Historian Dakin recalls courage of Bob Haraden

Older folks like me who worked in Glacier National Park when Bob Haraden was Superintendent, (1980-86) can’t help but feel a personal loss at his passing in early April at age 100. Bob was one of Glacier’s finest stewards, and we know how courageous he was in the political arena that his tenure encountered.

His arrival nearly coincided with that of the Reagan administration, which memorably was elected by running against the government; “government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem.” Priorities were going to change, and conservation and protection of our parks was unlikely to be a high one. The new Secretary of the Interior, James Watt, believed that Jesus’ Second Coming was so near at hand in 1981 that conserving the natural world was almost pointless. It was to be a trying time for the National Park Service.

The administration’s directives for OMB Circular A-76 were released in 1983, a flagship policy initiative in the administration’s push to “privatize” (meaning, contract out) a multitude of activities in all federal agencies; and the National Park Service would be one ‘test’ arena to identify such activities, contract them out to the private sector, work out kinks, and then be implemented government-wide. About half of park functions were/are traditionally contracted – lodging, food service, trail rides, transportation, boat excursions, etc. But experience had shown that contracting out such seemingly everyday jobs as collecting trash and servicing campgrounds and snowplowing and painting buildings and staffing entrance stations always led to cost overruns, change orders, and ended up costing more than in did to do them in-house. The operation of most parks, like Glacier, is unpredictable and unquantifiable, by the season and even by the week. Fires, floods, rockslides, rescues, maulings, pipe breaks, sewer backups, trail washouts, lost kids, windstorms and treefall, tourists overindulged in camp food apparently exploding in restroom stalls… nobody could ever predictably quantify what might need to be done in a given week let alone a year in order to put out a tight, enforceable contract. In its details and vision, the A-76 Circular of ’83 envisioned eventually extending privatization even to NPS interpretive functions, trail maintenance and ranger duties, including law enforcement.

Concerned not just that their livelihoods might be abolished, but that the dedication to park values (‘preserve/protect …provide for enjoyment by the people’) that field personnel bring to work daily would be subordinated to a myriad of corporate profit-and-loss calculations …..Glacier’s field personnel met weekly after hours and resolved to defend the park.

Supt. Haraden knew what was going on. But he never participated, not once. But the shops were open and lights kept on for us, and a copying machine was handy. From Glacier, and from other parks, (notably Rocky Mtn. and Grand Teton) hundreds of letters to our congressional delegation and to the NPS’ guardian angels in the U.S. House (Rep Sidney Yates of Illinois and Rep. John Seiberling of Ohio) aroused oversight, triggered hearings, and attracted press exposure that just amplified the cascading scrutiny. The NPS was (and is) regarded as one of our best-managed federal agencies (part of the ‘deep state’, I guess) and it has a vast and vocal constituency of defenders. The Director of the NPS began to feel heat from the administration to rein in this billowing public firestorm.

While in D.C. on a routine matter Supt. Haraden was told that the Undersecretary of the Interior for Fish and Wildlife, G. Ray Arnett, wanted to see him. It was about the annoying interference the administration was experiencing from ‘his’ park. Arnett was unique in that his office as chief caretaker of fish and wildlife was decorated by the enormous mount of a black rhino that he had proudly shot on safari and loved to point out and talk about. Arnett had a stern talk with Supt. Haraden.

When he returned, Haraden recounted his experience with bemused satisfaction to his Asst. Supt. Alan O’Neil and park’s the division chiefs. Word trickled down to us field workers that we were having a big impact back there and he was very proud that people in his park seemed to have the national capital in such a fuss. When I asked him later, weren’t you intimidated? He just smiled and said, “Bill, what could they do to me? This is the peak and last step of my career. I had nothing to lose.”

Senators Baucus, Bumpers and Byrd went to work. The NPS did get exempted from that initial “government is the problem” ideological salvo of A-76, which was tempered down and still governs government contracting. Afterwards, my wife Sarah and I were called at home (on our Coram party line) one evening by the President of the National Parks and Conservation Association (NPCA) and asked if we would write a letter to them nominating Supt. Haraden for their new, flagship Stephen Tyng Mather Award.

We were quick to do and — surprise! — he was awarded it in 1985. They knew what he had done. He deserved it, because Stephen Mather, the first Director and great architect of the National Park Service believed that it was essential to have a corps of professional field personnel dedicated to the NPS mission in every aspect of park operations. Bob was a latter-day Stephen Mather. He often said this was his proudest recognition.

His arrival also coincided with the Reagan Administration’s abolition of the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation, which nobody seems to miss much. That dissolution made a lot of career talent available to other federal agencies and Bob quickly recruited several talented people, among them Glacier’s first in-house landscape architect, who have contributed a great deal to Glacier’s thoughtful improvement.

Bob’s background was in maintenance and design and he oversaw Glacier’s celebration of the Sun Road’s 50th anniversary in 1983, which featured a reunion of its surviving construction workers. He appreciated people who worked with their hands and backs and wanted them to be acknowledged.

Bob Haraden’s watch in Glacier Park was a critical one and he was the right leader to rise to it. I will always be grateful to have been there to witness his consummate dedication. In my imagining of an afterlife, this slender, frail-looking man, with impish demeanor, a steel will and confidence of purpose, in his dress NPS uniform, is proudly gathered with Mather, and Horace Albright, and John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt, and dozens of others who spent their energies advocating for our national heritage -- visiting and chatting optimistically that those who follow us will surely see to it that (plagiarizing the NPS’ Mather memorials) “there will never come an end to the good that we have done.”