As I pause and reflect on the opportunity to serve with, and for, all of you as your NASPD President, my heart is full of gratitude. It has truly been one of the most significant highlights of my career to be selected to serve as your president. I am honored to have walked along side each of you and I have learned so much about America’s State Parks and our biggest challenges and greatest victories. I would like to share a couple of highlights from my tenure.
I would first like to thank you for the robust conversation around increasing our dues to reflect the value that NASPD provides to each of us. I know that was a challenging conversation but I thank you all for the support to move us in the right direction to continue meeting the needs of our collective priorities. I know for me the first time I walked into the NASPD conference room in South Carolina, I found my home. It was a place of some of the greatest connection I had ever experienced. I have the honor of sitting on Oregon’s Governor’s Cabinet, but sitting with the Department of Human Services or the Department of Corrections Director(s) is not the same as sitting amongst 50 professionals who do the exact same job that I do in other states. At that table, you quickly realize that you have far more in common than different. Florida is having the same trials and tribulations that Oregon is having - just hurricanes verses fires - but crisis management and rebuilding look the same after Mother Nature has wreaked havoc on our special places. Having the ability to connect and build relationships with the members of this organization for counsel, coaching, comfort, and friendship is one of the single best highlights of my career.
The second action you bravely walked through with me was considering moving the date of the annual conference from Labor Day week to be more flexible and considering alternate dates after the holiday week. I know this one was tough because as we all know from living in the world of making memories, traditions are hard to change, but you did it! We allowed the hosting state to have some flexibility due to the demands on all of us in Parks to travel during one of our busiest weekends. After witnessing Nevada’s success, it is already proving to be a good move as we experienced record attendance and the highest number of vendors registered for our incredible event. Great job, Nevada!
The timing of transitioning out of the Presidents role is ideal, as I have been recently appointed by the Secretary of the Interior to serve on the National Parks Service Advisory Board, where I will chair NPS Director Sams' priority committee on tourism, helping National Parks focus on how to better balance capacity, visitation, and resource management. This new role will allow me to serve all of you in a new way, as we are all experiencing the same struggles in our own systems. I look forward to contributing as best as I can, but more so, to learning all I can from this new table to bring back to our NASPD family and share what I can to help all of us improve our systems.
I am not going to pretend that I wasn't a little excited to hand the NASPD gavel over to Paul McCormack, but I am also sad that the journey is over so quickly. Most of all, I am forever grateful for your love, support, and friendship while I served you all in this role. Like all humans, I hope I made you proud and that I made a little difference in our collective future. Thank you all for the once-in-a-career opportunity. If you have not done so, please take the opportunity to make a deeper connection with your NASPD colleagues and build friendships to help you be a better leader of your state parks system. You have an invaluable resource in this organization to be supported and support others, don’t miss the opportunity! You will not regret it.
