Ranger Mike Phillips
Interested in a law enforcement career? The Summit Metro Parks Ranger Explorer program might be right for you!
Exploring is a unique career exploration program for young men and women ages 16 to 20. Exploring provides students with an opportunity to learn about a wide variety of careers and network with professionals already working in those fields.
At 15 members, the Summit Metro Parks Explorer post is the largest law enforcement Exploring program in Summit County. Our post’s mission is to gain career experiences in a natural resources setting through diverse hands-on training, service projects and community engagement.
Alongside the program’s advisers — current members of the Summit Metro Parks ranger department — Ranger Explorers are exposed to a broad range of natural resources topics, including sustainable trail building, community outreach, stream and river clean-ups, outdoor events and traffic control. They gain valuable knowledge in CPR and first aid, bike patrol, kayaking, criminal justice system procedures, dispatching, traffic stops, handcuffing, constitutional law for police, search and rescue training and more. Ranger Explorers also ride along with current rangers and tour dispatch centers. Over the past year, Summit Metro Parks Ranger Explorers have gained hands-on experience with traffic control and crowd safety at several community events, including National Night Out, Akron Pride and the park district’s Fall Family Outings.
Summit Metro Parks rangers are commissioned peace officers who enforce the park district’s rules, regulations and other applicable laws to protect resources and achieve visitor safety. Rangers also educate and provide information, protect lives and property, administer special-use permits and maintain good order. Rangers patrol our 16 parks, several conservation areas and 125 miles of trail, mostly on foot. On average, the department conducts more than 10,000 hours of foot patrols each year. The department also uses SUVs, both on- and off-road. Rangers utilize pickup trucks for patrols and to transport bikes and ATVs, both of which are used to patrol the Bike & Hike and Towpath trails.
For more information on our Ranger Explorer program, contact the Summit Metro Parks ranger department at 330–865–8052. You can also see us in action here and here.