Donald Trump has nominated Scott Socha, a hospitality executive whose company once sued to claim trademark rights to the name “Yosemite National Park”, to lead the National Park Service. The nomination comes at a pivotal time for the agency, which has lost a quarter of its staff under the Trump administration’s civil sector purge and has faced efforts to remove references to historical events such as slavery from its sites.
Socha spent the last 27 years at Buffalo-based Delaware North, a food and hotel management company that provides services in seven national parks and runs lodging in five gateway communities. He has overseen the development of park enterprises since 2017. His nomination requires Senate confirmation.
Conservation groups have criticised the pick. Jayson O’Neill of Save our Parks said Socha has “zero experience in public service or conservation” and has “made a career out of extracting maximum profit from our national parks”. Delaware North is known for a trademark lawsuit after losing a $2bn contract to operate Yosemite’s hotels in 2016, claiming rights to names including “Yosemite National Park”. The lawsuit was settled in 2019.
“Our public lands belong to all Americans, not the concessionaires who try to trademark and cash in on the names of our nation’s crown jewels,” said Aaron Weiss of the Center for Western Priorities.
