New state parks director savors opportunity to lead, inspire.
Workers in field say that Quintero is the right choice for these turbulent times
California’s state park system — an exceptional landscape of sandy beaches, redwood forests and landmarks from Lake Tahoe to Hearst Castle — has been damaged in recent weeks by raging wildfires and hobbled by a decade of budget woes and, critics say, lack of direction.
Now the collection of 280 parks, 340 miles of coastline, 4,500 trails and 15,000 campsites visited by millions of families a year has new leadership.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has named Armando Quintero, 64, of San Rafael, as the director of the state Department of Parks and Recreation. He begins today.
“It’s an astonishing honor at an extraordinary time,” said Quintero, a former park ranger whose love of nature rose from reading National Geographic while working in his father’s auto shop.
Since 2015, Quintero has worked as executive director of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute at UC Merced. Before that, he was director of development there from 2008 to 2014. He also has served on the Marin Munic
ipal Water District board since 2009 and the California Water Commission, where as chairman he oversaw awarding $2.7 billion in state bond funding for new reservoirs and other water projects.
But what is drawing attention among rangers and parks advocates is Quintero’s history in parks. From 1977 to 1998 he worked as a ranger or supervising ranger at Sequoia National Park, Point Reyes National Seashore, John Muir National Historic Site and Golden Gate National Recreation Area, as well as a stint in the National Park Service headquarters in San Francisco. He is trained in law enforcement, firefighting and scuba diving, and speaks Spanish.
“We’re really encouraged,” said Mike Lynch, president of the California State Park Rangers Association. “Armando is steeped in the values of parks from the National Park Service. It will be great to have a director who you don’t have to explain to what a ranger, a maintenance worker or a lifeguard does.”
The outgoing director, Lisa Mangat, is a former budget manager with the state finance department who was appointed in 2014 by Gov. Jerry Brown. She is credited with streamlining and organizing the parks department’s budget systems after a prior director, Ruth Coleman, was forced to resign after officials discovered her department had $54 million of unspent money in its accounts that had gone unreported to the state Department of Finance. Audits found no money was missing, but the incident embarrassed Brown, who was threatening to close parks, telling the public that funding was short.
Neither Mangat nor Newsom’s press office responded to a request Sunday to discuss her removal as director.
In an interview, Quintero said his priorities will include helping state parks and park employees recover from devastating wildfires in recent weeks, which have destroyed the historic 1930s headquarters and other buildings at Big Basin Redwoods State Park, and blackened thousands
of acres at others, including Henry Coe near Morgan Hill, Armstrong Redwoods in Sonoma County and Julia Pfeiffer Burns in Big Sur.
Quintero said he also hopes to expand access and open new facilities, particularly in communities where there are few parks.
“The San Joaquin Valley is almost devoid of state parks,” he said. “The people who are feeding us don’t have easy access to state parks nearby.”
Quintero, a Democrat who will supervise 5,000 employees and earn $186,389 a year, was born in San Francisco and grew up in Martinez, working in his father’s auto garage.
“My parents didn’t go to parks when I was growing up,” he said. “My interest came from National Geographic and Encyclopedia Britannica. Dreaming about these places, dreaming about exploring Mayan ruins, and finding exotic creatures and exotic places carried me through a lot of stuff as a kid. Those kinds of places exist across California.”
Long considered the best state parks system in the United States, California’s has struggled in recent years. Two governors, Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger, both threatened to close dozens of parks to balance state budgets, proposals they dropped after massive public outcry.
California has not opened a new state park since 2009, when the U.S. Army donated four miles of beaches in Monterey County to become Fort Ord Dunes State Park. That 11year drought is the longest stretch California has gone without a new state park since the department was established in 1927.
As a result, California’s state parks, beaches and historic sites — visited by 79 million people a year — are getting more crowded. Parking and campsites are harder to find. Some properties are being preserved, but by private groups that often can’t afford to offer public access. The system also has a $1.2 billion maintenance backlog.
“Morale at the department has been low,” said Rusty Areias, who served as state parks director from 1999 to 2002. “Even in the best of times with huge budget surpluses, state parks seems to have been last on the list in terms of funding priorities. That was a mistake.”
The number of visitors has increased during the coronavirus pandemic, as people take vacations close to home, and seek more outdoor recreation. Yet budget pressures from the pandemic could result in parks cuts.
“Parks are having a moment,” said Rachel Norton, executive director of the California State Parks Foundation. “Director Quintero’s job will be to really help us capitalize on that moment as a state.”