Maybe it’s the joy of helping people, the challenge of working outdoors, or just wearing the Smoky Bear hat. Whatever the pull, many have had the dream of being a park ranger. Park rangers in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers live that dream and are the face of the Corps for the 372 million people who visit USACE lakes and waterways every year. They perform many roles, including providing quality outdoor recreation experiences, assisting visitors, and protecting natural resources.

Park rangers everywhere face an array of dynamic, diverse professional challenges, and the profession’s responsibilities are expanding to keep pace with the changing world. So USACE recently chartered the park ranger community of practice (CoP) advisory board to provide an on-going support platform, advance technical and leadership skills, plan for sustainability, and highlight the diversity and accomplishments of park rangers.

For more on the park ranger CoP advisory board, see the Natural Resources Management Gateway at http://corpslakes.usace.army.mil/.)

Some park rangers now have expanded duties and specialize in areas that require additional leadership and technical expertise, such as environmental protection, conservation biology, geographic information systems, and more.

Dorie Murphy is a park ranger who is fulfilling a new role with expanded responsibilities. She is the community resources coordinator for the Trinity Region, which includes seven lakes in Fort Worth District. The first in this pilot program, Murphy is serving as the regional volunteer and partnership coordinator.

With constraints pressing the limits of the operations and maintenance budget, Murphy recruits, trains, and supervises volunteers and partners to repair and maintain recreation facilities. She draws from the local community and uses the Corps Volunteer Clearinghouse, 1-800-VOL-TEER or www.corpslakes.us/volunteer, to recruit volunteers. She has recruited groups and individuals to perform a wide range of duties including water safety programs, cleaning debris, rehabilitating recreation facilities, and working on the Texas Bluebonnet Trail.

This is the first year that Murphy has served as the community resources coordinator, and the volunteers and partners have already accomplished $750,000 worth of work.

"It’s exciting to work with our volunteers and partners and see the incredible amount they’ve achieved," Murphy said. "Visitors have told us ‘The park looks so much better, what have you done?’ It goes beyond the work, though. I love connecting people to the natural resources and seeing the satisfaction that volunteers receive from making a difference and helping our visitors."

Murphy worked up to her current pilot position by recruiting, training, and using volunteers as a park ranger at Bardwell Lake. Her leadership extended beyond the project to develop volunteer training plans for Fort Worth District, and standards of volunteer best management practices for the Southwestern Division. She recently received the 2008 Take Pride in America Federal Land Manager Award for her accomplishments.