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The National Association of Recreation Resource Planners

National Park Service Releases 2016 Centennial Action Plan Courtesy of the American Recreation Coalition

Washington, D.C. - The National Park Service (NPS) unveiled A Call to Action today identifying four key themes and 36 actions to ready the agency for its 100th anniversary in 2016. The plan commits the agency to connecting people to parks, strengthening local economies and encouraging organizational innovation within the NPS. The release came on Founder’s Day – August 25 – on the 95th anniversary of the creation of the agency.

The four key themes of A Call to Action are: (1) “Connecting People to Parks”; (2) “Advancing the Education Mission”; (3) “Preserving America’s Special Places”; and (4) “Enhancing Professional and Organizational Excellence.” NPS Director Jon Jarvis outlined the plan and a new emphasis on communications internally and with the agency’s key partners at a national town hall held in the historic Ford’s Theater in downtown Washington, D.C. The town hall was broadcast nationwide to NPS employees and partners. Joining Director Jarvis on stage were the President of the National Park Foundation, Neil Mulholland, and three agency employees: Corita Waters, Outdoor Recreation Planner with the Rivers and Trails Conservation Assistance Program; Lizette Richardson, Chief of Maintenance, Lake Mead National Recreation Area; and Dave Moore, Assistant Regional Director for the Northeast Region. In his opening remarks, Director Jarvis told the employees and partners that the mission of the agency is both unique and centered on the core documents of the nation: the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. He stressed the mission to provide the American public with enjoyment of special places that are the nation’s natural and historic best places. And he also noted the agency’s major economic importance to the nation, reminding the group that visitors to parks create more than $12 billion in economic activity annually and that other agency programs, including historic preservation, also contribute significantly to local and national economies.

The Director emphasized that A Call to Action does not depend upon new funding or new authorities. Instead, he told the group, the plan is based on flexibility, creativity and partnerships.

Commenting on the report and its release, American Recreation Coalition President Derrick Crandall said, “The focus and the themes of A Call to Action are appropriate and strategic. And many of the action steps are exciting – the focus on parks as a contributor to health, the call to expand access for water-based recreation, the link to sustainable economic activity in gateways and more. And Director Jarvis has made clear that the action steps can be modified and new steps added through partner input. I saw a roomful of younger NPS employees become energized – and that is what the agency needs today more than anything: passionate, on-the- ground staff who want to be in contact with park visitors.”

Crandall added that America’s recreation community looks forward to working closely with the National Park Service and park partners on action steps. One key opportunity for cooperative action will come January 24-26 at the first-ever America’s Summit on National Parks. More than 300 NPS officials and partners will gather to coordinate efforts linked to the 2016 centennial of the agency.

For more information on A Call to Action and the upcoming Summit, visit www.nps.gov/calltoaction. For more information on participation in the America’s Summit on National Parks, email [email protected].

Demographic shift causes state parks to adapt: Hispanic families are using 's parks more frequently and in different ways Courtesy of baltimoresun.com

By Candus Thomson

When an approaching thunderstorm threatens swimmers at , lifeguards reach for an iPod, scroll through the menu and press play.

"La tormenta se aproxima," says the recording amplified by the loud speaker system. "Todo el mundo salga del agua."

With that, hundreds of people move toward shore.

The staff at Maryland's state parks, destination for 11 million visitors last year, is learning to adapt to a rapidly growing and enthusiastic clientele: Hispanic families.

They come early, stay until closing and are repeat customers, say state park officials.

According to the latest U.S. Census figures, the largest spike in the last decade was in the state's Hispanic population, which more than doubled to 470,632. Roughly one in 12 Marylanders is Hispanic.

And while an economic impact study last year by the Department of Business and Economic Development showed that just 2 percent of day-use visitors were Hispanic, park officials say that paints an incomplete picture. Hispanic families concentrate in a handful of waterfront parks near the Baltimore-Washington corridor.

