Charles F. (“Chuck”) Sams III

Charles F. (“Chuck”) Sams III is the nineteenth director of the National Park Service. Sams is Cayuse and Walla Walla and is an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Northeast Oregon, where he grew up. He also has blood ties to the Cocopah Tribe and Yankton Sioux of Fort Peck. Sams most recently served as Oregon Governor Kate Brown’s appointee to the Pacific Northwest Power and Conservation Council where he held a position as a council member from March to December of 2021. Prior to the NW Council, he served as executive director for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation.