Blue Ridge Parkway Virtual Open House: Care for the Corridor

The Blue Ridge Parkway is a designed landscape and built environment with the central feature being a 469-mile motor route traversing the ridges and valleys of Southern Appalachia in Virginia and North Carolina. The care and keeping of this resource - the road, the overlooks, the bridges, the tunnels – is an enormous task, one that requires careful planning and day to day management. This session features park experts in many of the ways that both park staff and park neighbors and visitors help care for this historic corridor.   

Host:

Dawn Leonard - Community Planner, Blue Ridge Parkway

• Dawn Leonard grew up in Roanoke, Virginia and is a lifelong Parkway lover! She spent nine years working for the National Park Service in the Washington Office, and 13 years at the Blue Ridge Parkway as the Community Planner, guiding the park’s work on internal and external planning issues. She has recently taken on duties as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) compliance specialist for the Parkway.   

Presenters:

Jim Grant – Chief of Maintenance and Engineering, Blue Ridge Parkway

• As the Chief of Maintenance & Engineering, Jim manages the day-to-day field maintenance operations, asset management, and design & construction activities for the entire Blue Ridge Parkway.  Jim has previously served in management positions at Gateway National Recreation Area in New York City and New Jersey and at Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.

Andy Otten – Project Manager, Blue Ridge Parkway

• Andy Otten is a Project Manager for the National Park Service and has over 20 years of professional experience in Landscape Architecture.  His work with National Park Service has primarily been for Blue Ridge Parkway projects that include roadway, tunnel and bridge repair and rehabilitation, geotechnical stabilization, historic stone masonry rehabilitation and reconstruction.  Andy serves as the NPS representative for large road construction projects on which NPS partners with the Federal Highways Administration.

Tom Davis - Biologist, Blue Ridge Parkway

• Tom Davis has worked for the National Park Service for over 35 years. Twenty-five of those years have been spent working as a biologist with the Blue Ridge Parkway. Tom wears many hats on the Parkway, including serving as the park’s game species wildlife biologist, as well as the program manager for the park’s Agricultural Permit Program. In addition, he assists with many land resource issues along the route of the Parkway. 

The Foundation is proud to partner with the National Park Service on this presentation.

Register