For example, at Greenbrier in Washington County and outside Annapolis, as many as 80 percent of the picnickers and swimmers are Hispanic, officials at the two sites say. Day trippers also favor Seneca Creek State Park in Montgomery County and the Hammerman area of Gunpowder Falls State Park in Baltimore County. When those fill on busy summer weekends, families drive to Cunningham Falls north of Frederick or Point Lookout in St. Mary's County.

"This isn't just a Greenbrier or a Sandy Point story. It's spreading and becoming a Maryland story," says Nita Settina, superintendent of the state's 66 parks. "They want to do all the outdoors things they did in their native country in their new home. It's up to us to make them feel welcome."

To meet the needs of the Hispanic visitors, parks have added translators, posted bilingual signs and stocked park stores with ethnic foods. Staffs are getting cultural training and will be taught basic Spanish commands and phrases before next season to help ease the communications barrier.

Other ethnic groups have gravitated to specific parks, mostly by word of mouth: Koreans at Point Lookout, Russians at Cunningham Falls and Africans at Patapsco Valley, just south of Baltimore. That has required additional adjustments by park staff, says Ranger Jen Cline of the Maryland Park Service Training Division.

Cline says on Memorial Day weekend, she encountered some African men with a blow torch at a Patapsco Valley pavilion.

When questioned, the men told Cline, "We have to sear the goats."

Not knowing whether park rules prohibited the searing of goats with a blow torch before barbecuing, but deciding it might be a safety hazard in a full park, Cline asked if they could finish up quickly and put it away. Everyone was satisfied.

"You just have to put yourselves in your guests' shoes," Cline tells her trainees.

That includes making allowances, when possible, for lakeside baptisms and seasonal religious celebrations, too.

A survey of 500 Greenbrier visitors showed the predominant countries of origin are: El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico and Honduras. They drive one or two hours to get there, stay an average of 8 hours and visit as many as a half dozen times a season.

The new visitors have prompted a rethinking of park procedures and designs that are 30 to 40 years old, says Lt. Tammy McCorkle, who has been at Greenbrier for 11 seasons. For example, people begin lining up at 3 a.m. to get in and secure one of the prime shaded picnic tables near the water. By 8, the line backs up nearly two miles on U.S. 40, forcing staff to open early to alleviate a traffic safety hazard.

Gone are the days when one vehicle with four or five family members was the standard. Now, an informal survey shows, the average group size is 15 people "who stay until closing," McCorkle says. "That means the traditional picnic pad, with one table and one grill, is useless to our visitors, a poor design. You have to have room for four tables."

In another concession to change, park managers had to replace half of Greenbrier's 150 grills this year due to metal fatigue brought on by dawn-to-dusk use.

The visitors have noticed the effort.

"I recommend this park to all my friends and I bring people from everywhere," says Dilia Giron, a manager of a cell phone store in Beltsville. "They make you feel welcome here. Sometimes I tell my mother we should try another park, but she says , 'No, no, no. This is fine. This is ours.'"

Luis Perez, a truck driver from Silver Spring, says state parks are clean and quiet, safe places to allow urban children to run and play.

"It's like being at home. When you feel comfortable, you're going to be happy," he says.

At Greenbrier, 32 common park announcements have been downloaded to an iPod, everything from a storm warning to a missing-child report to a head's up that someone left their car headlights on. The announcements were recorded by Christina Dalton, 22, a student at UMBC whose mother is from Guatemala.

A park visitor as a child, Dalton was startled two years ago during a visit by the demographic shift. She emailed the park managers about the need for a translator and was hired as part of the summer staff.

Dalton arrives for work in shorts and a tan Greenbrier polo shirt, a small radio clipped to her belt. The understated uniform is in deliberate contrast to the full police uniform worn by rangers.

After unlocking the new nature center — "La Casita de Naturaleza" — she begins her rounds. Dalton moves easily among the families cooking breakfast and stringing multi-colored hammocks from the willow oaks, answering questions and explaining park rules, admiring the spread of food and playfully teasing the children.

