The National Park Service (NPS) is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations. It was created on August 25, 1916, by Congress through the National Park Service Organic Act.

It is an agency of the United States Department of the Interior, a federal executive department whose head, the Secretary of the Interior, is a Cabinet officer nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Most of the direct management of the NPS is delegated by the Secretary to the National Park Service Director, who must also be confirmed by the Senate.

The 21,989 employees of the NPS oversee 397 units, of which 58 are designated national parks.

National parks and national monuments in the United States were originally individually managed under the auspices of the Department of the Interior. The movement for an independent agency to oversee these federal lands was spearheaded by business magnate and conservationist Stephen Mather, as well as J. Horace McFarland. With the help of journalist Robert Sterling Yard, Mather ran a publicity campaign for the Department of the Interior. They wrote numerous articles that praised the scenic qualities of the parks and their possibilities for educational, inspirational, and recreational benefits. This campaign resulted in the creation of a National Park Service. On August 25, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill that mandated the agency "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." Mather became the first director of the newly formed NPS.

A national park is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual nations designate their own national parks differently (for example, see Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in the United States), an international organization, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and its World Commission on Protected Areas, has defined National Parks as its category II type of protected areas. While ideas for this type of national park had been suggested previously, the United States established the first such one, Yellowstone National Park, in 1872. The largest national park in the world meeting the IUCN definition is the Northeast Greenland National Park, which was established in 1974. According to the IUCN, there were 6,555 national parks worldwide in 2006 that meet its criteria.

In 1969 the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) declared a national park to be a relatively large area with particular defining characteristics. A national park was deemed to be a place

Jonathan B. Jarvis (born June 26, 1953) is the 18th Director of the United States National Park Service, confirmed by the United States Senate on September 25, 2009. He was serving as regional director for the Pacific West Region when, on July 10, 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Jarvis for the directorship following the resignation of Mary A. Bomar on January 20, 2009, the day of President Obama's inauguration. A career civil servant, Jarvis has been with the service for over 30 years.

Prior to his work as regional director, Jarvis served for three years as the superintendent of Mount Rainier National Park in Ashford, Washington. He was superintendent of Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve in Idaho and Wrangell-St. Elias National Park Service & Preserve in Alaska during the 1990s.

Jarvis graduated from The College of William & Mary, where he became a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity, in 1975 with a degree in biology.

Harold Watson "Trey" Gowdy III (born August 22, 1964) is the U.S. Representative for South Carolina's 4th congressional district. He is a member of the Republican Party. Before his election to Congress, he was the solicitor (district attorney) for the state's Seventh Judicial Circuit, comprising Spartanburg and Cherokee counties.

He was born in 1964 in Greenville, South Carolina, the son of Novalene (née Evans) and Dr. Harold Watson "Hal" Gowdy, Jr. Trey graduated from Spartanburg High School in 1982. He earned a B.A. in history from Baylor University in 1986 and a law degree from the University of South Carolina School of Law in 1989.

Following law school, he clerked for the late John P. Gardner on the South Carolina Court of Appeals and United States District Court Judge Ross Anderson. He then went into private practice before becoming a federal prosecutor in April 1994. He was awarded the Postal Inspector’s Award for the successful prosecution of J. Mark Allen, one of “America’s Most Wanted” suspects.

Robert Randolph Neugebauer, known as Randy Neugebauer (born December 24, 1949), is the U.S. Representative for Texas's 19th congressional district, having served since a special election in 2003. He is a member of the Republican Party. The district includes a large swath of West Texas, including Lubbock and Abilene. According to a 2011 survey by the National Journal, Neugebauer is "the most conservative" member of the House.

Neugebauer (pronounced Naw-guh-bow-er) was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and reared in Lubbock. His father was an insurance salesman and his mother a real estate agent and interior designer. He has a brother, John Neugebauer. When Randy was nine years old, his parents divorced, and his father died soon thereafter. In 1963, his mother married Joe W. Smith, a bank manager. Neugebauer graduated from Coronado High School and later from Texas Tech University in 1972 with a Bachelor of Business Administration in accounting.

Like his mother, Neugebauer has long been involved in the real estate business, having served as president of the development company Lubbock Land before his election to Congress. He is a former president of the Texas Homebuilders Association from 1996 to 1997.