The Perks - Part 1

Choosing a career with the National Parks requires trade-offs in your life. Some are small, like having limited housing choices. Others are large, such as realizing that the highest pay many NPS employees will ever be able to reach is a GS-11(around $50,000) or GS-12 (around $60,000) if you work in a technical or administrative field. If you work doing something else, like maintenance, it's likely to be even less. Different jobs have different tweaks to the pay scale, but the overall situation is that you'll never make as much working for the Park Service as you would in the private sector.

In exchange for low pay you get certain perks for working for the Service, the biggest of which is living and working in the most beautiful places in the country. If you choose a skilled or trade career, you occasionally may be called upon to perform work in remote locations. These remote locations are often faster (and cheaper for the taxpayer) to access via a helicopter, as opposed to driving. This gives you, as the employee a “free” helicopter tour of an area, something that tourists pay hundreds or thousands to experience. 

The video below is from a recent flight from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon to the South Rim. Finding a way to work your position to get perks like this is one of the main reasons I work for NPS.