After 30 years of working for the Federal Government I have begun a Project. To make available some of the Photographs and Craft work that I have been producing.
The Day I put on my Park Service Uniform for the last time. Of all my Federal Service, the National Park Service provided me the most fulfillment. My mission statement was: “I protect the people from the environment and the environment from the people.” My main job was to treat drinking water to protect people from nasty water borne diseases, later to treat human waste so that it would not harm the environment that people were here to see. I started at North Cascades National Recreation Area in 1984. Yellowstone was next where I met and married Maureen my wife of some 27 years. Then Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, next Letterkenny Army Depot, Mesa Verde National Park, Everglades National Park, Mount Rainier National Park, Isle Royale National Park and finally Badlands National Park. The parks have provided amazing environments to explore whether, Soaring Mountain, Warm Seas, Swamps, Cold Northern lakes, Volcanos, and Deserts, I have been very fortunate to work and live in places most people only get to visit.
Through all the units I have worked at, one theme has rung throughout. Change…. For good or for bad… Change has been the overall theme of the years. First watching the management go from three divisions. Administration, Rangers, Maintenance to five sometimes six, Administration, Natural Resources and or Cultural Resources, Resource Protection (law enforcement), Interpretation (Resource Education) Maintenance. I watched Yellowstone go from a densely forested park to a patch work transformed (changed) by fire. I watched the Everglades and the city of Homestead changed by Hurricane Andrew, where only those park people that lived at Flamingo, some 5 of us out of 60 to 80 of us that did not lose most, if not all of their homes. The Superintendent Richard Ring ended the storm in their car in the back yard with only the slab of their house left. No roof no walls nothing. I watched the Government shut down in 1995-96. The Right Sizing of the agency, along with the rounds of early retirements. In 2001 I watched an earth quake create mud flows on the flanks of a Volcano. I have watched as we changed the way we treat drinking water, first to take into account Giardia Lamblia later Cyptosporidium, after people died in various US Cities. These changes were a challenge as the Service’s drinking water systems are often remote. I have watched the population of moose and wolf crash on Isle Royale in just 5 short years. Lastly and most importantly I have watched as the funding for the Units erode over time, Labor cost, fuel and electric costs, mission creep, (adding more duties) has been the main causes, Sequestration and another Government shutdown and finally this round of early retirements. So for me the next big personal change, today I packed away my uniform and began the next big adventure for me, Change, once again resonates through my life. I can only wonder what change the future will bring. But, I must, find the change that suits me. So I face a new future full of the promise of more change. I can honestly say: “I am never bored.”