Amanda Sugerik
Park Ranger, Quarry Trails Metro Park
Amanda Sugerik is talking with Communications Coordinator, Virginia Gordon
About me
I was born in Westerville and have lived my whole life there. I’m an only child, so with no brothers and sisters most of my home-based interactions were with older people. I think it helped me to become mature more quickly than many kids do. I enjoy working with kids when they come to the park for programs, but I still feel most comfortable dealing with older folks.
My dad worked for a long time as an executive chef at upscale restaurants and venues both in and out of state. At one time he was the executive chef at The Ritz-Carlton in Naples, Florida, and in the same position at high end restaurants in Columbus, including J Gilbert and Hyde Park Steakhouse. Needless to say, he’s a fantastic cook at home. He met my mom while he was the executive chef at The Athletic Club of Columbus, and my mom was a server. These days, my mom works on the desk at Wickertree Tennis Club in Westerville. The working hours for an executive chef are very long and often go late into the night, and my dad wanted more time to spend at home with mom and me, so he now works on food sales, selling to high-end restaurants but working much more reasonable hours. Although dad’s family have been in America for many generations, the name Sugerik is Slovakian, with roots in the old Czechoslovakia and Hungary.
EARLY MEMORIES OF METRO PARKS
From the time I was in kindergarten, my mom used to take me to naturalist programs at some of the Metro Parks. We lived almost an equal distance away from Highbanks, Sharon Woods and Inniswood, with Blendon Woods not much farther. As well as programs, we’d go hiking together at the parks. I loved Highbanks in particular, especially going into the ravines or hiking on the Dripping Rock to Overlook Trail. The overlook deck provides stunning views of the river and the Highbanks eagles’ nest. I hike the Dripping Rock and Overlook Trail with my dad quite often, and when I introduce friends to hiking at the parks, this is the hike I take them on first. Inniswood was always a treat, to see the beautiful plants and encounter wildlife in the woods. As a girl scout, I went to the weekly girl scout camps at Blendon Woods’ Camp Sugarbush for at least 10 years. So, long before I became an adult, I had become a huge fan of Metro Parks. Over the years, we actually visited all of the Metro Parks.
KNOWING WHAT I WANT
With all that early exposure to the parks, to nature and to wildlife, I had a strong interest in looking at those areas for future career prospects. I started high school at Westerville Central, but for my junior and senior years I split time, with half of my time at Westerville Central and the other half of my time at the Delaware Area Career Center, informally known as DACC. I was able to focus my study on wildlife management at DACC, with my intention to get a lot of certifications in those areas before going to college. It worked really well for me, and allowed me to narrow my interests down even further as I approached college age. In fact, it swayed my interest away from wildlife management and into the management of the environment and natural resources. I did an internship with the Army Corps of Engineers at Alum Creek State Park and developed a greater interest in water quality management and being a ranger.
Studying at DACC would have worked even better for me, had Covid not intervened in my junior year. My last two months of classes for that year were cancelled altogether. As I entered my senior year at DACC, lots of potential field trips had to be replaced by video conference classes, and classes were split into smaller groups when we did start to gather in classrooms again.
I lost some friends by going to DACC, as some people seemed to have a prejudiced view that you must either be dumb or prone to misbehavior to go there. But that isn’t the case at all. After I started working at Metro Parks, I went back to DACC and gave a talk for students about Metro Parks and on all the benefits that studying at DACC had given me.
JOINING METRO PARKS
A speaker from Hocking College came to DACC to talk to students and invited the full class to a field trip to the college, to do some radio telemetry to track wildlife, and to talk with program advisers. I became very interested in their Parks and Museum Education path, and enrolled to study for an associate degree in the autumn of 2021. In March 2023, shortly before I graduated, a career fair was held in the college gymnasium, with people from agencies from all over the state on hand to talk with. I had a good conversation with Metro Parks’ then Human Resources Manager, and now HR Director, JJ Domiano. I revealed my love of Metro Parks and told him of my interest in either the naturalist or ranger route. JJ encouraged me to commit to one or the other, but said he thought I would make a good fit for a ranger position. I made a follow-up video call to JJ a couple of days later, which led to me getting an interview for a seasonal park ranger position at Highbanks.
