ExplorUS, the Kansas-based company that in April took over the concessions contract at Crater Lake National Park following years of systemic issues that forced out former concessioner Aramark, has been facing an uphill battle.
The company officially took the reins at the remote southern Oregon destination April 15, giving it less than a month to open the property May 13 for the season – a process that involved bringing on managers and hiring nearly 200 staff, most of whom had no previous experience at the park, while digging out buildings, roads and sidewalks from multiple feet of snow.
William Boas, vice president of operations for the West at ExplorUS, said the company hasn’t been spending any time dwelling on the troubled tenure of its predecessor.
“There’s not a stigma about Aramark at all,” Boas said on a park visit this summer. “We’ve tried to make it a clean turn of the page.”
In February, the National Park Service put Aramark on notice after the concessions operator received years of poor reviews, including failed building inspections, health code violations, environmental concerns and allegations of mismanagement of employees, many of whom publicly accused the company of creating an unsafe work environment in an investigation by The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Aramark sold the contract to ExplorUS in April, giving it control of concessions at Crater Lake through 2030. While the National Park Service runs the park, a private concessioner is put in charge of lodging, camping, restaurants, gift shops and the boat tours.
Now, as crowds return to the park this summer, Boas said the company, operating locally as Explore Crater Lake, is focused on establishing a healthy culture at the park for both employees and visitors.
“I don’t think that there’s been any kind of history, negative history, about the park,” he said. “We’re trying to look at it as a go forward and make it as great as it can be.”
EMPLOYEE FOCUS
As the snow began to melt and visitors began to return to Crater Lake in June, a group of young employees busily painted “RIM DORM” on the front doors of the old building by the same name, decorating the words with stars, flourishes and red flames. They laughed as they worked, moving aside for coworkers going on or coming off their shifts.
It was a far different scene from what former employees described last year.
In its last annual performance review of Aramark at Crater Lake, the National Park Service issued blistering critiques of the conditions at Rim Dorm, one of three employee dorms run by the park concessioner. The 50-year-old building was in poor shape, yes, but there were also allegations of security issues, malfunctioning heaters and no resident assistants on staff, which both park officials and former employees linked to accusations of sexual assault under Aramark’s watch.
After just a few months in charge, ExplorUS says it worked quickly to turn things around.
The company bought 120 new mattresses and 200 blankets for employees, Boas said. The malfunctioning heating has been fixed. The entire building got a deep clean before employees came in, and each dorm now has multiple resident assistants. ExplorUS has also brought in new recreational equipment, including a pool table, basketball hoop, gym equipment and bicycles, which employees can use to get around the park.
That doesn’t address the structural issues with the dorm, however. In its 2023 review, the National Park Service noted that part of the back of the building was coming apart, letting in moisture as well as pests. Similar damage was still visible this summer. Boas said ExplorUS is drafting a proposal to either renovate or tear down the aging building, but said work would not be done on the project this year.
“We’re developing that holistic plan for the property in concert with the NPS,” Boas said. “This season we’ll be doing the best that we can trying to take care of the visitors to the park.”
The National Park Service conducted a pre-opening inspection of Rim Dorm earlier this year, concluding that it was safe to house employees there, said Scott Clemens, park service spokesperson. Park officials will conduct two more evaluations throughout the season, he said, and will have a third party assess the building from an architectural and engineering standpoint.
“While Rim Dorm does require many repairs, no structural deficiencies are known to exist that threaten resident safety,” Clemens said.
Aside from the dormitory itself, employee happiness has been an early focus of the new concessioner’s efforts, ExplorUS said.
New general manager Michelle Hall said the staff has been brainstorming ideas to keep the seasonal employees engaged throughout the summer, quickly establishing teambuilding activities such as group dinners, hikes and karaoke, as well as bowling nights and frequent shopping trips in nearby Klamath Falls.
“We really want them to get out and explore where they are, not just come here and work,” Hall said.
