Carrie Mardorf woke up to her first day on the job as Superintendent of Cane River Creole National Historical Park Sunday, Sept. 4, according to the Cane River National Heritage Area.

As of Saturday, she was savoring her last moments at Kalaupapa National Historical Park, on the north shore of the Hawaiian island of Molokai, where she oversees the preservation of over 300 historic buildings, 1,200 grave markers, two cultural landscapes, hundreds of archeological sites, museum collections, and an ongoing collection of oral histories from the still-active Hansen’s disease (leprosy) patient community. Needless to say, it’s a complex job.

After completing training as a historical landscape architect, Carrie started with the National Park Service as an intern at Antietam National Battlefield. She’s learned that one of the best things about historic preservation is the wide array of resources and the complex histories of unique places. Looking forward to the next generation of resource managers, she reminds us that “Sometimes it’s not only about preserving physical material, but also about how to preserve aspects of culture and traditional skills and methods.”