After leaving the navy, Sams was a data analyst and spokesman for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. When the tribes started a land buyback program, Sams wrote an editorial explaining how the Dawes Allotment Act of 1887 led the reservation to be subdivided and sold to white settlers.[3] He served as executive director and vice president of the Earth Conservation Corps. In 2003 and 2004, he was the executive director of the Community Energy Project. From 2004 to 2006, he was a member of the Columbia Slough Watershed Council. From 2006 to 2010, Sams was the national director of the tribal and native lands program at the Trust for Public Land.
Sams also held administrative positions at the Umatilla Tribal Community Foundation and Indian Country Conservancy. In April 2021, Sams was appointed to serve as a member of the Northwest Power and Conservation Council by Oregon Governor Kate Brown.[4][5]
Director of the National Park Service
He was unanimously confirmed as the National Park Service (NPS) director on November 18, 2021, and sworn in on December 16 of the same year. Sams, an enrolled member of the Cayuse and Walla Walla tribes, is the first Native American to serve in that position.[1][6]
As director of the NPS, Sams has identified improving accessibility in national parks through funds allocated through the Great American Outdoors Act as a policy priority.[7] In 2022, he stated that the NPS will work to improve how it tells Native American history in educational resources.[8]
