When you think of the many challenges facing US National Parks, you probably go straight to a lack of funding, or maybe encroaching land development. But there's another threat to the park system that's often overlooked, particularly in California: illegal marijuana cultivation. It has a huge impact on the park, explains Snapper Poche, a former National Parks Business Plan Intern who served at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park, because heavy equipment and fertilizer is brought in, trees are cleared, and the place is trashed. Snapper's job at the park was to help identify how much park personnel were investing in battling this particular issue.
The focus on the park's anti-drug efforts was really just a piece of Snapper's internship, which was dedicated to helping the park strategize ways to better use their resources, particularly with regards to park personnel. Was staff investing their hours performing geological studies? Studying endangered species? Assessing the health of overall ecosystems? This assessment was critical to helping the park allocate its limited resources and personnel. But it was especially important when it came to fighting illegal marijuana cultivation. "They knew what the returns were [to the safety of park staff and visitors], says Snapper, but didn't know how much they were putting into stopping it."
The internship allowed Snapper to parlay his MPP studies into valuable real-world experience: I got a lot of experience understanding how big budgets work, how resources are allocated across priorities, and how decisions are made. You meet some fantastic people; I worked with some of the highest decision-makers in the park. That experience led to offers from multiple consulting firms that recognized how much value he could bring to their operations. He now works for the nonprofit federal consulting firm LMI, where he helps federal agencies implement GHG accounting and management practices.
Snapper learned a lot about how the cost-benefit analysis theories he read about in school really work in the real world, thanks to his internship. But when asked what he remembers most about his experience, there's no hesitation. "It was definitely the opportunity to go camping every single weekend," he says. "The job was fulfilling, the work was challenging, and it fit exactly what I was interested in doing. But the most memorable thing was camping under the stars and waking up in a mountain valley bathed in sun at 6,000 feet above sea level. That was for sure my favorite part."