National Park Service selects Joshua Tree National Park Ranger for Director’s Visitor Safety Achievement Award

Ranger Anna Marini of Joshua Tree National Park has been selected for the Director's Visitor Safety Achievement Award, the highest honor awarded by the National Park Service for outstanding achievements in visitor safety and employee safety and health.

Ranger Marini, Preventative Search and Rescue (PSAR) Coordinator at Joshua Tree National Park (JOTR), received this award for her outstanding dedication, commitment, and achievements to reducing risk to visitors and preventing serious and fatal visitor injuries. During the fiscal year of 2023, Ranger Marini expanded the JOTR PSAR program to address increased heat injuries affecting visitors that were leading to an increase in search and rescue operations at the park. She recruited and trained 30 new volunteers to rove park trails providing safety messages, heat illness prevention tips, trail information, and more. She also consolidated the Trail Rovers program into the PSAR to streamline training and communications for trail operations.

Under her leadership, the PSAR program logged 3,100 volunteer hours and contacted 83,700 park visitors during 566 patrols. Her team documented 13,200 preventative actions where volunteers directly altered unsafe visitor behavior through face-to-face education. Ranger Marini even represented JOTR on multiple media interviews and filmed two videos for park digital media platforms sharing important visitor safety messages to the public.

Additionally, Marini contributed to a national effort to develop two position descriptions for dedicated PSAR positions in national parks. She has worked with other park units to stand up PSAR programs of their own, all while exceeding expectations in her role at Joshua Tree National Park to keep park staff and visitors safe.