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Archived Outdoors

Smokies deputy chosen for NPS superintendent job in California

Clay Jordan. NPS photo Clay Jordan. NPS photo

Clay Jordan will soon leave the Great Smoky Mountains National Park after landing a job as superintendent of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in California, beginning Nov. 8. 

Jordan is currently the Smokies’ deputy superintendent and has 35 years of service with the National Park Service. Prior to his arrival in the Smokies he worked in 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 was 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. 

Sequoia and Kings Canyon are located side-by-side in the southern Sierra Nevadas and contain the world’s largest trees by volume. In 2019, the parks welcomed more than 1.8 million visitors.