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My passion for parks and recreation can really be traced back to my first job, which was a gravedigger and caretaker at Hillside Cemetery in Thomaston Connecticut. I had the unique experience of working for my grandfather who was the sexton for many years. I worked from a relatively young age, probably 13 or so, in shadowing and tagging along on some of the work until I was 16 and could officially start working and operating equipment. My grandfather was a mason, a civil engineer, a patent holder, and proud Scotsman born in Glasgow Scotland. There was much pride among the staff in the perpetual care of the grounds, and I gained experience in excavation, surveying, carpentry, small engine repair, plumbing, masonry among other trades, all taught to me by my grandfather. Above all else I gained an appreciation for weed whacking, spending countless hours trimming around thousands of headstones in the summer sun. The similarities between a cemetery and a park are many and learning the stewardship of place that my family was directly responsible for managing and maintaining and its connection to the community taught me a lot. My father is now the sexton and I often like to share the somewhat morbid fact that I am a third-generation gravedigger.

Hillside Cemetery had a feature story in a Sunday Edition of The New York Times in 1992, which was quite a big deal for a small town. So care and stewardship for a place came first and the recreational aspect came later as I got big into winter recreation, primarily snowboarding during the explosion of the sport in the mid and late 90’s. I attended Paul Smith’s College in the Adirondack Park in NY, mostly for its proximity to outdoor recreation opportunities. After playing very hard for a few years there I realized I might need some “desk” skills in my future and moved to the University of New Hampshire to get a degree in Recreation Management and Policy, and that is when New Hampshire started having a major impact on my future.

While I started my current role as Director in November 2022, I had worked for NH State Parks from 2014-2017 so had a lot of familiarity with the system and the organization. We are so fortunate in NH to have so much diversity in our outdoor recreation resources all within a relatively small area. In the last few weeks, I have been to parks 6 miles offshore in the Atlantic all the way up to the Canadian border and in between, all just a few hours apart from one another.

Our biennium budget was just recently approved, and within it are several major successes for the park system and historic levels of funding never seen before in NH. Perhaps our most significant and exciting project is funding the replacement of the Cannon Mountain Aerial Tramway in Franconia Notch State Park. Located within the White Mountain National Forest, this 6,600-acre park is the flagship park in New Hampshire that includes many attractions, including Cannon Mountain, a state run ski area. The Aerial Tram was built in 1938 and is the oldest tram in North America. We are version 2.0 now which has been operating for over 40 years and approaching the end of its life. $18 million was approved to reinvest into the system to ensure another 40 plus years of unique, year-round access to the 4,080 ft summit of Cannon Mountain is available to hundreds of thousands of annual visitors. Because trams are relatively rare and it is an iconic attraction in New Hampshire, it’s a very special project to the Division of Parks and will getting a lot of attention as it moves forward.

I have been known to be pretty convincing when it comes to encouraging others for an adventure or outing in our parks, and that open invitation extends to anyone reading this as well. A few places I always recommend exploring are Odiorne Point State Park which is along our short coastline. This park can be described as a mini- Acadia National Park, with tidepools, a variety of rocky and sandy beaches and marshlands only a few miles of Interstate 95. If you prefer to be a little higher above sea level, Mount Washington State Park is world famous, known for its worst in the world weather. If that doesn’t excite someone to visit, maybe the fact that you can drive your car, take a train, or hike to the 6,288ft summit might entice you.

This summer I am hoping to explore some of our pet friendly parks and campgrounds with my wife, two boys ages 16 and 11, and two dogs Buck and Teddy. My list of plans on places to go far exceeds my time able to do so, but I make up for that squeezing in some fun during work. While I cant claim to ever had a nickname stick, my name itself has resulted in some really bad Beach Boy jokes, such as a professor in college referring to me as “fun fun fun till daddy takes the T-bird away” each and every class. Really the only thing “the” BRIAN WILSON and I have in common is we both played piano in a rock and roll band!