CNPSR EC Member Robert Arnberger Comments to Midwest Region Superintendent’s Conference

Perspectives on Protected Areas in a Changing World;
What of the Future of the National Park System?

Comments to the Midwest Region Superintendent’s Conference, April 17, 2007.
Robert Arnberger
Coalition of National Park Service Retirees

It’s exciting to be invited to participate in this region’s superintendent’s conference. It reminds me of the ones I attended during my career although this is the first one I have attended as a retired career professional. It is good to see so many familiar faces of colleagues I worked with over the years. Now is your time.

On behalf of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, an organization upon whose Executive Council I am privileged to serve I thank you for this invitation to speak and sit on this panel. The Coalition had its beginning in 2003 when three former NPS employees, Mike Finley, Rick Smith and Bill Wade appeared at a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. The purpose of the press conference was to draw public attention to several programs at the Department of the Interior which they felt were inconsistent with sound park management. Following the press conference, they decided to send a letter to the President, repeating their concerns about the Department’s failure to properly care for the areas of the system. As other former employees heard about the letter, they asked if they could add their names to it. Since that time there are nearly 600 members who have joined and loaned their name to the goals of the organization. This is rather extraordinary when you consider there is no formal membership recruitment. People are frequently signing up the day of their retirement. It is also precedent setting – after all, never in the history of the NPS have retirees seen the need to form and join an organization such as this, except for the social and educational purposes of E&AA. Why has this happened?

There are a couple obvious reasons. One has to do with the sorry record of the Bush administration regarding parks. Until his administration’s recent show of interest in the Centennial and his 08 budget proposals—which aren’t quite as good as they appear to be, there has been little to cheer about in the last 6 years. Another is attention that the national media has paid to the Coalition. There is barely a week that goes by that one of us on the Executive Council is not contacted by someone from the media asking for our take on a park issue. They want our opinion for two reasons. First of all, the Coalition represents something like 17,000 years of park management experience. The media knows that we are the “voices of experience.” They know we’re different than most folks in the higher profile conservation organizations who have never managed a square meter of public land. We have. We know what we are talking about. The second reason is that we get out information from current employees. We have a network of employees who keep us informed on critical park and program issues. They talk to us because of the climate of fear and intimidation that existed until recently. The media knows this and appreciates how current our inside information is.
Perhaps, however, the most important motivation for former employees to join the Coalition has to do with the theme of this conference: perspectives on change and the future of the NPS and other protected areas. It is clear to me that most former employees consider their service to the NPS to have been an avocation, not a vocation. They care deeply about the traditions of the NPS and believe strongly in the management policies that have evolved over 90 years. They think the Organic Act is something to be respected, not an Act to be ignored when convenient to do so. They take seriously former Director Albright’s challenge to not let the National Park Service become “just another government bureau.” They don’t like it when the Service’s senior managers are ignored or bullied. They honestly believe that NPS decision-making should be transparent and based on the soundest science available. They believe that the public should always be told the truth, even if it is inconvenient to do so. They truly believe that parks strive to be effective in three areas: preserve and protect resources; provide quality visitor services; and maintain productive relationships with park interest groups. They do not much care for the current emphasis that seems to prize efficiency over effectiveness.

Does this mean that Coalition members want to go back to the “good old days”? I don’t think so. Most of us recognize that today’s employees are far more skilled than we were in many areas. We recognize how changing demographics have altered the way many people visit parks. We know that our population is much more diverse than it was when we worked. We are aware of the budget pressures created by Iraq and Afghanistan. And besides that, the good old days weren’t so good anyway. Many of us went through the first version of outsourcing. We lived through Jim Watt. We choked on Take Pride in America and endured Hootie the Owl. And, some of us, like me, recently retired have suffered through just about everything you have (and maybe more). Most of us wish there had been a Coalition of NPS Retirees then to help us make it through.

It seems to me fairly impossible to effectively predict the future and prepare for a changing world. The variables effecting change range from the obvious to the obscure. Certainly there will be changes in technology, politics, economics, cultural or environmental areas. We see those changes, and more, come upon us daily in our national parks.

Last year’s public debate over the management policies—a struggle, I thought, for the very soul of the NPS, was a debate about enforced change, core mission, basic organizational values and the public trust. Let us be clear - this was not a struggle over the constructive reformation of the organization carried out for, and by, the broad American public interest. Instead, it was a cynical effort brought on by narrow ideological political and economic special interests for narrow selfish purposes. I bring up this bit of recent history as an example of how important strong organizational values, mission, and legal history are when confronting change. It is the bedrock for meeting change and adapting to a new future.
The future is “one second after now” as one philosopher noted. Like evolution, change is always present. Understanding where we are going, it seems to me, is dependent on an excellent knowledge of where we came from and now presently find ourselves. All of you in this room are veterans, well aware of the dire present circumstances of the NPS.

