Passport to Texas

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

Todd Imboden, manages Palmetto State Park in Gonzales County, and performs a daily balancing act between the park and his personal life. Ron Kabele tells Todd’s story this month in a Texas Parks and Wildlife TV segment.

So, how does he balance that and being a dad? People think like a park manager, you’re out there in the park all day. You’re not. It’s not an easy job. It’s not a particularly glamorous one, either.

A perfect example of this is toilet paper. The average Joe doesn’t think about how much toilet paper the park uses, but we use a lot of it!

In addition to being the park manager, he’s very involved in the community, and in his sons lives. He’s one of the coaches on the little league team. He talks in his kids’ schools. He’s great at show and tell.

This is a Kemp’s Ridley shell. That’s a big turtle, isn’t it? See how big his head is? It’s almost as big as yours. See? Look at that! (laughter).

And, another neat thing about Todd, he started here when he was twenty hears old as a janitor.

I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do, or where I wanted to go. A friend of mine, he told me he could get me a job. I showed up that day. And they gave me a janitor’s cart to clean the bathroom.

So he came up through the maintenance areas, then he became a park ranger, then he became an assistant manager, and now he’s a manager. Someday he’ll probably be a division chief. When people think about Todd, he’s the epitome of what a park manager is.

That’s our show for today…for Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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