoia trees, the parks encompass 866,000 acres, including the nation’s second oldest national park. Working alongside more than 230 employees, Jordan will oversee all the management aspects of the park, including planning and programming, public relations, administration, resource management, safety, interpretation, visitor services and facilities maintenance.

“I am honored to join a dedicated staff and work with partners, and the community to provide outstanding stewardship of these exceptional parks,” said Jordan. “It is a dream realized to work in a place that has served for many years as a favorite vacation destination for my family and me.”

In Jordan’s current position, he is responsible for the daily operations of a park which spans 520,000 acres across eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina. His duties include coordinating stewardship of the park’s natural and cultural resources, maintaining the park’s infrastructure, providing resource education and visitor services, and overseeing the administrative functions.

Jordan has 35 years of service with the NPS. Prior posts include visitor and resource protection positions at Gulf Islands National Seashore, Shenandoah National Park, Fire Island National Seashore, Olympic National Park, Cape Cod National Seashore, and Mount Rainier National Park. He has served as the acting chief ranger for Interior Region 1, the 13 states that make up the U.S. northeast. In 2010, he served as a deputy incident commander on an interagency team managing the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill response along the Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida Panhandle coasts.

Jordan holds a Bachelor of Science in outdoor recreation and park administration from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He and his wife, Ann, have two children, Skylar, an aerospace engineer in Huntsville, Alabama, and Hannah, a student at Drexel University.