From the National Park Service: Steven Iobst was named Deputy Superintendent of Yellowstone National Park by Superintendent Dan Wenk, effective July 31.

Iobst (pronounced YÔBST) will be responsible for managing all day-to-day operations of the 2.2-million-acre park including engineering and maintenance, law enforcement, interpretation and natural and cultural resource management.

Managing a staff of more than 350 full-time NPS employees and more than 420 seasonal employees, Iobst’s primary task will be to continue to preserve Yellowstone’s vital resources while serving its more than three million annual visitors.

“I am both proud and humbled to serve our staff and visitors as well as protecting the incredible resources of Yellowstone,” said Iobst.

Iobst has been acting Deputy Superintendent since October 2010, and replaces Colin Campbell, who is now the Deputy Regional Director at the National Park Service’s Intermountain Region Headquarters at Denver.

Iobst began his NPS career as a student engineer in 1971 and earned a civil engineering degree from Virginia Tech in 1974.  He became an environmental engineer at Yellowstone’s maintenance division in 1979, and held positions as a civil engineer for the Concessions Management Office and management assistant to the Superintendent for Planning and Development in 1983. He left Yellowstone in 1988 to become the Chief of Facility Management at Rocky Mountain National Park, and served as the Acting Chief of Facility Management in Washington, D.C., in 1996.

In 1997 Iobst returned to the greater Yellowstone area as Assistant Superintendent at Grand Teton National Park and served as Acting Superintendent there from 2000 to 2002, where he oversaw the development of future winter use plans for both Yellowstone and Grand Teton.

Since 2003 as Yellowstone’s Chief of Maintenance, he has managed more than 2,800 park assets, a $16-million operational maintenance budget with annual projects averaging $35 million and more than 200 full time employees -- the largest park-based asset management program in the National Park Service.

Iobst and his wife Debbie, a successful swim coach, have three grown children; Allison, Benjamin, and Steven and three grandchildren.

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