Recently, the longtime curator of Death Valley National Park, Gretchen Voeks, retired after 27 years with the Park Service. Gretchen was the Scotty’s Castle curator for 12 years and helped for many years before that as a conservator at the Western Archaeological and Conservation Center (WACC). Prior to moving to the United States, Gretchen spent 10 years as a conservator in Australia.
Gretchen was helping Death Valley long before working here officially. Her first trip to Death Valley was actually in 1995 as part of WACC to help with the Museum Management Plan. On this two-week trip, Gretchen worked with Blair Davenport and Marcia Stout to evaluate and make recommendations on best options for collections management in Death Valley National Park.
Here are some pictures of Gretchen visiting Badwater and The Racetrack for the first time!
She continued to assist the park through the years by evaluating the condition of many historical objects. She provided her expertise to keep many of our collection objects in their best possible condition. After 16 years as the Senior Conservator at WACC, Gretchen made her way back to Death Valley to care for the collection at Scotty’s Castle.
As the curator of Scotty’s Castle, Gretchen has seen it all. She had to protect the collection through a massive flood and two fires. During this time, she helped move the entire museum collection to safer locations while continuing to maintain and conserve the collection. Any one of those accomplishments would have been a career-defining moment for a curator, and Gretchen weathered them all with grace. Over the past 12 years with Death Valley National Park, Gretchen has been a stalwart collections advocate and fountain of knowledge about all things Scotty’s Castle.
