Parks are About Relationships

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“Parks are about relationships with your team, your communities, your partners. That’s what sustains leadership over time.”

Leadership in parks is often misunderstood. People see beautiful landscapes, happy campers, and postcard moments. What they don’t see are the relationships that quietly hold everything together. Someone who embodies that every day is Lisa Sumption, Director of Oregon State Parks.

Lisa has led Oregon State Parks for more than a decade. It’s an extraordinary tenure in a role where the average director lasts just a few years. What makes her leadership especially compelling is that she didn’t come up through a traditional parks background. She entered the system with deep experience in government operations, finance, and administration, and then chose to learn parks work shoulder to shoulder with frontline staff. That combination of humility, credibility, and curiosity shaped everything that followed.

Throughout our conversation, one theme kept rising to the surface: relationships. Lisa credits her longevity and effectiveness not to any single strategy or program, but to the trust built with her team, her peers across the country, elected officials, and community partners. Whether navigating budget shortfalls, changing visitor behavior, or post-pandemic realities, her approach has remained consistent—communicate clearly, invite shared leadership, and never assume the answers only live at the top.

We talked about how visitor expectations have changed, how parks must balance tradition with adaptation, and why frontline staff voices matter more than ever. Lisa shared how transparency during difficult financial cycles helps stabilize teams, and how listening to employees often leads to better ideas than leadership could generate alone. From public-private partnerships to new camping experiences, her focus remains on sustaining parks without losing sight of their core purpose.

What struck me most was Lisa’s clarity around teamwork. She sees leadership not as command, but as defense clearing obstacles so others can do their best work. That mindset has shaped one of the most respected park systems in the country.

When leaders invest in relationships, the work becomes sustainable. Parks become resilient. And people, staff and visitors alike, feel the difference.