The superintendent who oversaw the USS Arizona Memorial during a time of turmoil is moving on, the National Park Service said.
Paul DePrey, who came to the Arizona Memorial in 2008, was named the new superintendent of Salem Maritime and Saugus Iron Works National Historic Sites in Massachusetts.
“Paul brings a wealth of operational experience with him, but equally important is his dedication to working with partners not only at the park level, but also collaborating on a national level,” NPS Northeast Regional Director Mike Caldwell said in a release. “Paul’s skill set and understanding of our nonprofit partners makes him uniquely suited to manage these sites where strong, longstanding partners contribute daily to park and heritage area operations.”
Shortly after DePrey arrived at the Arizona Memorial, a proclamation issued by President George W. Bush folded it into a larger World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument.
The Dec. 7, 1941, sunken battleship grave in Pearl Harbor is the No. 1 tourist attraction in Hawaii, with nearly 1.8 million visitors a year.
Officials said DePrey’s tour time at the Arizona was typical, but his tenure in later years was marked by a ticketing scandal, poor employee morale and communication, and unkempt grounds — even though
$56 million had been spent just a few years before to create a new visitor center campus.
For about seven months in 2013, the park service and its nonprofit fundraising arm, Pacific Historic Parks, diverted a portion of what were supposed to be free memorial tickets at the door for walk-up visitors, and instead sold them with an audio tour for $6 apiece to tour companies, according to a park service investigation.
In June, DePrey told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, “We stopped the (ticketing) program because I learned that I made a mistake.”
Craig Dalby, a spokesman for the NPS Pacific West Region, said an acting superintendent will be named for the World War II Valor site, but that person “has not yet been selected.”
“The position will be filled with a permanent selection, but in the meantime another NPS employee will serve in an acting capacity,” Dalby said.
