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She will continue role as chief at Morristown National Park

Jill A. Hawk, the superintendent of Morristown National Historical Park, has been assigned the additional role as head of Thomas Edison National Historical Park in West Orange, the National Park Service announced Thursday.

Hawk succeeds Greg Marshall who retired last year as the superintendent at Thomas Edison.

“Bringing the two parks together under a single superintendent provides continuity of leadership plus opportunities for cooperation between two relatively close sites,” National Parks’ Northeast Regional Director Dennis R. Reidenbach said. “Jill brings a great deal of skill, energy and enthusiasm into this dual position, and is the right person to lead these two important national parks.”

The National Park Service also is presently financially strapped with budget reductions.

“Having a single superintendent for multiple sites is common in the National Park Service,” Hawk said. “For me, it means the opportunity to engage with the staff, volunteer and partners at Thomas Edison without having to leave Morristown. It’s the best of both worlds.”

Prior to her assignment to Morristown in January, 2011, Hawk served as regional chief ranger in Philadelphia, overseeing programs including risk management, environmental protection, safety and occupational health, law enforcement, wildland fire, structural fire, search and rescue, emergency management, emergency services, and aviation across the 13 northeast states. Before being selected as regional chief ranger in 2005, Hawk was chief ranger at Mount Rainier National Park in Washington.

Hawk began her NPS career in 1989 as a seasonal park ranger, first at Fire Island National Seashore in New York and then at Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. Early in her career, she also had assignments at the Statue of Liberty, Everglades National Park, and Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina.

Hawk graduated from the Federal Bureau of Investigation National Academy in March 2006. She completed graduate study in Organizational Psychology in 2005 from Antioch University Seattle and completed undergraduate study in natural resource management from the University of Tennessee-Martin in 1988.

—TOM HESTER SR., NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM