Great Smoky Mountains National Park Superintendent Cash takes home top award
May 25, 2021

Great Smoky Mountains National Park Superintendent Cassius Cash leads a hike for the Smokies Hikes for Healing initiative on August 13, 2020. The eight guided hikes were held August through December in different locations across the park in Tennessee and North Carolina. Image courtesy of The Appalachian Adventure Company

GATLINBURG, TN — On Monday, May 24, the Public Lands Alliance awarded Great Smoky Mountains National Park Superintendent Cassius Cash with an Agency Leadership Award at the 2021 Public Lands Alliance Partnership Awards.

The Agency Leadership Award recognizes a public land management agency employee for outstanding accomplishments in championing, cultivating, and leading partnerships. Superintendent Cash was nominated by Great Smoky Mountains Association based on his steadfast commitment to leading the Smokies throughout the last six years, as well as for demonstrating outstanding guidance through a difficult year wrought with fear, isolation, and social unrest.

Superintendent Cash was presented the award during Monday’s virtual celebration, held live over Facebook. The ceremony can be viewed on the Public Lands Alliance’s Facebook page.

In 2015, Cash became the first-ever African American superintendent of Great Smoky Mountains National Park and has since led the park through situations as diverse as the 100th birthday of the National Park Service, the devastating Chimney Tops 2 Fire in November 2016, and the immense visitation numbers during 2017’s Total Solar Eclipse—all while demonstrating an authentic, honest approach to relationship-building in the park. “Superintendent Cash is changing the park’s culture by tackling important issues and having difficult conversations,” said Smokies Education Branch Coordinator Susan Sachs.

Last year, shepherding the most-visited national park through a pandemic, Cash led the development and implementation of a COVID-SAFE operations plan in collaboration with Great Smoky Mountains Association, which runs the bookstores in park visitor centers. At the same time, he used his partnership prowess to address two major issues in groundbreaking ways.

First, like many other busy national parks, the Smokies is experiencing unsustainable levels of visitation, and Cash has made it a priority to involve local people in finding solutions through Visitor Experience Stewardship discussions—holding Zoom meetings with gateway community members to make them aware of the issues, gather their input, and seek solutions together.

Second, Cash created an initiative that extends beyond the park’s boundary to make a positive impact throughout the southeast region, gaining national media attention. In response to the deaths of unarmed African Americans and the nationwide social justice movement that followed, Superintendent Cash boldly created Smokies Hikes for Healing, an initiative that utilized the park for eight guided hikes that would each allow ten individuals from the region to participate. He selected highly trained facilitators to join each hike and lead groups in thought-provoking private discussions to recognize and confront the long-standing ills associated with racism.

In a Fall 2020 interview with Smokies Life magazine editor Frances Figart, Cash said: “I like to say, if I have left it better than when I found it, then I have done my job. But that doesn’t just apply to my workplace. It’s also about my community. Addressing these issues and looking at how our communities can make changes or be a part of change, I think that is the job I’m here to do.”

Laurel Rematore, CEO of Great Smoky Mountains Association and the organization’s primary liaison with park leadership, explained that “the Smokies provide superintendents with nonstop challenges that play out on a national stage under the constant, relentless scrutiny of the media and area business leaders. Superintendent Cash faces the challenges and pushes his park staff and partner organizations toward embracing the opportunity that lies within each challenge.

“Cash pays attention to the concerns partners express, then works for all involved to have a shared understanding of those concerns, examine the stakes, and arrive at solutions by consensus,” Rematore continued. “Consensus-building takes a lot of time, trust, and work to achieve, but Cash does not settle for anything less.”

The PLA Partnership Awards program is designed to celebrate the best in public lands partnerships, recognizing individuals, organizations, publications, products, programs and services that embody leading-edge achievements in the preservation of public lands and the enrichment of visitors. Through its awards, the program recognizes excellence in public lands partnerships, innovative solutions to challenges, and outstanding programs that enhance visitor experience.

For additional details on the 2021 Public Lands Alliance Partnership Awards, visit publiclandsalliance.org or watch the ceremony stream.

Great Smoky Mountains Association is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting the scientific, historical and interpretive activities of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park by providing educational products and services to park visitors. GSMA depends on the generous support of its members to fulfill its mission, preserving the Smokies for generations to come. Membership-driven funding also supports the preservation of more than 90 historic structures throughout the park, as well as the backcountry rangers who protect more than 800 miles of trails to spectacular mountain vistas, rushing streams, waterfalls and quiet groves of old-growth forest. For more information about GSMA, visit smokiesinformation.org.