Yosemite Locksmith: 'The People Who Fired Me Don't Know What I Do'

The Trump administration fired more than 1,000 National Park Service employees who were still in their probationary period last week—including the man with the keys to Yosemite National Park. In an Instagram post this week, Nate Vince, the park's only locksmith, said he was 48 weeks into his probationary period at the park in central California and was fired three weeks from the end of it. He said he apprenticed under the previous full-time locksmith for four years and described the role as essential to park operations, SFGate reports. "The people that fired me don't know who I am, or what I do," he wrote. "They simply don't understand this park and how big and complex it is."

"We have a federal court, administrative buildings, toilets, closets, gun safes," Vince, 42, tells the Washington Post. "We have endless things that need to be secured in various forms, and I'm the sole keeper of those keys, the one that makes the keys, the one that fixes the locks, installs the locks, and has all that knowledge of the security behind the park." His role also includes helping visitors who are locked out of their accommodation—or locked in toilets. The park is "the size of Rhode Island and has more locks than a small city, and without a locksmith I'm deeply concerned for the safety and security of the park and people in it," Vince wrote.

Vince said he was told he had to move out of employee housing immediately. "All of my eggs were in this basket and I planned to stay till retirement," he wrote. He said the previous locksmith, who was in the role for 23 years, told him the park can't run without a locksmith and if he did his job well, he'd always have it. Bill Wade, executive director of the Association of National Park Rangers, tells the Post that the job cuts are likely to cause disruption this summer similar to that seen during the pandemic or government shutdowns. "Some of the effects could be immediate, but the bulk of the impacts will occur in the heavy season, which for many national parks is May to September," Wade says. (More Yosemite National Park stories.)