Glacier National Park concessions chief retires

Jan Knox, the chief of concessions for Glacier National Park, recently retired after a long career in the National Park Service, including 26 years in Glacier.

Knox steered the Park the through some trying times in its concession office, including the closing and subsequent reopening of Sperry and Granite Park chalets in the 1990s, the decision to shut down the Red Bus fleet and its subsequent rehabilitation by the Ford Motor Co., and the creation of the Park’s commercial services plan.

A recent major task was overseeing the transition from Glacier Park Inc. to Xanterra Parks and Resorts as the concessionaire to run the major lodges and hotels in the Park. The transition went fairly smoothly, she said.

“Glacier Park Inc. was very gracious and wanted to maintain being good neighbors with the Park,” Knox said.

Knox began her NPS career in Yosemite National Park as a seasonal clerk and typist. For two summers, she counted the number of people getting on and off Yosemite’s shuttles. She worked there for five years.

In 1980, Knox graduated from the University of Pacific in California and took a clerical position in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park. She married Scott Emmerich, and the couple moved to Glacier Park in 1989 when he became a ranger here. Emmerich retired as the North Fork district ranger in fall 2014.

Knox said she’ll miss the drive to the Park and spending time at the Polebridge Ranger Station. The couple has a home in Columbia Falls and a cabin in the North Fork. Their daughter McKenna is a sophomore at Gonzaga University.

It was a challenging but rewarding career, Knox noted.

“We had some great companies to work with over the years,” she said. “I was fortunate to work with some great people.”