Brian Palcer was aiming to be a doctor, but the outdoors came into focus instead. He is a full-time ranger at sprawling Chatfield State Park in Jefferson County.
The Chicago-area native went to Northern Illinois University in DeKalb graduating with a biology degree, and that set the stage.
He had visited an aunt in Colorado and decided he wanted to live near the mountains, so he moved to Greeley after graduation. Having studied birds for a time at Auburn University in Alabama, Palcer applied to a few Colorado parks started as a seasonal ranger at Barr Lake State Park in 2002.
He remembers his first day, he answered a call about an injured deer, and found it was a new-born fawn, just unsteady on its feet. Brian says those experiences helped with a career decision.
"I learned a lot that summer at Barr Lake- it's a quieter park, more of a natural-type park, they don't get a lot of visitors. I learned a lot of maintenance, learned a lot about the native plants and animal species," he remembers.
He ended up doing three summers there through 2004. In 2005, a state hiring freeze was lifted and he became a full-time ranger at Barr Lake.
He went in for training at the police academy with 12 other rangers and after graduation, added a "ranger academy" where training included winter survival, snowmobile training, state park procedures and studying statues pertaining to parks and wildlife. In January of 2008 he took the opportunity for a position that would involve more law enforcement duties at Chatfield- one of the busiest parks in the state.
Palcer, 32, and his wife,
Amber, a Colorado Springs schoolteacher, have two boys ages two and six months.
Palcer is the "early ranger," opening the park alongwith a seasonal ranger. The process consists of amultitude of duties including readying the entrance gates, patrolling the park roads looking for things as routine proper park passes, illegal camping, checking fishing licenses to more serious situations like checking for suicides, DUIs, BUIs (boating while intoxicated) and other criminal behavior.
Palcer is firearm trained and carries a Glock .40 caliber pistol and qualifies regularly on pistols as well as shotguns and rifles.
While not speaking directly to the issue of guns in national parks, Palcer said he was around hunters regularly at Barr Lake, so is used to people with firearms.
"At Chatfield, there absolutely no reason to have a gun," he says.
People skills are important, he notes, and one of the things Palcer likes about the ranger job is the variety of duties.
"That's one of the great things about this job- just the diversity you see even in a single day. You have to be able to adapt."
He recalled one instance when he was leading a school group when a medical call came in for an injured water boarder- a time when his first responder training came in handy.
"That's what makes the job neat and challenging- the fact that at any given point, anything can happen."
Park weekends are very busy. Palcer says a lot of what rangers do then is about traffic control and keeping an eye out for conflicts and things like stopping inappropriate parking.
Brian enjoys working with people with an appreciation of the outdoors and eventually would like to become a senior ranger and beyond that, a park manager.