Meet Tristan Bollenbaugh: Maintenance Field Fellow
Tristan Bollenbaugh began his professional career with four years of service in the U.S. Marine Corps, followed by six years working in software implementation. Yet even as he built his career, the outdoors kept calling him back. Working at a national park had been an on-and-off dream since his teenage years, rooted in his love for the desert and mountains of his youth. Growing up on the western edge of both the Mojave and Great Basin deserts, Tristan lived nearby to national treasures like Death Valley, Kings Canyon, Sequoia and Yosemite. These places of profound natural beauty stirred a lifelong fascination with wild spaces and conservation.
Eventually, Tristan chose to pursue this passion more directly, enrolling at Kennesaw State University to study geospatial sciences. This summer, Tristan joined the Voyageurs National Park team as a Maintenance Field Fellow, where his degree naturally complemented his hands-on work. Tristan's daily work centered around campsite maintenance, from installing bear lockers to improving site conditions across the park’s remote campsites.Park maintenance is often overlooked by many visitors, but it is a crucial component of their experience at Voyageurs, enhancing enjoyment, accessibility and safety. The scope of the work is large: campsite cleaning, clearing trails of brush and downed trees, landscaping around visitor centers, repairing vehicles, constructing docks, removing hazards like poison ivy or insect nests and more. These daily efforts, though not always visible to the average visitor, are what make the park welcoming and safe. The opportunity to learn how to drive a boat through the park, which also required understanding lake navigation, was another valuable part of the fellowship. The time he spent in the park was a great opportunity to start “learning the lake,” which helped him prepare for future career goals.
Tristan’s fellowship also allowed him to merge his geospatial sciences background with fieldwork. He collaborated with his own maintenance team and the park’s GIS specialist to design a proof-of-concept mobile application that replaced paper site lists with a digital system. Using ArcGIS, he developed a map-based platform to log campsite conditions, track repairs and upload photos directly from the field. This innovation improved efficiency, ensured consistency in data collection and allowed hazards to be documented and shared in real time.
Tristan’s fellowship gave him the chance to complete MOCC training, gaining daily experience navigating Voyageurs’ vast waterways and starting to log the water time required to pursue his ultimate goal of becoming a licensed Boat Captain. When his fellowship concludes, he will begin studies at the Great Lakes Maritime Academy in Maritime Technology, working toward licenses that will help him build the skills needed to one day return to Voyageurs as a Boat Captain.
To those considering a field fellowship at Voyageurs, Tristan recommends simple advice: “try it out.”From the Marine Corps to software development, and now to the lakes and skies of northern Minnesota, his journey is a reminder that there’s no single path to conservation, only a willingness to explore, adapt and grow.
Learn more about Tristan’s experience this summer by watching our “Field Stories” webinar from earlier this year!
Support Field Fellows:
The Conservancy’s Voyageurs Field Fellows program seeks to increase accessibility and professional development opportunities at Voyageurs National Park. The fellowship offers students and recent graduates a stipend-paid internship to engage in real world, hands-on work in areas such as preservation, natural resource management, environmental education and more. If you’d like to support future Field Fellows and their important work, please consider becoming a member with a gift today.
Funding for the Voyageurs Field Fellowship program is generously supported by Voyageurs Conservancy members, the Fredrikson & Byron Foundation, Elmer & Eleanor Andersen Foundation, and the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund as recommended by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR). The Trust Fund is a permanent fund constitutionally established by the citizens of Minnesota to assist in the protection, conservation, preservation, and enhancement of the state's air, water, land, fish, wildlife, and other natural resources.
