Posted: 3/30/2026
SNR Alumni: Grant Carstens manages dual parks in Hawkeye territory
By Ronica Stromberg
Grant Carstens graduated from the School of Natural Resources in 2020 at the height of the Covid pandemic. Today, the self-identified "Covid grad" manages two parks and has advice for other students hoping to similarly succeed in the natural resources job market.
"I think the biggest piece of advice I can give is, don't be afraid to get your hands dirty and go out and do the internships and the seasonal jobs and everything like that in a whole wide range of fields," he said.
As a dual park manager for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, Carstens oversees Lake Manawa State Park in Council Bluffs and the Wilson Island State Recreation Area across the state line from Blair, Nebraska. He manages the timber by burning, cutting and removing invasive species but also performs tasks like paying bills, hiring employees, helping law enforcement at the park and doing repair work such as fixing toilets.
"Some days you have to be a plumber or an electrician or a diesel mechanic or working on equipment," he said. "It's a big variety of a lot of different things, but basically, the goal is to, one, provide recreational opportunities to people coming to the parks and then, two, manage the natural resource to the best of our ability."
The position takes grit, which this Covid grad has. Carstens was in ROTC throughout college and now serves as an officer in the Iowa Army National Guard. He has served nine years, continuing the guard work one weekend a month and two weeks every summer.
At the university, he also performed on the Husker Spirit Squad from August 2017 to May 2020, primarily as team mascot Herbie Husker but, also, Lil' Red. Who knew he would one day work as a Husker surrounded by Hawkeyes and Cyclones, as he does now? Carstens’ career has been an upward climb, though, and he has always found footholds along the way.
With military training every summer in college, he never could take seasonal work. After graduating virtually during Covid, Carstens had only a short time to work, needing to report for a six-month military training in August. Although the pandemic had stymied hiring for many jobs in 2020, he applied to the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission and landed seasonal work at Platte River Park.
There, he worked as a housekeeper, changing bedsheets and cleaning cabins and the like. Carstens said he learned quite a bit from this about what park management actually entails.
"It's not just going out and cutting down trees and making the park look pretty and everything," he said. "There's a whole other side of it with, like, managing housekeepers and cleaning bathrooms and that kind of thing."
Indeed, in our grit, sometimes the glory looks a bit different from what we expected. Carstens used the experience to further his natural resources career after completing his six-month military training.
He was living in Council Bluffs, Iowa, when he discovered every county in the state had a conservation board. The county where he lived, Pottawattamie, had five parks and a ski hill. He interned for them that summer. Soon after, he became a temporary park superintendent for the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission and then applied for and received his current position in March 2022.
He now oversees a seasonal staff of nine and two full-time natural resource technicians. Some of the seasonal staff are patrol officers, able to respond to park incidents and issue citations. Carstens said the leadership skills he developed in the National Guard have helped him understand and oversee people from varied backgrounds.
Even Hawkeye backgrounds.
The rivalry is real, but he respects the opponents—err, coworkers. That doesn't mean he keeps his time as Herbie Husker under wraps.
"I tell them about the Spirit Squad more than they probably care to hear," Carstens said. "I had a lot of fun performing in front of Husker Nation and got to do some really cool stuff while I was there."
He will forever bleed scarlet and cream, despite challenging times, he said.
"Monday morning meetings in the fall are generally filled with discussions of the weekend of college football all leading up to the day after Thanksgiving," he said. "Unfortunately, the Cornhuskers haven't won in a couple of years, but the day is coming when I will finally walk in on Cyber Monday and the office will be silent instead of hearing the Hawkeye fight song."
Or maybe he can pipe in "Hail Varsity."
After all, there is no place like Nebraska . . . even in Iowa.