She calls her job, "helping people understand each other who don't understand each other." And Dalton considers that rewarding.

"I love that moment when I explain something to both people in a situation and see their faces light up when they get it," she says.

The same thing happens at Sandy Point, where Nuria Velasquez, a Baltimore County school secretary, helps the staff communicate with patrons.

On Memorial Day weekend, when the park was filled to capacity and turning people away, Velasquez was almost overwhelmed as she directed traffic and translated for police officers.

"I've never seen so many people but in a stadium," she says. When a car full of Spanish- speaking people broke down on the park access road, creating gridlock, Velasquez stepped in to cool tempers and get people to push the vehicle onto the grass.

She also explains state fishing and crabbing regulations and reminds families to recycle and pack out their trash.

"I know I make a difference," says Velasquez. "With me, the Latinos have a voice."

All of this attention has caused some bad feelings. The blow back against the influx of Hispanic families, "can be pretty ugly," Settina acknowledges.

After Memorial Day, Greenbrier took a call from an angry woman who demanded to know why the staff allowed "those people" in on an American holiday. Sandy Point managers were criticized on a popular fishing website for repairing a stone jetty "for the illegals." And online discussions about best camping and picnicking choices sometimes veer into discussions about whether some of Greenbrier's Hispanic visitors might be part of the violent gang, MS13.

"It's a challenge for our staff, but there is no wink-wink, nod-nod when it comes to intolerance," Settina says. "When people come to a state park, they're a state park visitor and nothing else. Our policy is not to just tolerate, it's to celebrate cultural values."

Outdoor Youth Provider Database

The Foundation for Youth Investment has created the Outdoor Youth Provider Database (OYPD) to help connect outdoor and environmental education providers to one another.

The Challenge: Currently, there is no single place that houses Outdoor Youth Provider information, including location, program descriptions, and characteristics of the youth we serve.

The Solution: Connect Outdoor Youth Providers via an online database. To that end, we have designed this database to be robust, relational, searchable and easy to use.

Our Goal: We want to raise awareness, connections, and resources among Outdoor Youth Providers.

How You Can Help: Register your organization today. As you know, a database is only as good as the information contained within it. Go to: www.outdooryouthproviders.org and enter your organization and program information into the system. Now others can find you.

Spread the Word: Send along this message and the link. Put the link on your website. Blog about it. Tweet about it. Or get the word out the old fashion way by telling someone!

We are very excited to provide a database that addresses a common need in the outdoor and environmental education field. Your contribution is greatly appreciated.

We welcome your feedback to help us improve the OYPD.

Thank you for all the hard work you do to connect youth to the great outdoors.

Outdoor enthusiasts get lesson in building multi-user trails Courtesy of troyrecord.com

By Samantha Langton

Three representatives from the International Mountain Bike Association recently visited the Capital District to train local mountain biking groups and parks officials on sustainable trail building and responsible management of public lands. The goal of their visit was to help the Saratoga Mountain Bike Association reach out to all outdoors enthusiasts including hikers, trail runners, birders, mountain bikers, equestrians, and others interested in learning sustainable techniques for building multi-user trails.

The three visitors included IMBA’s mid-Atlantic regional area representative, Frank Maguire, from State College, PA; and trail care crew members, Jenny Abraham and Jake Carsten, from Austin, Texas. The group arrived on Aug. 11 and met up with a group of about a dozen mountain bikers from the region at Brown’s Brewing Co. in Troy to give a Club Care Presentation. This presentation focused on strengthening leadership and cohesive membership in a mountain biking organization. SMBA is currently branching out to areas outside of Saratoga County into Rensselaer, Albany, and Schenectady counties, and obtained information on retaining membership and advancing their public relations and marketing.