I graduated from Hocking College in May 2023, and started my position as a seasonal ranger at Highbanks that same month, working 40 hours a week. The seasonal position ended in October 23, but I was then offered an intermittent ranger position until I turned 21. As the intermittent position was only half the hours available to me when I worked as a seasonal, I was looking to do something else as well. Logan Dunn worked as a park technician at Highbanks at the time, and he told me that his wife Liz, a naturalist at Preservation Parks in Delaware, was looking for a winter seasonal naturalist, to work two or three days a week.
Over the winter of 2023 into 2024 I worked those two positions, at Highbanks and Preservation Parks. When I turned 21 and my seasonal position at Preservation Parks ended, I had the opportunity to become a full-time ranger at Metro Parks. But I held back because of my interest in aquatic ecology. I didn’t want to commit to the full time ranger position if I wasn’t 100% sure it’s what I wanted to do. I love being a ranger but I also love water management, so I wanted to see if that was something I would rather do.
I was taken on as a part-time ranger at Highbanks in May 2023. And I also began working as a part-time aquatic technician with Aqua Doc Lake and Pond Management, based at Lewis Center, and very near to Highbanks. This involved water treatments at private ponds and lakes, to remove algae and improve the water quality. One large project I worked on was at Muirfield Golf Club. As we reached the end of summer, I finally realized that this work as an aquatic technician wasn’t what I wanted for my career, and so I left.
I applied to Metro Parks to go full-time in August 2024. Applicants were able to state their preferences of which parks they wanted to work at, and of course, knowing Highbanks so well as both an employee and a visitor, it was Highbanks that topped my own list of preferences. At the end of October I was offered an interview for a full-time ranger position at Quarry Trails Metro Park. As I said earlier, I had visited every Metro Park during my elementary and high school years, but not Quarry Trails, as that only opened in November 2021. But I had some experience of the park, as all the staff at Highbanks had been invited to try out the via ferrata at Quarry Trails, which opened in May 2023, the same month that I started at Highbanks.
My interview at Quarry Trails went well, and I was offered the full-time ranger position there. I started my role at Quarry Trails in December 2024.
WHAT I LOVE ABOUT QUARRY TRAILS
I miss Highbanks, and the people at Highbanks, but I have absolutely no regrets about moving to Quarry Trails. Everyone on staff here at Quarry Trails was incredibly welcoming and made me feel entirely at home within a matter of just my first week. And I’ve been trained to become an instructor on the via ferrata here, which really is the coolest thing!
ROCK CLIMBING
When I was in college, I used to go rock climbing about three times a week. I still have a group of friends that I enjoy climbing with. We go to Vertical Adventures in Columbus, or to Bloc Garten, another climbing gym just outside Scioto Audubon Metro Park. But I really don’t have as much time for it these days. I’d love to go out west and try some of the great climbing routes in Colorado some day, and some of the climbs in Greece and Spain. The via ferrata is a near equivalent, and I’d love to climb some of the great via ferratas across the world, such as the one at the Banff National Park in Canada, and another famous one in Austria.
I’m making sure I go to the gym at least twice a week, as I’m preparing myself to get fitter ready to undertake the police academy training starting in January 2026. It runs from January to late April or early May and qualifies full-time park rangers to become sworn Ohio peace officers. I’m very excited to start the training and grow as a ranger.
PROGRAMS AT QUARRY TRAILS
As we don’t have a naturalist on staff at Quarry Trails, I have the good fortune to be able to lead some public programs here, so my naturalist-training hasn’t gone to waste. I usually lead two programs a month, which is in addition to helping the Metro Parks Outdoor Adventure team, which offers programs here on our via ferrata. Some of my more popular programs include fossil programs, when we get to see fossils found here, and dating back to the Devonian Period, when the area that is now Ohio was submerged under shallow seas. We find a lot of fossilized shells and corrals in the rocks here.
