Lisa Dardy McGee’s first taste of the West came during a summer spent scooping ice cream in Grand Canyon National Park. Born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, she was unprepared for the grandeur, scale and color of the western landscape. She spent five summers during and after college working in national parks, first as a ranger intern in Yellowstone, and then as a ranger naturalist in Grand Teton National Park.

“I have so many great memories of those summers,” Lisa recounts. “I remember when my parents first visited me in Wyoming. It was my first season in Grand Teton. They said that I’d be crazy to ever leave. They sensed how much I loved it.”

Lisa has moved around a bit in the years since she first came to Wyoming, most recently clerking for a judge in Anchorage, Alaska, but the circle closed this summer when she returned to assume the job of National Parks and Forest Director at the Wyoming Outdoor Council.

“I interned at WOC two summers ago,” Lisa says. “I have enjoyed this past year in Alaska, but it never felt like home the way Wyoming does. When I saw the job opening at WOC, I was thrilled.” As a student at the University of Wyoming, College of Law, Lisa focused on environmental and natural resource law. “My experiences living and working in northwest Wyoming inspired my decision to go to law school. I wanted to obtain the knowledge and skills necessary to advocate for the protection of the wild places that mean so much to me.”

Lisa brings to her position a unique blend of legal knowledge, an awareness of the many issues facing National Parks and Forests, and a strong commitment to Wyoming. She is familiar with Wyoming’s backcountry, having trekked through many miles of it on foot and ski, and she has an intimate knowledge of its plants and animals after a couple of seasons as a field botanist, a job managing Wind River Herbs’ lab and organic farm in Alpine, and time in the field with her wildlife biologist husband Matthew.

“I am grateful to live in a place like Wyoming where there are ecosystems that remain relatively intact. I look forward to working to help ensure that those systems remain protected for people in the future to be awed by them as I was and still am,” she explains.