Wendy O’Sullivan is Superintendent of NPS Chesapeake Gateways, a National Park Service partnership park and community assistance network headquartered in Annapolis, Maryland. She leads and provides strategic support to a network of more than 300 partnership parks, refuges, trails, museums, communities, and watertrails across the 41-million-acre Chesapeake Bay watershed, working with partners to connect people and places to the region’s natural, recreational, historical, and cultural resources.

Over O’Sullivan’s 28-year NPS career, she has served in three NPS regions and its national headquarters, gaining extensive experience in park partnerships, community engagement, stewardship and program management. She started as the management assistant at Biscayne National Park in South Florida. O’Sullivan has a BA degree in marine affairs and business from the University of Miami and completed master’s work in marine affairs, ocean law and marine policy at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science in Key Biscayne, Florida. She grew up on a large farm in rural Tewksbury, New Jersey, and spent her summers with family sailing and fishing along the Long Island Sound in Fairfield, Connecticut. O’Sullivan’s connection to the land and her coastal heritage is what drew her and her husband, Andrew, to live in Churchton, Maryland. Today, they enjoy visiting historic towns and time on the Chesapeake Bay with their Portuguese water dog, Rudder.