I’m one of two full-time rangers here at Quarry Trails, and we have four part-time rangers as well. Interestingly, all six of us rangers are female, and we are the only fully-female ranger staff in any of the 20 Metro Parks. We do a lot of patrolling on foot here at the park and consequently we get to enjoy a lot of close-up interactions with our visitors. I love that part of the job, talking to people about the park and about Metro Parks in general.
DANCE
My mom enjoys playing tennis at club level and she was keen to have me play too. As a lot of the players on her club team are getting towards middle-aged, I think she thought it would be good for the team and its results to bring in a much younger player. I didn’t go along with it, though. I played tennis through middle-school, but that was about it for me. My real love was dancing. For about 12 years, from preschool through high school, I went to dance classes at the Leap of Faith Dance Studios in Westerville. I loved contemporary dance, with jazz my second favorite. We were taught ballet as well, but I didn’t enjoy that as much. I still love dancing today. Almost every Friday after work I go out line dancing, usually at Flannigan’s in Dublin. Even if my shifts have been 10 straight days at work, I wouldn’t miss my Friday night line dancing. I go with my good friend, Maddie, who’s a part-time ranger here at Quarry Trails.
ALWAYS OUT DOING STUFF
I am a busy body. I can’t sit still and I’m always out doing stuff. I just got off a four-day weekend after I worked 10 days in a row. I drove down to West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina with my mom to visit New River Gorge National park as well as three state parks, with Grayson Highlands State Park in Virginia being our main destination.
Any time I have free time, I am almost always doing something, most likely outside. I go to our Metro Parks or other park districts on my days off or even before my shifts in the summer. I absolutely adore being outside. I feel like I have a deep connection with nature and I adore spending time in it, especially by myself. I love adventuring with friends and family but going to places by myself is very relaxing as I can do whatever I want. If I am on a hike, I can stop and look at plants, go back to something I may want to see again, and go as fast or as slow as I want.
If I am not hiking, then I am most likely trying something new like a new food place or coffee shop! I love to explore both outside and around where I live. I love the store World Market because I get to try snacks and candy from all over the world! Whether it’s 30 minutes, a couple hours, or a four-day weekend, I am always doing something!
Fun facts about me and my family
1. We’re a family of cat lovers! We have two cats at home, Mittens and Pita. Mittens is Pita’s mom. She’s 16 now and I’ve had her since kindergarten. Every time I come home, she’s invariably at the door to greet me. She has such a sweet and loving nature, which can’t really be said for Pita. His name is actually an acronym, which stands for Pain in the Ass! I do love him, but Pita can be a bit of a punk. He’s very sassy and will steal food off your plate. I even caught him with his head inside a bag of chips one time, munching away on them. My mom and dad worship the cats too. We always do Christmas stockings for them, filled with cat toys and lots of treats.
2. My Aunt Anne! After college, my Aunt Anne went to England and stayed in London to do an internship for her master’s degree. It was initially meant to last for six months, but she ended up staying in Britain for about three years. She met a lot of good friends there, who she still keeps in touch with, even decades later.
She lives in a condo in Dublin. I used to spend a lot of time there in summers, using her pool and just enjoying hanging out with her. She comes over to our house in Westerville all the time. She was nominated to be my legal guardian if anything were ever to happen to my parents. She’s here with us to watch every OSU football game, and she has a passion for playing cards with us. Our favorite card games are Spite and Malice and Skip-bo, which are played with a regular card deck and can get quite competitive. We all like to win. My aunt also comes with us to concerts and restaurants, so I see her constantly and love spending my time with her. She and I also enjoy going out to markets together.
