YNP superintendent to keynote chamber’s awards dinner

BIG SKY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

Yellowstone National Park Superintendent Cameron Sholly will deliver the keynote speech at the 22nd annual Big Sky Chamber Black Diamond Business Awards Dinner and Members’ Meeting. The June 25th event highlights the organization’s work to “Elevate Big Sky” during a transformative time for both Big Sky and Yellowstone. The park recently announced its key priorities—from improving workforce housing to expanding cell and Wi-Fi service to partnering with surrounding gateway communities. 

At a gathering last month in Cody, Wyoming, Sholly said it’s imperative that the park’s future plans include better digital connectivity. That will become increasingly important in the coming decades, he said, not only for visitors who want to share their discoveries on social media, but to help recruit employees. However, those upgrades aren’t to come at the expense of the landscape. Like the Big Sky chamber, the park plans to study the existing telecommunications infrastructure as a way to deliver a quality visitor experience and support the region’s tourism economy.  

“As a Gateway Community to Yellowstone, we are honored to host Superintendent Sholly in Big Sky to hear more about his vision for dealing with the park’s future opportunities and challenges,” said Candace Carr Strauss, CEO of the Big Sky Chamber of Commerce. “Yellowstone is clearly an important partner contributing to the growth of Big Sky’s local economy in the future we’re all striving to build.”

Before arriving in Yellowstone, Sholly served as the regional director for the National Park Service Midwest Region, overseeing a team of 2,000 employees, an annual budget exceeding $250 million, and the operations of 61 NPS units. During his tenure as Regional Director, the region completed one of the largest public/private partnership projects in NPS history—a $380 million renovation of the St. Louis Arch grounds and visitor center.

Sholly is a Gardiner High School graduate and veteran of the U.S. Army who deployed to Operation Desert Storm in 1991. He holds a master’s degree in Environmental Management from Duke University, a bachelor’s in Management from St. Mary’s College of California and is a graduate of Harvard University’s Senior Executive Fellows Program. In 2015, Sholly was awarded the Department of Interior’s Meritorious Service Award for his executive leadership actions.