OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK — Todd Suess is the next deputy superintendent of the North Olympic Peninsula’s national park.

Suess, 44, replaces Sue McGill, who retired as Olympic National Park’s deputy superintendent in November.

Suess (pronounced cease) has spent the last nine years as superintendent of Jewel Cave National Monument in western South Dakota. His last day there will be Friday.

He officially begins at Olympic National Park on Feb. 24, and will work closely with Karen Gustin, park superintendent.

“We’re really looking forward to having him here and welcoming him and his family to Port Angeles and to Olympic National Park,” Barb Maynes, park spokeswoman, said Wednesday.

Suess, reached by phone at Jewel Cave National Monument, said he accepted the job because of the beauty of Olympic National Park and the chance to live in the Pacific Northwest.

“Certainly the area and the resources out there are spectacular,” Suess said. “I haven’t lived in the Pacific Northwest before, and that intrigued me.”

Suess grew up in the Minneapolis area and studied forestry at the University of Minnesota. He has been working for the National Park Service for 15 years.

Prior to his arrival at Jewel Cave, Suess spent two years at Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming.

“It’s time for a change,” he said. “I’m looking forward to it.

“It’s a bigger park in a different region of the country.”

Suess added that the temperatures in South Dakota have been well below freezing.

“I won’t miss the cold,” he said.

Suess arrives during a historic time at Olympic National Park. The National Park Service is preparing to tear down two dams on the Elwha River to restore salmon runs into the 922,651-acre park.

The estimated cost of the dam removal project is $308 million. Physical removal of the 105-foot Elwha Dam and 210-foot Glines Canyon Dam is scheduled to last from 2011 to 2014.

“It’s very exciting,” Suess said of the project.

At nearly 150 miles, Jewel Cave is the second-longest cave system in the world. Only Mammoth Cave in Kentucky is longer.

Suess described Jewel Cave as a bowl of spaghetti under three square miles of surface area.

Exploration was a key component of Suess’ tenure as superintendent. The cave’s known length has grown by more than 20 miles in the last nine years.

Unlike Olympic National Park, where visitors roam free, guided tours are the only way for the public to explore Jewel Cave.

Much of Suess’ time was spent working on operations and maintaining a tour program that gets about 100,000 visitors per year.

Suess also spearheaded an Adopt a Classroom Program with a local school district to get students interested in the caves.

He plans to live in Port Angeles with his wife and three children, ages 15, 14 and 12.

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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.