3. Strong genes! My mom’s maiden name was Zwayer, which is a German name. In the 1880 census, more than 20 families named Zwayer were recorded living in Ohio, which was more than 80 percent of all the Zwayer families in the entire United States. This side of the family seems to have the long-life gene, as nearly all of my mom’s relatives have lived well into their nineties, and a number of them have passed one-hundred years old. My great grandma lived to be 105. We’ve kept our own family records dating all the way back to the Revolutionary War. Although we aren’t members of the organization, my mom and I both qualify to become members of the Daughters of the American Revolution. One interesting sideline emerged from our family records, which showed that we’re related to the branch of the Otis family that also has a prominent involvement in the Revolutionary War, and which later invented the Otis Elevator.
Traveling – places I’ve been, places I’d love to go
ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND
I went abroad for the first time in Fall 2023. My Aunt Anne took me to England and Scotland. It was a combined high school and college graduation gift from her. She also took one of my cousins on the same trip at a different time. I love history, and seeing the sights in London was so special for me. We stayed at a hotel in Covent Garden, and walked from there to the Tower of London, which was built in the 11th century. We saw the Crown Jewels there, and lots of metal armor and weapons from all the different periods of history. We also loved visiting the famous touristy spots, such as Westminster Abbey, St Paul’s Cathedral and Buckingham Palace. It was quite rainy for most of our time in London, but the weather cleared up nicely on the day we went up in the London Eye. It’s a cantilevered observation wheel on the South Bank of the River Thames. It reaches 443 feet up above the river, and is the tallest such observation wheel in the world, and Britain’s most popular paid tourist attraction.
The other focus of the trip was to meet Aunt Anne’s friends from her time living in London. We spent some time with them in London, but one of them had moved to Scotland, so we also went there for a few days too. My aunt’s friends live in New Lanark, which was built in 1785 with cotton mills and philanthropic housing for the mill workers. It has since become a Unesco World Heritage site. On the Scottish part of the trip, we also visited Edinburgh, which is a wonderful old historic city. The architecture is fantastic. We went to the ancient Edinburgh Castle, built in the 12th century, and to Holyrood Palace, at the opposite end of what is called the Royal Mile. We also did a tour of the Royal Yacht Britannia, which is docked at Leith, a suburb of the city.
ITALY
At the end of May this year I went to Italy, as my cousin got married in Florence. She didn’t marry an Italian. Her husband is American, from an Armenian family background, and they simply had this romantic desire to get married in this city famous for the great artists who worked there during the Renaissance, such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Botticelli, as well as architects like Brunelleschi.
We did a Vespa Tour through Tuscany, and rode the little scooters through the Tuscan landscape and visited a local winery. We also went to Cinque Terre, about an hour away, which is a series of small seaside and fishing villages on the Riviera.
After four days in Florence, we also went to Milan, almost 200 miles away, and from there took a day-long train tour through the Swiss Alps to see glaciers and stop at the town of St Moritz in Switzerland. I was sorry it was only a day trip, as it cemented Switzerland in my mind as the dream place to visit. I will have to go back there in the future. We also took a boat tour on Lake Como, north of Milan, which is very beautiful. We didn’t have enough time on the trip for me to see Rome, Pompei and Venice, so those places are also on my extended must-see list for the future.
Another place I’d love to visit in the future is Costa Rica. I love snakes and reptiles and would see plenty of exotic species there, as well as have the chance to snorkel close up with whale sharks, which are very docile creatures and the largest species of fish living today. Visiting all of America’s National Parks is also on my bucket list.
My favorite food and desert
My favorite food is salmon, a good thick piece. My dad cooks it with a teriyaki sauce, or alternatively with a lemon caper sauce, both of which are absolutely delicious. A close second for me is sushi. I love eating out at The Sushi Factory in Polaris. As an upscale chef, my dad loves cooking all kinds of things, especially meats. So, when I decided to become a vegetarian, back in middle school, my dad, who does most of the cooking at home, just hated it. In the last couple of years, my taste buds changed, and I started to eat fish. I still don’t eat red meats, pork or poultry. There’s a term for this kind of modified vegetarianism: pescetarianism. Dad is a little happier now, as it expands the range of meals that all three of us can enjoy together. Other favorites of mine that dad cooks are his tacos, with veggies and fish. He sometimes cooks a vegan bacon for me, which is quite tasty. If mom and dad have a chicken dish, I’ll have shrimp instead. I don’t have dad’s culinary skills, nowhere near, but I’ve been trying to get a bit more into doing some of my own cooking. I like to shop at Trader Joe’s, as they have a lot of delicious pre-prepared options.
