Welcome to Our New Superintendent

Grand canyon river guides would like to extend a warm welcome to Joe Alston, former Superintendent of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. On October 26, 2000, Secretary of Interior, Bruce Babbitt, announced that Alston would replace Rob Arnberger, at the opening of the Canyon View Information Plaza at Grand Canyon National Park.
Joe Alston has been managing Glen Canyon for the last five years and is credited with creating a water quality program that has cleaned up the shores of Lake Powell. Alston was the deputy uperintendent at Yellowstone National Park for five years, before coming to Glen Canyon. However, prior to that, Alston had some colorful

history. In his formative years, he was a firefighter on the North Rim. In fact, he plays a prominent role in many stories in Stephen Pyne's book Fire on the Rim: A Firefighter's Season at the Grand Canyon. Alston left the fire crew to go to graduate school in economics, graduated and worked as a buyer for Xerox. He left Xerox to be a River Ranger at Dinosaur National Monument. He then became a concessions specialist at Yellowstone and Alaska, followed by acting Superintendent at Glacier Bay National Park as well as Superintendent at Curecanti National Recreation Area in Colorado.