As Pennsylvania’s first director of the Office of Outdoor Recreation, Nathan Reigner ’01 oversees a team charged with promoting outdoor recreation as a community and economic development tool. His work focuses on growing Pennsylvania’s outdoor recreation industry, helping communities use outdoor recreation as a workforce retention and business recruitment tool, and ensuring that all people across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have inclusive, equitable access to outdoor recreation opportunities.
Reigner’s career as a public lands, conservation, outdoor recreation, and nature-based social scientist includes work related to visitor use, tourism, and resource planning and management. He has worked in and with more than 100 parks, forests, historic sites, and heritage areas in the United States and overseas.
While the settings and responsibilities of the jobs he’s held have been diverse, the knowledge and skills Reigner cultivated at Gettysburg have served as guideposts for his career, enabling him to focus on serving people.
GETTYSBURG COLLEGE MAGAZINE: Why did you decide to attend Gettysburg College?
NATHAN REIGNER ’01: I grew up in southeast Pennsylvania and knew that a smaller college rather than a larger university was going to be in the cards. I had an aunt and uncle, Kyle Reigner ’72 and Joanne Richards Reigner ’72, who were Bullets. I was recruited to play football at Gettysburg, and all those factors drew me toward it. On the campus visit, it was that intangible feel—“This is the place!”
GCM: How did your Gettysburg education prepare you for your career?
NR: The education at Gettysburg was broad-based. I took a bunch of different classes; instructors were hands-on and developed relationships with students.
I had friends studying all kinds of subjects. I was a double major in sociology and anthropology, and through that, I did a ton of writing. I think my Gettysburg education cultivated my ability to structure arguments and to express myself.
Sometime toward the end of my sophomore year, the summer going into my junior year, I realized that this is my education. It is my opportunity and responsibility to take it in the direction that I want it to go. That was a super empowering realization. I went into my junior year positioning myself to go on a service-learning trip to Peru, which was very impactful. I remember going with English Prof. Christopher Fee to Washington, D.C., for a service-learning experience focused on homelessness and hunger.
The social science perspective I’ve developed at Gettysburg has carried me through graduate school to get my doctoral degree. As I worked with natural scientists, economists, policy advocates, and others, it’s enabled me to bring a complementary perspective.
GCM: What does a day at work look like for you?
NR: The Office of Outdoor Recreation is very outward-facing. I am a circuit rider for our outdoor economy in Pennsylvania. I’m the person carrying the news of our work from one place to another, being the tie that binds.
There are times when I’m giving a talk from 3 to 5 o’clock in Scranton, and I have a 9 a.m. the following morning in Pittsburgh. I have to pack up and hit the road on Interstate 80. It can be grueling at times, but it’s also super rewarding: There is no substitute for being in a place with people, both to demonstrate our level of commitment to this work and to their priorities, and for knowledge building.
by Michael Vyskocil
Posted: 03/25/26