I don’t eat dessert too often, although I do enjoy angel food cake and ice cream, either together or separate. And of course a good ice cream cake. But I’m not so fond of buttercream cakes. Sometimes just an apple, maybe with some peanut butter, satisfies me as a dessert. Or sometimes just a few pieces of sour fruit candies, such as gummies.
My favorite entertainment
Top of the charts for me is music. I love going to concerts. My mom and dad began taking me to concerts when I was in elementary school. My favorite genre is folk music, and I like a lot of Indy music too, which is really another kind of folk music, with more electronics. I developed my interest in folk music when I was at MACC, where a number of friends shared the same interest. I love listening to the lyrics of folk songs. I have so many powerful memories and emotions attached to my favorite songs. I got into the music of Watchhouse, who were formerly known as Mandolin Orange.
Watchtower are a husband and wife duo who sing and play the mandolin and the orange fiddle, but sometimes they also play banjo and guitar. Perhaps their most famous song is called Wildfire, but my favorite of theirs is a song called Daylight. In October 2021 I went to see them in concert at the Red Rock Amphitheater in Colorado. It was part of a short weekend trip for me and my parents, but only my mom came with me to the concert. She loves the Watchhouse duo as well. We had the VIP Experience front row seats, and I got to meet the duo after the concert.
Other folk singers and folk groups that I really like include Sierra Ferrell, Gregory Alan Isakov, and The Wooks, who are more of a bluegrass band. Another folk duo that I’ve seen live in concert is called First Aid Kit. They’re two sisters who come from Sweden. I saw them at the Moon River Music Festival in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Tickets to the concert were another graduation gift for me, this one from my parents. I went to the concert with my best friend, Sarah. We saw a ton of great artists there.
I used to play the violin, from 6th grade through high school. Mostly I would play classical music tunes or songs from the movies. When I went to MACC for my junior and senior years, it meant I wasn’t able to continue my high school music lessons. Maybe at some time I’ll get back into it, but for now I have my concerts and recordings to enjoy. Of all the many great songs I know and love, I think my favorite is the live version of Seven Bridges Road, by The Eagles. Although The Eagles are a classic rock group rather than a folk group, this song of theirs has a real folksy feel to it.
Another great interest of mine is in following the YouTube Adventures of Kara and Nate. They’re a married couple who travel all across the world and make videos for YouTube, lasting anything from 30 minutes up to an hour and a half. During Covid, when foreign travel was interrupted, they did a series about their van life, when they travelled across the US in their van. On average, they do about two new videos a month. My mom also likes their videos and we usually watch them together on our big-screen TV. Nate has recently started to involve himself with the ultra marathon runners community, and some of their videos show both the agony and joy of ultra marathon running.
Although I don’t read a lot, I’ve started to get into reading the short thriller novels by Frieda McFadden, which are short enough to keep me interested from beginning to end.
I’ve become the best of friends with fellow Quarry Trails rangers EJ and Maddie since coming to work here. I’ve already mentioned that I go line dancing with Maddie every Friday, and pretty soon I’m heading off to Pittsburgh with EJ to see a Steelers game. It will be an experience for me, as I’ve never been to a live football game before, although EJ is a really big Steelers fan.
What Ryan Mader, Quarry Trails Park Manager, says about Amanda
“Amanda has a great attitude and is a great asset to Metro Parks. She is a hard worker, and does a great job interacting with park visitors. Amanda is a good communicator and a pleasure to work with! She is looking forward to completing the Ohio Peace Officer Academy this winter and getting back to the park for a busy, exciting 2026!”