Janice Elvidge

Janice Elvidge is an experienced education and outreach professional who spent close to 30 years with the U.S. National Park Service. She began her career as a national park ranger and entered the field of education somewhat by accident while working at her second park, where she noticed that existing education offerings lacked structure and coordination. After attending training in education program management for national parks and drawing on her master’s degree in Forestry with a specialization in Interpretive Planning from the University of Washington, she applied her skills in planning and began building a formal education program from the ground up. Her work in program development began in 1994 and evolved into a long term career focused on creating meaningful structured learning experiences in public lands.

Over the course of her tenure, Janice served on regional committees supporting other parks and successfully secured numerous grants through the National Park Service and the National Park Foundation. These resources enabled her to develop innovative educational tools and programs including traveling trunks, curriculum based educator guides, and theme based learning materials, particularly centered on Lewis and Clark interpretive content. After transferring to Lake Roosevelt National Recreation Area approximately 21 years before her retirement, she was tasked with replicating and expanding her previous success. She led a comprehensive planning process involving stakeholder engagement, data collection, and strategic education design, ultimately building a fully funded park wide education program. In this role, she delivered K through 12 programming across Northeast Washington, conducted teacher trainings, and established a broad watershed education network spanning the Columbia River system and extending across the United States and Canada. She also served as a national trainer for the National Park Service, helping other educators develop and implement similar programs in their own parks.

Janice retired from federal service at the end of 2021, choosing to leave after a long and impactful career in public education and interpretation. She is now channeling her lifelong passion for training, originally developed through early experiences in the 1970s, into professional dog training and animal behavior work. She trains and volunteers with the Wenatchee Kennel Club, specializing in puppy development and trick training as foundational tools for broader behavior learning. Her approach emphasizes modern positive reinforcement based methods, helping clients move away from outdated training techniques toward more effective humane practices. Currently pursuing professional certification in dog training, she is in the process of launching her own business that integrates her extensive background in education, communication, and program design into animal training and client instruction.