With greater interest in national parks throughout the policy ecosystem, Charles Cooper, Managing Director of Advocacy and Co-Chair of Signal Outdoors, discusses national parks, the National Parks Traveler, and exciting adventures throughout our national parks system with the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the National Parks Traveler, Kurt Repanshek.
Biography:
Kurt founded National Parks Traveler in August 2005. Since then, as its editor-in-chief, he has grown the site’s audience to more than 1.5 million, and its reputation and relevance.
A veteran journalist whose 40+-year career started with The Associated Press, Kurt has interviewed presidential candidates, members of Congress, and reported on such natural disasters as the 1988 wildfires that swept across Yellowstone National Park.
His work has appeared in Smithsonian, National Geographic Traveler, National Geographic’s news service, Forbes, Hemispheres, Snow Country, Sunset, the New York Times, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Denver Post, Audubon, National Wildlife, and countless other media outlets. He also is the author of several books, notably National Parks With Kids, National Parks For Dummies and Re-Bisoning the West: Restoring An American Icon to the Landscape.
Kurt’s reporting on climate change and its impacts on national parks led to a fellowship at Stanford University’s Bill Lane Center for the American West. Kurt received the George Wright Society Communication Award in 2014 for the role National Parks Traveler has played in communicating issues surrounding the National Park System and the National Park Service to the general public, and the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks recognized his work by making him an honorary member. Traveler was also awarded the George B. Hartzog, Jr., Award from the Coalition in 2017, and the Western National Parks Association in 2019 recognized his work at the Traveler for its coverage of the National Park System.
