Listen in as we take a few moments to learn more about Joëlle Baird, a working mother in a high profile position in the park. Learn about her challenges and what it is like to raise children at the Grand Canyon.

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Sounds of children playing.

Joëlle: Girls…

Dave: Hi this is Ranger Dave. I'm sitting here talking to Joëlle Baird. And Joëlle can you tell us about what you do in the park?

Joëlle: Yeah. So I am the public affairs officer for Grand Canyon National Park.

Dave: Okay. And how long have you been doing that role?

Joëlle: Yeah. So I have been in the role I'm in of in public affairs for the last four years, pretty much since the very beginning of the pandemic. But I've been at Grand Canyon for now, 13 years.

Dave: How did you get to this point in your career? One doesn't just become a PIO overnight.

Joëlle: Yeah. So another way to think about it, public affairs officer or public information officer sometimes those terms are used interchangeably, but it has been a not a linear path I'll say. Like so many people in the Park Service who get into this, it sometimes takes a little while to kind of find your niche. And really, there's so many jobs in the Park Service that I have had and experiences. So I actually started out in high school with the Student Conservation Association doing trail work. That's that was my entry into the Park Service back in 2005. And since then, I've had a variety of jobs working in vegetation, and EMS and search and rescue, law enforcement, and eventually find myself in public affairs. So it has been a winding path, to say the least.

Dave: Yeah. Do you feel like all the different jobs kind of culminated to this one? Or do you pull from all those different experiences.

Joëlle: I definitely pull from all the experiences and I think that has really lended itself well to being a public information officer, especially at a park like this, where there's so many different jobs and divisions. And so I really rely on those experiences and lean into those quite often when I'm talking and providing information to the general public. Since I have had those variety of experiences, I think it's really led me to be a good PIO and understand the park in a more holistic way.

Dave: Okay do you feel like there are any special skills that you need to be a PIO?

Joëlle: Yeah, I think one of the big ones that I, is probably the most cornerstone is just strong writing skills. You know, it is something that I fortunately had a lot of experience early on with being a strong writer, and I would say just being comfortable talking to the public also. So a lot of times, PIOs, you know, they might come in the Park Service from the interpretation background that really lends itself to talking with the public, but really just a general comfort with talking to the public and also being really aware and well-versed on the different types of issues that you're communicating. So in Grand Canyon National Park, we have a number of issues that have high media interest and a lot of public interest as well. So you do need to be briefed on those issues and fully understand the complexity of them when talking to the public or with media outlets, that kind of thing.

Dave: How did you get the skills that you need to get to this role?

Joëlle: A lot of it is just been on the job training and it definitely helps being in a place for a while. So being here in Grand Canyon for 13 years, you start to learn more about the place and its complexities and the issues around it. So I'd say a lot of the skills I've learned have just been being here in the park for as long as I have and being willing and open to learn, also, from the experts here in the park. I heavily rely on subject matter experts to help me understand issues that, and try to communicate in a clear way to the public on some of the issues.

Dave: Okay so I heard recently that you went to grad school. I'm curious about what led you to the to make that choice. At that time, I know you're working full time at the same time, so that's got to be complicated.

Joëlle: Yeah, yeah, I knew I wanted to go back to school. My undergrad and a lot of my background is in science. I graduated in forestry and really I felt like I kind of needed more in terms of my education background. So I just graduated this last spring with a master's in communications from Arizona State University, and that's been a great experience. And the cool thing about that is I was able to take a lot of my work and apply it to my grad school studies. So it was very integrative of what I'm already doing here on the job, but also learning through practical experience as I went through the program.

Dave: So in the park you work in a very high profile job. I would say this is one of the most public facing parks in our country. Are there many PIO jobs in the NPS that are like this?

Joëlle: Not really. They're pretty few and far between For folks who are interested in going into this career field, It is the, what's called the 1035 series, which is public affairs. So many federal agencies have jobs like this. The Park Service, though, doesn't have a lot There's only probably about 50 in the entire agency. And a lot of that is because public affairs and public information is often a collateral duty for in the interpretation division. It's only those bigger parks that might be more high profile or have more visitation that have a dedicated public information officer or public affairs officer. So the big parks like we think of, you know, the Y parks, Grand Canyon, the big parks, I would say.

Dave: So with like only 50 people doing this. How many women are in these roles?

Joëlle: Yeah, it's actually predominantly women in in public information and public affairs, not entirely sure why that is. But yeah, there is also a regional and kind of a national office too, in terms of public affairs with the National Park Service, so there are you dedicated park PIOs, but there's also a support system, if you will, of regional public affairs specialist as well as at the national the Washington office level for the National Park Service.

Dave: So if you do need help, you have someone else to talk to. I hope, so yeah.

Joëlle: Exactly. Yeah. That's been a huge reliance that is great to have and just people, when things happen that go sideways in the park that we weren't expecting, we can rely and call on the regional or the Washington office for that kind of support.

Dave: Okay. Do you find that you're collaborating with other PIOs in other parks at times too?

Joëlle: Absolutely. The issues that we have here in Grand Canyon, a lot of them aren't unique to Grand Canyon. So, for example, Colorado River issues. The Colorado River spans across multiple parks. So having good working relationships with Glen Canyon, Lake Mead, that's hugely important. Zion National Park actually has around the same visitation levels that we do, and a lot of the same challenges with managing visitors in high volume and popular park here in the Southwest. So I really like working with Zion. I think that park is very closely related to some of the issues that we have here.

Dave: Okay. If folks wanted to someday become a public information officer, you know, what do you think the easiest route is to maybe get a job like yours?

Joëlle: Mhm. So with public information, a lot of people get into it from the fire ranks. So the U.S. Forest Service, as well as the Park Service, there's a huge need for wildland fire public information officers, especially in the western states. Fire is all around us, especially during fire season. So there is a need to be a qualified fire public information officer. There's a lot of kind of, I would say, easy ramps to get into it from the fire PIO realm into the Park Service, into other federal agencies. So the Job series is the 1035 public affairs officer, or public information officer. There are a lot of jobs and other agencies that are open, it would be surprising. I mean, the U.S. Mint and the, you know, the IRS as public affairs specialists. So a lot of people get into it from other agencies and then transfer to the National Park Service. But really, it's just getting firsthand experience at really any agency. Wildland fire is an easy avenue just because fires are always happening and they always need people to communicate with the public on the issues. And it can be a great way to also understand from kind of an incident management side of the house, because that is a big job and a key piece of what I do day in and day out is be a part of incident management teams that are coordinated and highly structured. So working within any type of incident management team in any role, you know that that can also be an easy way to get experience, to understand what a PIO does day in and day out.

Dave: Okay. Yeah, and probably learn some of the challenges to prepared.

Joëlle: Absolutely. Yeah. And if individuals have comfort in speaking with the media and being on camera and a lot a lot of people come from actually the journalism ranks, a lot of former journalists are coming to the world of public information with government agencies with that background too. So there's quite a few avenues in terms of entry into the job series.

Dave: Okay, great. What are the demands of the job? Like, what's your kind of day to day? What's the pressure like?

Joëlle: Yeah, so in general, every day is a little bit different and that's because things are ever evolving. So there is a large portion of the job that is reactive in nature. There's a lot that happens here with search and rescues in Grand Canyon, but also just things happening in the park. So any given day, I don't entirely know what's going to be on my plate. Sometimes there's a major incident that d...

The Balancing Act with Joëlle Baird

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