PLA Webinars

PLA 2022 Interview with NPS Director Chuck Sams

Charles F. "Chuck" Sams III was ceremonially sworn in as the 19th director of the National Park Service on December 16, 2021. Sams is Cayuse and Walla Walla and is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Northeast Oregon, where he grew up. Sams most recently served as Oregon Governor Kate Brown's appointee to the Pacific Northwest Power and Conservation Council (NW Council). He is a veteran of the U.S. Navy where he served as an intelligence specialist. For more than 25 years, Sams has worked in tribal and state government, and in the non-profit natural resource and conservation management field, with an emphasis on the responsibility of strong stewardship for land preservation for this and future generations.