Michael T. Reynolds

Michael T. Reynolds is a career parks administrator who served as an acting director of the United States National Park Service in the first Trump administration.

Early life and education Reynolds is a third-generation National Park Service employee. He spent much of his childhood at Yosemite National Park, with his mother's family working concessions there. His father was a planner at the park. His grandfather was a park ranger at Yellowstone National Park.

Reynolds received a bachelor of arts degree in environmental studies at University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1985. He got a master’s in business administration at Regis University in Denver, Colorado.

He was a senior executive fellow at Harvard University in the spring of 2011.

National Park Service acting director Reynolds became acting director of the Park Service in January 2017 when Jonathan Jarvis retired.

Reynolds had an awkward start with President Donald Trump when the Park Service tweeted aerial photos of Trump's inauguration ceremony showing a crowd much smaller than the record-breaking crowd that Trump claimed. Trump reportedly phoned Reynolds and asked him to find new pictures.

Reynolds helped announce new national historical landmarks including the New York State Canal System and the Eldean Covered Bridge.

In June 2017, Reynolds reversed an Obama administration policy that had discouraged sales of bottled water at the parks.

Later parks jobs On January 24, 2018, Reynolds was moved out of the top parks job to lead Yosemite National Park in California. He led a staff of 800 there.

On October 23, 2019, Reynolds was appointed as the National Park Service's regional director of the Department of the Interior Lower Colorado Basin, Upper Colorado Basin, and Arkansas-Rio Grande-Texas-Gulf regions. In this role he oversees 89 parks in nine states.