In the mid-1980s, a young lady was looking for a job. As someone from Northern California and who loved nature, her desire was to find employment that would allow her to inspire people to value and connect to nature, and by doing that, instill in them a desire to steward the land. In other words, she wanted to be an interpreter.
As the first seasonal California State Park Interpretive Specialist to become a permanent field Interpreter I, Elizabeth Hammack opened doors for seasonal interpreters to achieve permanent status, eventually advocating for supervisory roles for both women and men within the Interpretation and Education Division of California State Parks.
Her contributions to interpretation have been recognized throughout (and beyond) California. For example, in 2017, Elizabeth was nominated for and received the Directors Olmsted Award for Leadership and Vision, one of the highest awards in California State Parks.
I met Elizabeth Hammack in 2016, when she hired me as an Interpreter I at Wilder Ranch State Park in the Santa Cruz District of California State Parks. Although I only worked with Elizabeth for 2.5 years, she continued to share her valuable time with me, offering encouragement and mentoring me for the duration of my career with California State Parks and beyond. Recently, in gratitude for this mentorship and as an inspiration to future generations of interpreters, I interviewed Elizabeth for this article to document and celebrate her 40+ years as an interpreter and leader.
Interpretive Trailblazer
In 1987, Elizabeth was employed as a seasonal interpreter for Pajaro Coast District piloting programs and was developing a full-scale interpretive operation. California State Park District management soon realized that, due to the scope of her work, she should be reclassified as a permanent interpreter. However, at this time, permanent interpreters only worked in Sacramento (where the headquarters for California State Parks is located) or elsewhere as rangers who were reclassified as Interpreter I (because they were sidelined with injuries and unable to perform their peace officer duties).
So, to justify this first-of-its-kind appointment, California State Park’s Human Resources Department sent someone from personnel to follow her for two days.
Elizabeth recalls that, instead of being apprehensive about the observation, she was excited for the opportunity to move one step closer to permanent status. At the time, she was working out of the then-headquarters for the Pajaro Coast District, located along the Monterey Bay in Aptos, California. (Pajaro Coast would later merge with Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz Mountain Districts to become the present-day Santa Cruz District.)
During this pivotal visit from California State Parks, Elizabeth remembers, the Human Resources representative was quiet, took copious notes, recorded meetings, and documented Elizabeth’s time spent working on the plans for the opening of Wilder Ranch with a team of district employees, making phone calls, and guiding the everyday interpretive operations for several parks. “He seemed blown away by the amount of work he observed,” she adds.
Soon after this visit, Elizabeth became the first seasonal interpreter promoted to field State Park Interpreter I. In this way, Elizabeth became a trailblazer, doing something that no other woman in California State Parks had yet done, and opening a door for others to follow.
Elizabeth Hammack in Santa Cruz, California. 2023. Photo by Steven Hammack.
LEFT: Santa Cruz District staff congratulates Elizabeth Hammack after she has been awarded the Director's Olmsted Award for Leadership and Vision in 2017, in Sacramento, California. From left to right: Brenda Holmes, Steven Elmore, Alex Trudelle, Dylan McManus, Elizabeth Hammack, Jeremy Lin, Julie Sidel, Jodi Apelt. Photo by Miriam Limov.
RIGHT: Elizabeth stands with project collaborators at the site of the entrance project for Castle Rock State Park, Los Gatos, California. From left to right: Jodi Apelt, Holly Reed, Lauren Chavez, Elizabeth Hammack, Brandon Caskey, Erik Hylkema. Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Hammack.
In 1989, her first year at the now-open Wilder Ranch State Park, she trained fifty docents in the first group of volunteers formally trained by an Interpreter I—and she also trained thirty docents at the nearby Natural Bridges State Beach, starting in 1987. Elizabeth remembers, “At age 22, the work-study students were reporting to me, and most were older than me.” Interpreters can often find themselves leading coworkers and volunteers who are their age or older. To those facing this common dilemma, Elizabeth offered the following advice: “Just be your genuine self. As long as your intentions are to lead people in a way where they are respected, feel their voice is heard, and are validated, then age should not be an issue.”
