Morgan Sommerville

Director, Visitor Use Management

Morgan began work with the ATC in 1983 following work with the Blue Ridge Parkway (BLRI), and Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GRSM) as a backcountry ranger. Between the BLRI and GRSM, in 1977, Morgan hiked about 1,850 miles of the Appalachian Trail. Blocked from climbing Katahdin that year by the great Baxter State Park spruce blowdown fire, Morgan finally got to the summit in 1991, and through section hiking, became a 2,000-miler in 2000.

Morgan has put his NC State University degree in natural resource management to use helping to design, build, conserve and protect a national park, the A.T., from the ground up, and overseeing the evolution of ATC’s Southern Regional Office (SORO) from a one-person operation to four and a half staff plus nine ridgerunners and two SORO specific A.T. trail crews.

As ATC’s Director, Visitor Use Management, Morgan will help train A.T. partners in use of the new visitor use planning process, help A.T. partners determine the desired condition of specific A.T. sections, help determine visitor data collection protocols, management and dissemination, help facilitate effect site-specific visitor use planning, and help A.T. hikers learn how to leave the A.T. better than they find it.

Morgan is a member of the Trail Leaders Council of the Partnership For The National Trails System, which represents all thirty national scenic and historic trails.

Morgan and his wife, Avi, have three children and five grandkids.