Business Plan Students With WASO

The Commercial Services Program welcomes Shannon Marimón and Josh Yocum as summer interns of the National Park Service’s Business Plan Initiative. Into its second decade as a program of the Comptroller’s Business Management Group, the Business Plan Initiative brings thirteen graduate students this year, with two being hosted by Commercial Services WASO.

While the Business Plan Initiative traditionally brings graduate students to work directly at the Park-level in conducting operations analysis, this year’s group is more diverse in placement with interns working with Glen Canyon, Crater Lake, Sequoia & Kings Canyon, Scotts bluff, City of Rocks, the Southeast Utah Group, and the Commercial Services Program. For Commercial Services, the summer project will focus on developing new employee and promotional materials as well as a benchmark comparative analysis of the NPS program to Federal and state concession programs; other analyses will be conducted as time permits.

Shannon Marimón was born in Barcelona, Spain, and raised primarily in Farmington, Connecticut. She studied art history and studio art at Dartmouth College, studied in Spain for a year, and worked as Associate Director for Admissions at Stanford Law School. Most recently, Shannon served as a fundraiser for the Stanford International Division and lead fundraiser for the Yale School of Art. Shannon received her Master of Liberal Arts in art history from Stanford and is presently working to complete her Master of Business Administration from Yale, where she also takes an active role in the school’s Net Impact Club.

Josh Yocum is a graduate of Boston College, majoring in Economics with a minor in Environmental Studies. Josh’s work experience has included performing environmental economic analysis as a contractor to the Environmental Protection Agency and assisting in woodland protection at a land conservation organization. Most recently, he performed epidemiology research at the Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary in Boston. Josh is completing his Master of Business Administration at Temple’s Fox School of Business in Philadelphia, with concentrations in finance and international business.

Like its peers at the Park-level, Commercial Services WASO has benefitted from the experience of Business Plan Initiative summer interns. Former Business Management Group student intern, Tara Holmberg, who worked at Chickasaw National Recreation Area in 2008, joins the WASO Program fulltime this year as a financial analyst. Associate to the Chief, J. Ernest Jutte, also came to the National Park Service through the Business Plan Initiative, doing his summer graduate internship at Mather Training Center in Harpers Ferry.

National Park Service Business Plans, through a creative public/private partnership with the Student Conservation Association, are designed to promote the long-term health of our national parks through development of improved financial planning and management tools. Business plans are traditionally used to clearly outline park operational requirements, identify financial resources that are currently available, and analyze any funding gap that exists. In addition, they are used to outline operational and investment priorities and strategies for meeting those needs.