Shortly after she was hired in 1987, Elizabeth’s supervisors asked her if she could do something with Wilder Ranch, the 7,000 acre cultural preserve then dubbed the “Sleeping Giant.” After traveling to Williamsburg, Virginia, and to other historical sites, she coordinated the development of a Wilder Ranch education program, recruited and trained docents, and worked with other interpreters to create and pilot the “Ranch Kids Day” program—which is still offered to this day.
For over twenty-five years, Ranch Kids Day has welcomed third-grade students to an environmental learning program set in the early 1900s. Wearing period clothing, students participate in stations featuring chores that kids living on the ranch at that
time would have had to complete, such as washing laundry with a wringer-washer, milking wooden cows, and carefully assisting blacksmiths with hammering out the hot iron pieces. Each school year, more than fifteen dedicated volunteers are needed to make this collaborative program a success. Elizabeth lent her support to The Kids2Parks program, a collaboration with the Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks, which provides bussing for third-grade students from low socioeconomic schools so that more students can attend the Ranch Kids Day program.
Elizabeth has often found herself acting, as she describes, “as an ‘advocate’ for the importance of interpretation and our staff, sometimes being the lone person at the table with that intent,” because interpretation was not always valued equally with other Core Programs in the State Parks. While securing funding and resources for interpretive programs and projects has been challenging, Elizabeth celebrates her collaborators, including 501(c)(3) and other partner organizations, as “invaluable to the interpretive programs in State Parks to supplement the financial support of the Interpretation programs in each district of State Parks.” Collaboration with partners, as well as with mentors and mentees, has been a common thread throughout Elizabeth’s career.
Attendees gather at Elizabeth’s retirement celebration on April 30, 2022, at Henry Cowell Redwood State Park, Felton, California. Photo by Bill Rhoades.
The Importance of Mentorship
After retiring from California State Parks, teaching interpretation at West Valley College and San Jose State University, and serving as a consultant, Elizabeth has returned to California State Parks as a retired annuitant to continue to mentor and train interpreters statewide. As she describes, “My career highlight is that wonderful domino effect that involves training, mentoring, and teaching interpreters who then train, mentor, and teach docents who then inspire students and park visitors from around the world.”
So, while Elizabeth and her team received the Director’s Award for Innovation Group Award in 2018 for the creation of the Backpacking Adventures Program, she is emphatic in her assertion that her programs, visitor center renovations, park openings and other projects over the past forty years could not have been achieved by one person. Rather, for every project, there was a team working together for a common goal. That team often included non-profit partners, donors, fellow interpreters, colleagues from every program area, and volunteers.
Elizabeth receives the Directors Frederick Law Olmsted Award from Lisa Mangat in 2017, for her ability to motivate and inspire others, in Sacramento, California. Photo by Brian Baer, © California State Parks, all rights reserved.
When asked who was the most influential person in her own career, Elizabeth showed no hesitation in responding: “Dr. Sam Ham. I met Sam in 1995 at a NAI regional workshop in Aptos, just outside of San Jose, California. This meeting forged a lifelong friendship which continues to this day.” An interpretive leader, lecturer, and author (most recently featured in Legacy’s July/August 2023 issue, “Interpreting Hope”), Dr. Ham began mentoring Elizabeth in earnest when she first started teaching interpretation at a local college; and over the years, he shared feedback on her syllabi and class assignments. Dr. Ham inspired Elizabeth’s teaching with his TORE framework for interpretation (Interpretation has a Theme, is Organized, is Relevant, and is Enjoyable), discussed at length in his international bestselling book Interpretation: Making a Difference on Purpose (2013), a textbook he allowed Elizabeth to test-pilot with her students. “He is an inspiration to so many,” Elizabeth shares, and “a true friend for many years.”
