UPDATE | Concessionaire Nominated To Run National Park Service

The nomination of a top officer of national park concessionaire Delaware North Companies (DNC) to head the National Park Service drew criticism and concern Thursday.

Scott Socha, a 25-year employee of DNC, was nominated late Wednesday by President Donald Trump and immediately drew scrutiny. Most recently he has served as DNC's president, Parks & Resorts and Australia, with an eye on driving business to the company's operations.

Socha also was part of DNC's leadership team during the period when the company trademarked names in Yosemite National Park and held them hostage for $51 million, a fee that later was negotiated down to $12 million.

That battle began in 2016 when a DNC subsidiary, DNC Parks and Resorts at Yosemite, Inc., lost the contract to operate concessions in Yosemite to an Aramark subsidiary, Yosemite Hospitality, LLC.

The issue of trademarking words attached to properties in the National Park System actually arose in 2014, when the Park Service released a prospectus for a 15-year contract involving lodging and dining concessions at Yosemite. During the process, Delaware North, which had held the concessions business in Yosemite since 1993, notified the Park Service that it owned "intellectual property" rights in the form of trademarks attached to lodgings in the park.

If Delaware North was unsuccessful in bidding for the new contract, the company said at the time, it would seek $51 million to relinquish those marks, and other intellectual property, to the new concessionaire. That led the Park Service to say it would allow a concessionaire other than Delaware North to propose name changes to the facilities, which in some cases have been in operation for more than a century under the same name.

After Delaware North lost the concessions contract, the Buffalo, New York, company filed a $10 million-plus claim against the government. In that claim, DNC alleged breach of contract by the Park Service for its failure to require Yosemite Hospitality to purchase Delaware North's intangible properties.

Yosemite officials, looking to avoid a costly trademark fight with Delaware North, announced in January 2016 that they would change the names of iconic lodges in the park.

The dispute ended in 2019 when Delaware North agreed to transfer trademarks and service marks at issue in the lawsuit to Yosemite Hospitality as part of a settlement that included the U.S. government.

The settlement provided for payments to Delaware North from Aramark and the United States to resolve any and all contractual disputes among the three parties arising from Delaware North’s departure as a concessioner at Yosemite and Aramark’s assumption of its Yosemite concession contract. Additionally,  Aramark’s Yosemite concession contract called for those trademarks and service marks to transfer at no cost to the National Park Service upon the expiration or termination of Aramark’s contract. 

Socha, who began his career with Delaware North in 1999, served as the company's vice president for financial planning and analysis and risk management from January 2012-March 2017, when he became president of its parks and resorts division. 

The choice of Socha is unusual in that he represents a corporation that has held concessions contracts with the Park Service and which currently operates lodging operations tied to national parks, from the Squire at Grand Canyon in Tusayan, Arizona, to Tenaya at Yosemite in Fish Creek, California, near the south entrance to Yosemite, and within Olympic and Shenandoah national parks.

Delaware North also operates lodgings and tourism companies in West Yellowstone, Montana, that take summer and winter visitors into Yellowstone National Park, and runs retail operations in the park.

“Rather than hiring a conservation champion, Trump is showing his disdain for the national parks by appointing a person with no experience and no vision for how they should be run,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Who knows what ludicrous promises Trump demanded for this nomination? Our national parks are in crisis, reeling from Trump’s staffing cuts, so a real leader could have made a difference for these crown jewels of America’s natural heritage. But instead I’d bet on changes like the parks concessions serving Trump steaks and Trump water.”

Laiken Jordahl, the group's public lands advocate, added that, "This administration doesn't see parks like Yosemite, Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon as national treasures, but as branding opportunities and profit makers. As illegally slapping his own face on every park pass showed, Trump sees our nation’s public lands as conquests for his real estate empire and will stop at nothing until they're carved up for profit and turned into playgrounds for the ultra-rich.” 

The National Parks Conservation Association was more circumspect in its reaction.

“This nomination of Scott Socha as National Park Service director comes at a critical moment for the agency. Since January 2025, the agency has lost nearly 25 percent of its permanent staff. That’s more than 4,000 critical positions gone, and with them, decades of knowledge that is not easily replaced," said Theresa Pierno, NPCA's president and CEO. "And it’s not just the people under attack. Rangers have been ordered by the Secretary of the Interior to remove exhibits that discuss, among other things, the history of slavery, the country’s treatment of Indigenous peoples, and climate science.

“The Park Service director must reverse course on the damage that’s been done to parks and park staff over the last year. If confirmed, he must put the Park Service’s mission first, stand up for park staff, fill critical vacancies and halt attacks on our nation’s history," added Pierno. "Our national parks need strong, sensible leadership now more than ever before. Given Mr. Socha’s years of experience working with the Park Service, we hope he will be that leader. NPCA stands ready to work with him.”

At the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks, Executive Director Emily Thompson said that during the past year the Park Service "has been gutted, budgets have been slashed, and the threats of privatization and mass sell-off loom. Park staff have been silenced, and history and science is being erased in our parks and museums. In this critical moment, our parks need a National Park Service director who can be a champion for America’s national treasures, and those who steward them. This requires deep knowledge of and enthusiasm for our parks and public lands, alongside the skills and abilities to manage these irreplaceable natural and cultural resources. 

“It is critical that the next director understands and believes in the mission of the National Park Service, and places the protection of our National Park System - and support of NPS employees - first. We encourage the Senate to do its job and fully vet this nomination." she added.

“Our national parks are in crisis. The next National Park Service Director must hit the ground running with the necessary knowledge, skills, and priorities to ensure our parks and public lands are protected for future generations.”

Socha's nomination heads initially to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which is chaired by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, a strong proponent of privatizing federal lands.

If confirmed, Socha not only will head an agency that has lost roughly a quarter of its workforce in the past year, but which has been told to remove interpretive materials addressing climate change, slavery, and other issues the Trump administration believes inappropriately colors history. He also would be challenged with reversing widespread poor morale in the agency, something his predecessors have struggled with. 

The Park Service has been without a Senate-confirmed director since Chuck Sams left the position at the end of the Biden administration. Filling the role has been Jessica Bowron, the agency's comptroller.