Some employee issues are to be expected, she said, but ExplorUS is trying to stay on top of those problems by instilling a culture of open communication, something former employees said they didn’t feel like they had with Aramark.
“People living in close quarters, sometimes it is hard,” Hall said. “Personality conflicts – we have people literally from all over the world.”
RENOVATIONS ON HOLD
When Aramark signed its contract with the National Park Service in 2018, giving it control of concessions at Crater Lake, it was given a list of nine mandatory improvement projects across five park buildings, and a set of deadlines to complete them.
Over the next five years, Aramark missed those deadlines, finishing only one of the projects before the National Park Service asked the company to step down. The project that was completed, replacing the tour boats in 2023, was deemed unsatisfactory, park officials said in their review.
Upon taking over the contract from Aramark, ExplorUS took over those same improvement projects, the company said. The deadlines, however, have all been pushed back.
The National Park Service said enhancement projects, including the rehabilitation of the Rim Dorm, are now scheduled to begin in 2025 – six years after Aramark was supposed to begin the process, according to the original contract.
ExplorUS was also given an additional improvement project: a “fuel system replacement,” to be finished by July 2025, that comes on the heels of a 4,500-gallon diesel spill at the Crater Lake Lodge in 2023 that, while contained, alarmed both state and federal officials.
Boas said the company is currently working on proposals for the contractually mandated projects, which it plans to submit to the National Park Service later this season.
“We want to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to uphold the intent of the government to maintain the property, and within our contractual obligations to do so,” he said.
A NEW ERA
Thane Rockwood, who worked as a lead bartender at Crater Lake Lodge from 2022 to 2023, said the new changes at the park have left him feeling cautiously optimistic about the future. He said the fact that he has been hearing so little from friends currently working at the park is a good sign, though it will take more than that to trust the new park operator.
“I mean I’m suspicious,” Rockwood said. “Like any major corporation you can make promises all day, that doesn’t mean I’ll believe you can execute them.”
Rockwood said he had called ExplorUS earlier this year to offer help during the transition process and was encouraged to apply for a job, though he was not ultimately offered one. He said he would be willing to work for the company at Crater Lake if things continue to turn around.
Boas said ExplorUS relied on roughly 15 human resources workers to hire nearly 200 employees over the course of a month to make sure the park could open in time .
“Everyone was very concerned about making sure the public could still visit Crater Lake,” Boas said. “There were a lot of reservations on the books; we wanted to make we weren’t going to have a hiccup with people who had already planned their vacations.”
Among the 200 employees are a small number of holdovers from the previous season, he said, as well as several people who had previously worked in the park under Aramark or its predecessor, Xanterra, which ran concessions from 2002 to 2018.
ExplorUS offered to make one of those holdover employees available to The Oregonian/OregonLive, but the employee declined to be interviewed. Another holdover who was contacted separately did not return requests for comment.
Hall, the new general manager, said she previously worked at Crater Lake as a retail manager under Aramark in 2020. She said that during her one-year tenure she did not experience any of the issues or allegations described in recent reports. Though she worked for Aramark at two other parks, she said she would not have applied for her current Crater Lake job had Aramark still been in charge.
“I love Crater Lake and I’m excited to be back,” Hall said. “This park has my whole heart.”
After a rushed start to spring, the new staff at Crater Lake said they are focused on keeping things running as smoothly as possible. Summer means more hikers and more visitors as Rim Drive opens to the public. Boat tours on the lake offer another organizational wrinkle.
“It’s going to take us some time to get all of our processes in place – different company, different standards, different operations, different systems,” Hall said. “This is a foundational year, let’s make it just the very best experience it can be, then next year we can do even better.”
And while some employees have been complaining about “inheriting a mess,” according to Rockwood, ExplorUS said it is more focused on its own efforts in Crater Lake than on Aramark’s issues in the past.
“I can’t speak to anything that happened while they were here,” Boas said of Aramark. “But we recognize, organizationally we recognize, organizationally in the park we recognize, that we’re as good as each person’s experience here.”
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