You live it each day as you juggle impossible budgets to meet impossible expectations. You need not be reminded of efforts to “homogenize” the mission of the NPS and destroy its uniqueness. You need not be reminded that there are those who do not believe conserving resources must be predominant when considering visitor use and enjoyment. You already understand that few problems ever get really solved and even you tire of the repetitive headlines from one decade to the next. You are already painfully aware that long-term thinking and sustained long-term investment is the key element now missing from effectively taking care of our park system. You already tire from Federal budget cycles that respond only to short-term considerations, where out-year planning is a constantly-shifting political target for all levels of our governance system. The most scarred of you veterans have learned that frequently routine park management decisions, once the discretion of seasoned career professionals, are now managed upward to political appointees who make political decisions rather than reasoned or science-based resource decisions that are in the public interest.
Your friends and colleagues in the Retiree Coalition, who have shared the past with you – some of us not too long ago – well understand your “now”- but also look to the future for something better – as you do. The Centennial celebration of the Service and the Centennial Initiative offers some promise. What we have seen so far is that the Centennial will be only about positions, signature projects, matching funds and some kind of celebration. Unfortunately, there is a degree of skepticism about parts of the Initiative by some in Congress, some of your outside supporters – and even amongst you, if the Coalition is to believe the telephone calls and email messages we have received. Ultimately, all of us would like to see a reinvigorated, refocused NPS.

Strangely absent from the Centennial discussion so far is what this conference and the George Wright conference is all about – the future and how we meet it. We do the NPS and the Centennial a deep disservice if we also do not engage long term thinking to make long term changes and try to resolve the vexing chronic issues that diffuse and confuse our present efforts – things such as agency governance, different financial models, the NPS’s place in our rapidly changing society and insufficient resources to effectively stage this organization for a second century of national parks.

The Coalition of National Park Service Retirees would like to share with you a vision for the National Park Service. By August 25, 2016 – less than a decade from now – we would like to see a Park Service that:

• Preserves and enables visitors to enjoy the truly special places of our common heritage, the inalienable patrimony of our nation, without confusion about its mission.

• Is deeply involved with the American people in what it means to be American and with the people of the world about what it means to be human.

• Educates visitors through deeply personal experiences of profoundly important places.

• Leads, encourages, and assists all others in our country who pursue similar goals; and on behalf of the United States assists all others in the world who pursue similar goals.

• Is free of burdens that impede accomplishment of its mission, and has leadership that is free of inappropriate constraints and conflicting goals.

• Is well-funded, well-staffed, sophisticated, professional, value-driven, motivated, innovative, daring, and excellent, within a context of long-term continuity.

• Provides education, training, and career opportunities that maximize fulfillment of the professional potential of each employee.

• Is managed as a coherent system rather than as independent areas and programs.

• Is driven by a current and constantly-renewed vision, nationally and in each individual park.

Creating a sustainable organization to achieve this vision must be the most important work we all do for the future. The organization must have an outward focus, deeply participative in the world around it, taking lessons learned and quickly applying them. The organization must be nimble, quick on its feet, comfortable with ambiguity and risk-taking, flexible and able to make decisions quickly and confidently. It must have the financial and human resources appropriate for the task. It must also recognize that the greatest resource it has are well prepared employees, friends and partners.

So….do you deem yourselves ready for “one second after now”? Do you feel the organization is seeking, or even capable of, transformation to ready itself for a second century of national park management?

To help you get there the Coalition is calling for the establishment and convening of a non-partisan National Park Service Centennial Commission to lead the nation in a deep and thoughtful multi-year national dialog on the future of our national park system. Enlightened national leadership must create the circumstances to begin this dialog on behalf of the broadest public interest. The Commission will develop a report, or series of reports, on the status of the national park system, the issues the system faces, constraints that impact the system and challenges to be faced in the new century. The Commission’s work would examine alternatives for addressing these issues and constraints that must be engaged, including fiscal and human resources required to accomplish the mission of the system for the long term. The Commission’s work will result in a plan…a template that the American people can look to in assuring that our most special places stay protected and special for a second century.

Investing in the organization and its employees, ready and empowered for the future, coupled with a thoughtful national consideration of the future we want to create might just be the most effective Centennial gift we can give to a second century of parks and future generations of Americans who will depend upon them.