{"id":62636,"date":"2025-12-16T20:26:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T20:26:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/62636\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T20:26:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T20:26:06","slug":"jeremy-komasz-of-steamtown-national-historic-site-why-nepa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/62636\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeremy Komasz of Steamtown National Historic Site \u2014 Why NEPA?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jeremy Komasz, the new Superintendent at Steamtown National Historic Site<\/a> in Scranton<\/a>, landed in NEPA via the long road. The retired U.S. Navy SEAL Officer grew up in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey, or as we often call it \u201cdown the shore.\u201d He was an adventurous and precocious kid \u2013 swears he broke more bones than all three of his siblings combined.<\/p>\n

He went from high school to the ROTC program in college at George Washington University in D.C. From there, it was directly into the Navy and SEAL training and 9 years of active-duty service (he stayed on as a reserve for another 20). His Navy career and private sector jobs took him from the soft sands of South Jersey to California, Puerto Rico, Virginia Beach, Tampa and, finally Cleveland. It was here that Jeremy began to contemplate his post-service career. Then, a chance meeting and a little bug in the ear led to the idea of parlaying three decades of military service into a gig with the National Parks Service<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He learned that he landed the Superintendent job at Steamtown in late fall of 2024, and he just had to accept the position. Jeremy knew of Scranton. He had never been, but assumed it couldn\u2019t be much different from Cleveland. After making the five-hour drive, he dropped by Steamtown<\/a> as an unknown plain-clothes visitor. What he saw \u2013 rangers engaged with curious children, engineers doing \u201creal\u201d work on 100-year-old engines, industrial age dinosaurs of iron and steel puffing and steaming along the tracks \u2013 it was totally unique, he thought. And as he made his way up the foot bridge connecting the site to The Marketplace at Steamtown<\/a>, he looked back over the rail yard and realized that he needed to be a part of all this. The rest is history in the making, I guess.<\/p>\n

We caught up with Superintendent Komasz in his office at Steamtown National Historic Site<\/a> on a cool, summer morning. He sat still and answered questions for about 20 minutes. And before long, the ever-excited Superintendent had us hoofing it to every corner of the park. Luckily, along the way, we managed to squeeze in a question or two like Why NEPA.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

How long have you lived in NEPA?<\/p>\n

I have been here for about 10 months and a few weeks.<\/p>\n

What do you love about your town?<\/p>\n

I love the variety of things to do<\/a>. So, if you\u2019re a foodie, there are plenty of places to eat<\/a>. If you\u2019re into nature, there\u2019s plenty of outdoor recreation<\/a>. If you\u2019re into culture<\/a>, there are so many cultural things to do<\/a>, right? You have baseball <\/a>and hockey<\/a> and plenty of sports-related things to do. That\u2019s what I really love about NEPA. You can always find something to do. And we\u2019re only about 2 hours from seeing the Phillies or seeing a show in New York City.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your favorite NEPA restaurant?<\/p>\n

This is tricky because of my position here, I can\u2019t endorse any particular businesses, but I do want to talk about food. So, I\u2019ll say this. When I first got here, my girlfriend and I were on a mission to try as many NEPA restaurants<\/a> as we could. She\u2019s a local, so she\u2019s already been to quite a few, but it\u2019s a long list. We\u2019re still working on it.<\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019m Italian on my mother\u2019s side and I will say that the Italian food here in NEPA is pretty fantastic. The variety of pizza is amazing. I also love any place that has a creative craft cocktail menu. And I love diners<\/a>. I grew up in Jersey and diners are a thing there. We\u2019ve got some really great diners here. And the number of small, local bakeries still amazes me. We also love small \u00a0<\/a>coffee shops<\/a>. Give me a new coffee shop and I\u2019m heading there to try it out. It\u2019s really the variety. That\u2019s what\u2019s so great about the food scene here in NEPA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your favorite thing to do in NEPA?<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s just being outside. We\u2019re very fortunate here, you know? We have the Lackawanna River Heritage Trail<\/a>. I spend a lot of time running throughout the area, and I use that trail quite a bit. Obviously, we have so many beautiful places to hike<\/a>. I\u2019ll admit that\u2019s something I\u2019m really looking forward to exploring more. That and cycling. I\u2019m currently training for a marathon, and once I get that out of my system, I\u2019m looking forward to checking out some of the local rides. I hear the road cycling here is absolutely fantastic. I also love all of the little festivals<\/a> we have going on here through the summer<\/a> and fall<\/a>. We do a lot of work with some of the local festivals<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next for you?<\/p>\n

Primarily, I\u2019m working toward putting Steamtown National Historic Site back into the public consciousness through engagement with our community partners, our philanthropic partners and local, state and federal organizations which support the area. So, that is what I think about every single day. This is a gem that we have here. And most people don\u2019t even know that we exist back here. We need to change that. That is goal number one for the entirety of my time here at Steamtown National Historic Site. It\u2019s all about community engagement. And that\u2019s tough work. Although, I did it in Afghanistan, so, I think it should be a little easier here. That would be number one for me \u2013 how do we make people aware that this amazing place exists right here in their backyard.<\/p>\n

Where do you see NEPA heading in the future?<\/p>\n

There are strong roots here. And there\u2019s a lot of promise. So, I\u2019m nothing but optimistic when I see, even in this little microcosm of Scranton, the transitions and the improvements that are being made downtown and all of the businesses moving in and opening up. I see the whole area on an upward trajectory. It\u2019s a place where people from larger cities like Philly and New York City can come to experience something different in our natural beauty and culture and all of the industry we have here.<\/p>\n

Why NEPA?<\/p>\n

So, as I mentioned, I feel like the universe has been pushing me here since 2021. And I think that the opportunity to help this amazing park move into its next 30-40 years, is just an incredible chance to work with people that love and care about Northeastern Pennsylvania and the history of this place.<\/a> It\u2019s just an unparalleled opportunity, right? Most of the National parks in this country, people know about. Many of the National Parks Service units, people know of. You say, Gettysburg, people know it. I want people to have the same feeling about Steamtown National Historic Site.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jeremy Komasz, the new Superintendent at Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton, landed in NEPA via the long…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":{"0":"post-62636","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-scranton","9":"tag-scranton-headlines","10":"tag-scranton-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}