Like Dr. Ham, Elizabeth is also passionate about collaboration and teamwork. She shows her willingness to mentor other interpreters by developing interpretive training courses and by serving as a role model for leadership, which inspires a new generation of story-tellers. Recently, she was co-
facilitator with Blythe Wilson, Access and Engagement Program Manager, for the course “Interpretive & Special Event Planning” held at the William P. Mott Center in Pacific Grove, California. For several years, Elizabeth has offered the course “Training for Interpretive Trainers” (which I attended), also held at the Mott Center. “Seeing the excitement in the eyes of students or trainees, and then observing them either conducting a program that then excites and inspires an audience or trains others,” Elizabeth shares, “is a very rewarding feeling.”
And indeed, Elizabeth’s mentees and story-tellers are themselves now moving on to positions of leadership. These interpreters who once worked for Elizabeth include Mike Merritt, who is now an Interpreter III leading the Central Valley District in Tuolumne County, California; Ellen Tjosvold, now working as the Interpretive and Education Manager for Midpeninsula Regional Open Space near San Francisco, California; and Jeremy Lin, who was recently named as the new Interpreter III in the Sierra District, located in California’s Lake Tahoe area.
When asked what advice she might offer to folks who would like to work in the interpretive field, Elizabeth replies, with enthusiasm:
“DO IT! But don’t sell yourself short. Continue to advocate for yourself, your colleagues, your program, and your park. Interpretation is a profession with a capital “P.” Too often, interpretation is given less credence than other program areas. I strongly believe that interpretation creates understanding and appreciation of our resources and through this understanding we build allies, partners, and constituents and ultimately promote protection.
We can work together to steward our natural, cultural and historic resources.”
Elizabeth as Glinda in a performance for the annual Volunteer Celebration for the Santa Cruz District, Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, Felton, California, 2016. Photo by Bill Rhoades.
Continuing to Inspire
In the Disney version of Mary Poppins, the title character (played by Julie Andrews) quips that unlike her little charge, Jane Banks, she is “practically perfect in every way.” If the magical tape measure was applied to Elizabeth Hammack, the same observation might be made. She has shared her passion to connect parkgoers to natural and cultural resources, and she has inspired stewardship, just as she had hoped as a student in the mid-1980s.
Because of her respect for and desire to provide access and a sense of belonging to marginalized communities, Elizabeth has aligned herself with California’s State Parks Reexamining our Past Initiative, giving voice to those who have previously been unheard, reexamining place names and interpretation, and promoting the Outdoors for All Initiative, which seeks to bring equitable access for children and families to state parks. For example, while working for the City of Santa Barbara, she would go to neighborhoods in economically disadvantaged areas and encourage families to send their children to the City’s science camp, where both tuition and transportation costs were covered. She recognized how the communities we serve are often more diverse than current interpretive staff. So, Elizabeth hired and supported instructors of color for the City’s science camp, so that the participants could see someone who looks like them, someone they can relate to, and so that interpretation at the camp could be more diverse, inclusive, and accurate.
Currently, Elizabeth volunteers for the Mountain Parks Foundation, and she oversees the Belonging Chapter of Redwood RX. As she shares, “This year, we are providing more than fourteen programs to a variety of groups, including BIPOC peoples, seniors, people with special abilities, and veterans.” She has maintained personal relevance through life-long learning, and she has shown perseverance throughout her career, not allowing age or gender to hold her back. Elizabeth Hammack’s ability to develop and maintain collaborative partnerships both within and outside of California State Parks has helped to solidify the future of the field of interpretation. She is like a bridge connecting the past to the future: not forgetting the past, but gracefully moving interpretation into a more kind and inclusive story, one where all voices are not only heard, but are welcomed with understanding.
Elizabeth stands with a volunteer at one of the first July 4th celebrations at Wilder Ranch State Park, Santa Cruz, California, in the 1990s. Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Hammack.