If filled, those positions would have given the historical park a staff of about 20 employees.
Wittmer said the loss of these positions will have a significant impact on the park, which has half a dozen sites that tell the stories of the birth of aviation and the lives of Wilbur and Orville Wright and Paul Laurence Dunbar.
More than 80,000 people on average each year visit the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park, which is one of eight National Park Service sites in Ohio.
The National Aviation Heritage Alliance is a nonprofit designated by Congress as the management entity for historic aviation related sites in southwest Ohio.
Officials at the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park did not return requests for comment about employment and programming at Dayton’s National Park Service locations.
Historic preservation, tourism
The Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park has five national historic landmarks and several properties that contribute to listings in the National Register of Historic Places.
National historic landmarks include the Wright Cycle Company and Wright and Wright printing shop on the second floor of the Hoover Block, which are located at South Williams and West Third Street in the Wright Dunbar District. Other historic properties include the Huffman Prairie Flying Field, Hawthorn Hill and the Paul Laurence Dunbar House.
These parks and historic sites play a vital role in tourism, said National Parks Conservation Association Midwest Regional Manager Crystal Davis. Her organization estimates parks contribute nearly $55 billion in economic return.
Davis said the pandemic “shined a light” on the importance of green spaces. Parks were safe places to gather and unwind.
“These parks are more than just a place of recreation,” Davis said. “They provide economic value in the form of tourism, and that’s something that needs to be taken into consideration.”
Davis said the success of parks is predicated on locations being fully staffed and operational. Her organization has heard from multiple NPS sites that recent federal actions are comprising visitation center hours and park staffing.
The Wright-Dunbar Interpretive Center, located at 16 South Williams St., currently is open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. from Wednesday to Sunday. Last year, the center was open seven days a week.
The Huffman Prairie Flying Field Interpretive Center by Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is now open only on Wednesdays and Thursdays. The center as recently as 2023 was open Wednesday through Sunday.
Wittmer said the Aviation Heritage National Historical Park is unable to hire six positions and other jobs could be at risk.
Federal actions
The Trump administration in February fired about 1,000 newly hired National Park Service employees, and more job cuts could be on the horizon.
The federal offices of management and budget and personnel management recently issued a memo to government agency leaders that says they need to submit reorganization plans to significantly reduce their workforces. The memo also says the reorganization plans should seek to reduce budget toplines and real property footprints.
Davis said the NPCA has heard from numerous workers who were impacted by the NPS cuts — with jobs range from engineering positions to education program roles to emergency personnel, in addition to park rangers.
“The uncertainty is bringing anxiety,” Davis said. “With park positions being decimated that rapidly, it comes with an air of devastation. And it’s across the board, in terms of the nature of the positions that have been eliminated.”
However, the Trump administration reportedly is going to allow the National Park Service to hire about 7,000 seasonal employees, which is slightly more seasonal workers than in some recent years. The agency in the past generally had about 20,000 permanent, temporary and seasonal employees.
“The National Park Service is hiring seasonal workers to continue enhancing the visitor experience as we embrace new opportunities for optimization and innovation in workforce management,” a national spokesperson for NPS said in a statement. “We are focused on ensuring that every visitor has the chance to explore and connect with the incredible, iconic spaces of our national parks.”
Wittmer said the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park was seeking multiple seasonal employees, and those job positions were posted last fall. She said the positions were frozen in January, and she worries that it might be hard to find good candidates at this point.
“Seasonal positions are often a person’s first job with the Park Service and an entryway into a permanent position,” she said. “This will have an immediate and long-term impact on Dayton Aviation NHP and the Park Service as a whole.”
Uncertain future
The Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park has been directed to stop outreach, and their contracts and spending are getting a lot more scrutiny, which could slow down repairs and improvements, Wittmer said.
She said she’s worried that there will not be staff available to focus on community projects like the proposal to turn the Wright Co. airplane factory site along West Third Street into a museum and tourist destination, which would be part of a mixed-use site.
Davis said concerns related to park safety, too, are paramount in the budget cut discussion.
“You can imagine that in some of these parks that are in very remote locations, local rangers get to you the fastest if there is an issue. That security, I think, is something we took for granted.”
But that’s also true for urban parks. Davis, a Cleveland resident, explained that people often turn to their national park sites, and their park rangers, for assistance in emergencies.
“There’s someone there, who is going to have a uniform on, who is going to help you out if necessary. They are there to help you,” she said.
Ohio is home to eight National Park Service sites, two national trails and a heritage area, including the William Howard Taft historic site in Cincinnati and the Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument in Wilberforce.
Davis said she feels any loss to a national park is a loss to the entire park system.
“Parks are places that hold our collective story, and our history,” Davis said. “The important role they play is telling stories of our history, and of our future. Where we can go.”
