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Yesterday I shared, and commented upon, a News Release distributed by the National Park Service but written by the American Recreation Coalition. It announced an ARC event that begins tomorrow and at which high-level federal officials will be participating. At the very top of the News Release appeared the words "MEDIA ADVISORY FROM GET OUTDOORS USA!"
Go to the Get Outdoors USA website and you discover that this "organization," founded by ARC President Derrick Crandall, has two, and only two, "members" -- those being the American Recreation Coalition and the Coleman Company. The Coleman Company is a "sustaining member of the American Recreation Coalition" and has long been represented on ARC's Board of Directors.
Read the News Release, and you see references to Derrick Crandall, to someone from the Coleman Company and to Rex Maughan -- listed as Chairman of Forever Resorts.
Maughan is so much more than just a rich, powerful, anti-environmental and pro-motorized wreckreation NPS concessionaire. He long served as Treasurer upon the ARC's Board of Directors and as the Chairman of the concessionaire lobby which recently renamed itself "Park Partners". Explore the Park Partners website. These people are indeed PARTNERS of the NPS. They are the managing partners while those persons employed by the NPS or the federal government are merely junior partners.
Yesterday, Kurt Repanshek at the NationalParksTraveler blog also wrote about this News Release. Kurt focused upon Crandall and the ARC connection. He titled his piece; "Strange Bedfellows" -- and he was correct.
 Today I'd like to focus upon Rex Maughan. As important as Crandall is when it comes to shaping the look, feel and operation of America's National Parks, Maughan is more so. Crandall is, as the news release so proudly states, "The Outdoor Guru". Maughan is much more. Crandall is a hired hand. Maughan owns the ranch: many ranches, including the Southfork Ranch from the TV show "Dallas" -- pictured here.
In 1992, conservationist Michael Frome in his book "Regreening The National Parks" took Maughan and his NPS partners to task. Frome warned us about the frisky frolicking of these Strange Bedfellows.
Appended are Frome's words. Did anyone listen? Is anyone now listening?
Scott
--- begin quoted, ORCed errors possible ---
(From Regreening The National Parks, Michael Frome 1992, page 175)
Thus, at the 1981 conference {James} Watt assured the concessionaires
he was with them, that they would be invited to play a larger role in
the administration of national parks: "If a personality is giving you a
problem, we're going to get rid of the problem or the personality,
whichever is faster." Surles left soon after, to be replaced by David
Gackenbach, Hanson's future son-in-law.
Watt was introduced at the conference with admiration and praise by
Rex Maughan, who succeeded Hummel as chairman of the association.
Maughan, a self-made magnate, came into the concessions scene through
his association with the Del Webb Corporation, which held concessions
in Arizona and southern Utah. In due course he became involved with the
concession at Glacier National Park (when Hummel sold out and retired)
and with Signal Mountain Lodge in Grand Teton National Park. These were
sidelines, however; Maughan's principal business was Forever Living
Products, a door-to-door network selling shampoo, diet pills, suntan
lotion, and skin moisturizers, all based on the aloe vera plant. Hummel
and Maughan shared the viewpoint that parks become meaningful when
visited by people, that people must be accommodated and served, and
that private, profit-making enterprise is the best way to furnish
necessary and appropriate services. In Stealing the National Parks
Hummel quoted Stephen T. Mather, first director of the National Park
Service: "Scenery is a hollow enjoyment to a tourist who sets out in
the morning after an indigestible breakfast and a fitful sleep on an
impossible bed." Maughan, for his part, stressed the tradition and
importance of the "partnership" between concessionaires and the
National Park Service.
At a meeting of park superintendents following the 1981 Concessions
Conference Maughan explained what this meant. He wanted the
superintendents to "cut out anything that represents an ivory tower
concept." He told them too many decisions were influenced by
extraneous, outside-the-park elements, notably environmentalists.
"They've tried to convert major areas to wilderness areas, which we
feel takes away the majority of the park for most people in favor of
providing pristine areas for a minority of park users. Parks are for
all the people, not just the environmentalists." Thus, continued
Maughan:
If you haven't been to Yellowstone in the winter on a snowmobile,
you haven't really seen Yellowstone, and more people should have that
opportunity. You can travel into other areas of the park; perhaps we
might develop different areas. Yellowstone hasn't opened up any new
thermal areas since 1905, as I recall. If Yellowstone is overtaxed, as
we're always hearing, possibly we need to open up a new area or two and
take some traffic to these new areas.
If you don't have a profitable concessioner, you're not going to
have a very happy concessioner. If you don't have a happy concessioner,
he's not going to provide very good services to the public.
Many concessionaires feel constantly put-upon; they see themselves as
targets of elitist ecologist types working in collusion with park
administrators who know little about the particular parks they run for
two or three years before moving on, and know even less about business.
They, the concessionaires, live in chronic fear that the Park Service
will eliminate them and, maybe even worse, purchase their facilities
without respect for the "possessory interest" in whatever they have
built or remodeled on government land. Consequently they strike back,
individually and collectively, locally and in Washington, for what they
believe is theirs by right-and right, as they see it, in the public
interest.
Representative Udall, in his criticism of Whalen, insisted that a
concessionaire, like any citizen, is entitled to state his case to
Congress. That makes sense. On the other hand, although commerce is a
main pillar of American society, in the national parks commerce colors
and clouds any meaningful discussion of appropriate human activity and
the pressures of increasing visitor use. Private enterprise by its
nature promotes business to maximize profit. Entrepreneurs in (and
around) the parks generally advocate recreational tourism, from which
they benefit, rather than spiritual sanctuary and ecosystem
preservation with fitting restrictions and restraints. Wherever visitor
service is commercialized, it tends to feature and promote convenience
and crowd pleasing. It leads to advertising, to keep accommodations
full during the "shoulder season," to stay open during winter, to
lengthen the "season." It rationalized selling tawdry souvenirs and
package liquor as a way to lower prices for backpacking supplies and
peanut butter. The bar trade encourages barroom behavior, brawls and
enforcement problems. Such enterprises and activities influence the
entire tenor of a park: it doesn't look like a parcel of primitive
American and doesn't feel like one. The park becomes a popcorn
playground to which visitors adjust their expectations and behavior.
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- Activism 