On Aug. 12, the next stop was in Schenectady, at the Department of Environmental Conservation Region 4 offices, where the IMBA crew held their land manager workshop. Officials from Schenectady parks as well as mountain bikers and other park users met up with SMBA board members to learn about IMBA’s methods of sustainable trail building for all user groups and mountain bike management in parks. The official presentation was only an hour, but discussions about land use and mountain biking continued for hours. Overall, SMBA Vice President Jim Mitchell believed that the session was a huge success and that the local land managers returned from the session with a much greater appreciation for mountain biking in public lands.

Later that evening, a social event was held at Tomhannock Bicycles in Pittstown, NY, to show the movie “Pedal Driven,” which features success stories of mountain bikers coordinating with land managers to develop sustainable trails for mountain bikers as well as other user groups.

The meat of the IMBA visit occurred on Aug. 13 in Pittstown. Mountain bikers interested in learning to build sustainable trails came all the way from Cobleskill and Bennington. Several land managers and representatives from the DEC and New York State Parks Recreation and Historic Preservation attended to gain a better understanding of how mountain bikers in our region plan to build sustainable multi-user trail systems. The session began with a three-hour seminar on sustainable trail building techniques, followed by a live session of building a new section of trail in the Pittstown State Forest. Hours of grueling physical labor was rewarded on Aug. 14, when the new section of trail was ready to be ridden during the IMBA crew’s finale, a group mountain bike ride on the trails in the Pittstown State Forest including the new section of trail.

Although IMBA’s visit was a success, much more work is needed to finish building the new trail and to maintain and upgrade existing trails in Pittstown and beyond. To find out about future work days, other areas adopted by SMBA as well as the trails in Saratoga, and to get involved, visit SMBA’s website at www.saratogamtb.org.

U.S. OKs Largest Solar Project on Public Lands Courtesy of businessfacilities.com

U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has approved construction of the largest solar-photovoltaic facility on public lands. The Desert Sunlight Solar Farm, a 550-megawatt solar power project, will be constructed in the California desert east of Palm Springs.

When complete, the project is expected to create more than 600 jobs, injecting $336 million into local economy. Desert Sunlight will generate enough energy to power more than 165,000 homes.

“The Desert Sunlight Solar Farm is the largest photovoltaic facility Interior has approved thus far and, when built, will help power our nation and economy,” Secretary Salazar said. “With 12 large-scale solar projects approved in the last 18 months, we continue to make significant strides in spurring innovation, job-creation, and investment in the private sector while strengthening America’s energy security.”

Located on approximately 4,100 acres of public lands, the solar project will be developed and operated by Desert Sunlight Holdings, LLC, a subsidiary of First Solar Inc.

The facility will use First Solar’s thin film photovoltaic technology, which generates electricity with low visual impact, no air emissions, waste production or water use, and has the smallest carbon footprint of any photovoltaic technology. An on-site substation and a 230-kiloVolt generation tie line will connect the project to the Red Bluff substation which will convert the power from 230 kV to 500kV for transmission on Southern California Edison’s regional grid.

Job Announcement - Project Manager/Environmental Scientist

Dayton, Ohio (May consider other locations as well)

Growing consulting firm is looking for an environmental scientist to join their environmental group. The individual will serve in a seller/doer role and will assist in growing with the Federal Sector including such clients as the National Park Service and other prospective clients within the Department of Interior. The candidate will join already established environmental group to assist in growing the company’s Federal division. Current projects include a wide variety of environmental projects from Federal National Park Service projects to DOT/NEPA wetlands monitoring projects. Some travel will be required.

Requirements:

- Bachelors degree in environmental science, biology, or related degree. Masters degree preferred but not required. - 10+ years of experience (candidates with significantly more experience will also be considered) - Must have prior business development experience. Preference will be given to individuals with federal experience within the Department of Interior with such clients as the National Park Service or other federal land management agencies. - Ability to communicate effectively and must possess strong technical writing skills.

To apply, email resume to [email protected].

Sara Theile RC Associates, LLC 4100 West Kennedy Boulevard, #223 Tampa, Florida 33609 (813) 286-2075 [email protected] www.rcassociatesllc.com