Mammoth Cave National Park. - On Monday, June 13, Mammoth Cave National Park staff welcomed Rickard Toomey, the newly selected director of the Mammoth Cave International Center for Science and Learning, a cooperative research partnership between Western Kentucky University and Mammoth Cave National Park. The center provides a unique facility --laboratories, classrooms and housing – attracting international scientific talent to the world's longest known cave system and its surface estate.

"We hope to make this collaboration a model for developing research that helps meet the park's needs and provides exciting educational opportunities, as well," said Toomey.

Toomey has worked in a variety of cave-related areas, including pure research, applied research and cave resources management. He comes to Mammoth Cave National Park from Arizona State Parks where he has served as the state science and research director.

Prior to going to Arizona, Toomey worked for the Illinois State Museum from 1993 to 2001. He is a 1985 graduate of Brown University and earned his doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin in 1993. His background
includes developing cooperative research programs, managing researchpermitting in parks, creating public outreach and educational programming, and developing natural resource use and environmental monitoring plans.

"The center will bring in top-notch scientists from around the world, but that's not hard to do when you've got Mammoth Cave there," said Dr. Blaine Ferrell, dean of WKU's Ogden College of Science and Engineering. "He'll be
able to take advantage of that international drawing power."

Dr. Ferrell said he's looking forward to Toomey coordinating research efforts on the surface and below the surface.

The center will expose Western students to international scientists and will provide internship opportunities, he said. Area teachers will also receive science and environmental education training at the center.

"This center takes a lot of strengths we have and focuses them," Dr. Ferrell said.

"Established through the NPS-Natural Resource Challenge, the purpose of learning centers is to facilitate the use of parks as libraries of knowledge and support visiting researchers," said Acting Park

Superintendent Bruce Powell. "Toomey will expand our existing programs and coordinate ways for researchers to mentor students."

Similar science/learning centers are located in Great Smoky Mountains NP (TN/NC), North Cascades NP (WA), Acadia NP (ME), Congaree Swamp NM (SC), and Rocky Mountain NP (CO).

Since its founding in 1941, Mammoth Cave National Park has been charged with the task of preserving the most extensive known cave system in the world, the richest subterranean flora and fauna known, and superb karst
surface topography, with fascinating landscapes, luxuriant vegetation, and abundant wildlife. The park's protected ecosystems provide some of the finest natural laboratories on earth, with unparalleled opportunities to study and learn about natural processes and the effects of human activities on the resources around us.

For more information contact Vickie Carson 270/758-2192

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