Donald Trump has nominated the hospitality executive Scott Socha – whose company once sued to claim trademark rights to the name “Yosemite National Park” – to lead the National Park Service.
The nomination of an outsider with business ties to the agency he’d oversee comes at a pivotal moment for the service, which lost a quarter of its staff under the so-called “department of government efficiency” civil sector purge and which has been the subject of the Trump administration’s aggressive efforts to erase mention of historical events from its sites that portray Americans in an unfavorable light, such as regarding slavery.
