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California State Park Rangers Association

Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve

Preparing for the Rendezvous, I reread the CSPRA 50th Anniversary booklet from 2014. Many members provided statements back then about the importance of this organization to them as park professionals, pointing to our defense of the park system’s integrity and our advocacy for park values, and never-ending efforts to secure appropriate support. Many of them also mentioned fond memories generated at these annual conferences.

One page written for that booklet was by Doug Bryce, who served as our Executive Manager from 1968 to 2001, for 33 years! Doug died a few weeks ago. He wrote, “CSPRA went through organizing pains and became a strong advocate for California State Parks as well as a conscience for the Department of Parks and Recreation.”  When I was elected to this position, I reached out to Doug for advice. He stressed the need for CSPRA to continue advocacy, to demonstrate respect for park philosophy, and to remain the agency’s “conscience.” 

    This will be my last newsletter report before CSPRA members elect another slate of officers and directors for 2023-2024. Time to look back…

With the pandemic raging in early 2020, our Board and officers met via Zoom each quarter to conduct business.  It was not until April 2021 that we finally got to meet in person in Folsom. As I near the end of this term as President, I sincerely thank our dedicated leadership group. Every newsletter lists those officers and directors on the inside cover.  You can also follow the “Contact Us” tab at www.cspra.com for the full list of liaisons, committee chairs, and contract staffers.  What a diverse, talented, and knowledgeable group.

We still have unfinished business, though, after 22 months. There will always be more facing us, of course.  

However, CSPRA’s finances are healthy. Our website is filled with worthwhile information, kept up to date by webmaster Jeff Price. Our quarterly newsletter, the WAVE is colorful, at times quite beautiful, always worth reading and its editor Brian Cahill depends upon your contributions. You make us look good, Brian. 

It has been my honor to meet each quarter since January last year with State Parks Director Armando Quintero and several of his staff.  We also had to meet via Zoom during these pandemic years, until we finally shook hands at the World Ranger Day (WRD) event last July in San Diego.

Representing CSPRA has taken me here-and-there in person, to that San Diego WRD event, to Parks Advocacy Day in Sacramento, to Los Angeles State Historic Park to see firsthand the threat of an inappropriate gondola incursion, to Red Rock Canyon SP to tour a mine site inside the park that should never be reactivated. We commented on and continue to follow such issues. In October I will speak at the annual conference for CALPA, the California League of Park Associations (another in-person gathering!). I’ve corresponded for CSPRA with the International Ranger Federation, with the Mongolian Ranger Association, with Panamanian and Mexican rangers. And all along I have used CSPRAnet to keep you informed via email.  

We are still working on restoring the State Park System’s first fire truck and moving it from the Department archives back to Angel Island. A restoration estimate has been received and a fund-raising effort will come next.  Stay tuned.  

We are still working on outreach to potential members who too often think that CSPRA is “just for rangers.” You know, or may not know, that the ANPR serves all National Park professionals. And PRAC serves all local and regional park professionals.  Of course, CSPRA is intended for all state park professionals, from every job category, and whenever a member speaks as a representative of the “Park Rangers Association”, whatever their actual job title, their voice is accorded immediate respect.Every new member, active duty or retired, strengthens CSPRA’s voice. Please help spread the word to all state park professionals that this organization is their way to be part of the “big picture,” to be connected to the mission of a very large park system. It is possible to lose sight of that in each day’s work tasks, but it is the core of our philosophy-driven professional organization.

We are still working on helping the State Park System emerge from a crisis of staffing vacancies, a billion-dollar maintenance backlog, and the need for long-term, stable, dedicated funding for park operations. It appears that “saving the system” will take a bit longer to achieve. 

This last effort may sound impossible, just pie-in-the-sky, but the needs have been identified, officially, for decades. Such shortfalls frustrated every CSPRA administration (just read the past-Presidents’ reports in that 50^th anniversary booklet). Getting this done will take public awareness and acceptance. It will take the support of affiliate organizations that share our concern for state parks. It will take political support. We must be well organized.  

One of my Supervising Rangers, during an annual evaluation, told me that I was “sometimes too idealistic.” He wanted me to ease off on pressure to keep doing more at the Mono Lake Tufa State Reserve. Yet, in my mind, that criticism was one of the best compliments I ever received. 

We have a bit more than three months left in 2022.  Let’s see how much we can get done, realistically and yes, idealistically, to protect and preserve the values of California’s State Park System. 

CSPRA President