August 24, 2009, 2:25 pm
After more than three decades working at more than a half-dozen national parks across the country, and the last four years at the helm of Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks, Superintendent Craig Axtell will retire from the National Park Service in OctobHe planned to announce his retirement today. His last day of work will be Oct. 2.
Axtell came to the top job at Sequoia and Kings Canyon in 2005, after serving four years as superintendent at Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah.
Axtell spent the majority of his 34-year career working in the western United States, managing rugged landscapes and pressing resource issues that he said gave him the most thrill.
"I'm a mountain person," said Axtell, 56, who grew up in New Jersey and moved west to Colorado for college.
He joined the National Park Service the day after graduating from school, he said. Thirty years later, he assumed his post at Sequoia and Kings Canyon.
