Dr. Rebecca Stanfield McCown has been named Director of the National Park Service Stewardship Institute at Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park in Woodstock, Vermont. Stanfield McCown will assume this new role immediately.

"Rebecca is an innovative program manager who has focused her work at the Stewardship Institute on supporting park service staff and partners so they can in turn better serve the American public. Through building partnerships and advancing creative approaches to community engagement and leadership development, Rebecca has shown tremendous skill at bringing practitioners together to advance common goals," remarked Rick Kendall, superintendent of Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller NHP, Saint-Gaudens NHS, and the NPS Stewardship Institute.

For the last five years, Stanfield McCown has served as a program manager at the Stewardship Institute. She began her National Park Service career as a student employee at the Institute (then known as the Conservation Study Institute) while completing her doctoral research. Since joining the Institute, her work has focused on youth program evaluation, cultural competency and diversity training, leadership development, and evaluation and promotion of practices that contribute to successful park leadership. Most recently, Stanfield McCown has played an important role in developing and launching the NPS Urban Agenda.

"I believe the Stewardship Institute plays a critical role in enhancing the collaborative leadership capacity of the Service," said Stanfield McCown. "I am honored to have the opportunity to guide the Institute in exploring the evolving field of conservation leadership. Through this exploration we can determine how best to support the Service and our partners in managing the special places and stories that craft our country's narrative. I look forward to continuing to work with my NPS colleagues and the Institute's partners in my new position, in particular, as we prepare for the National Park Service's next 100 years."

Stanfield McCown holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Natural Resources Recreation and Tourism from Colorado State University and a Master of Science and Ph.D. in Natural Resources from the University of Vermont. She currently lives in Lebanon, New Hampshire, with her husband and 5-year-old son.