Vela joined the National Park Service's Washington office as acting deputy director of operations.

[1] In September 2019, Interior Secretary David Bernhardt announced that he was promoting Vela to director on an acting basis.

[4] In May 2020, two activist groups, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and the Western Watersheds Project, sued over Bernhardt's ongoing interim appointments of Vela to run the National Park service and William Perry Pendley to run the Bureau of Land Management, which bypassed Senate confirmation.

[5] In June 2020, Vela announced that the Trump administration would end a five-year-old ban on certain hunting practices in Alaska.

[6] Vela campaigned for the Great American Outdoors Act, passed by Congress and signed by Trump on August 4, 2020.