      Saturday is the last day of work for Wind Cave National Park Superintendent Leigh Welling, who is retiring after 21-½ years with the National Park Service and the last 3-½ at Wind Cave.Â
     Rhonda Schier, currently superintendent of Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial in Southern Indiana, will serve as Wind Cave’s Acting Superintendent for the next 4 months as the NPS starts the search for a permanent superintendent.
Welling is retiring to Chadron, where she grew up, and says she looks forward to spending more time with family and friends along with riding her bike and exploring the outdoors.
Welling, who has an undergraduate degree in Geology from the University of Colorado Boulder and a Masters and PhD in Oceanography from Oregon State University, began her career with the NPS in 2002.
Her first post was as director of the Crown of the Continent Research Learning Center at Glacier National Park in Montana.
She moved to Fort Collins, CO, 5 years later as the national lead for climate change, eventually helping to establish and lead the NPS Climate Change Response Program in 2010.
In 2015, Welling moved to the NPS Alaska Regional Office, first as the regional chief scientist and then as the associate regional director for science, communication, and partnerships. That was followed by her stay at Wind Cave.
Before joining the NPS, Welling was in academia. She held multiple positions at UNLV, working on practices to increase diversity and inclusion in earth science curricula.
She was also director of the Regional Earth Science Applications Center. at the University of North Dakota.