Darla Sidles Bio

Darla Sidles has served as the Superintendent of Saguaro National Park since June 2009.  Prior to Saguaro, she was the Deputy Superintendent of Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, PA for 3.5 years.  From 2001-2006, Sidles served as the Assistant Manager and Superintendent of the Grand Canyon Parashant National Monument in northwest Arizona.  During that period, she also served several months in Washington DC as Associate to the NPS Director.

Sidles began her career as a Student Conservation Association (SCA) volunteer in 1986 with the U.S. Forest Service in the North Cascades. From 1986 to 1990, she worked there seasonally as a wilderness ranger, trail crew member, and head ranger for the Mt. Baker National Recreation Area.  She also worked several other seasonal jobs in NPS, including SCA interpretive ranger at Arches National Park (1987), dispatcher at Denali National Park (1990) and trail crew member at Big Bend National Park (1991-’92). 

In 1992, Sidles became a seasonal biological technician at Zion National Park.  She became a permanent employee soon after and served nine years at Zion in several posts, including vegetation and wilderness management.  She was chief of planning when she left Zion in 2001. During her Zion years, Sidles also worked a detail as a legislative fellow to Sen. Daniel Akaka (HI) in Washington, DC.