Paul Hartman oral history transcript

              Oral History Cover Sheet

Name: Paul Hartman

Date of Interview: January 17, 2007

Location of Interview: NCTC

Interviewer: John Cornely

Approximate years worked for Fish and Wildlife Service: 30

Offices and Field Stations Worked, Positions Held: Small Wetlands Acquisition Program and Assistant Coordinator; Assistant Chief of Realty; Joint Venture Coordinator

Most Important Projects: Prairie Pothole Joint Venture

Colleagues and Mentors: Marv Plenert, Marv Dunkan, Gaylan Butebaugh, Frank Dunkle, Sam Marler, Jim Gritman, Jerry Shotscoe, Carol Lively, Mitch King, Bob Croft, Harvey Nelson, Lew Cordon, Forrest Lee, Dale Henniker, Keith Harmon, Bob Meeks, Skip Ladd, Dave Sharp, Dick Smith, Bob Streeter, Dick Bishop, Rodger Holmes, Van Dell

Most Important Issues: Small Wetland Program; North American Plan; Joint Ventures – specifically Prairie Pothole Joint Venture

Brief Summary of Interview: Overview of how he became involved with the Joint Ventures program; formation and make up of the Management Board; dealing with state and private interests; development of the North American Plan and the JV program; relationship with the Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center; issues of staffing, money sources, other wildlife and wetland programs; partnering with various NGOs and private land owners/associations, etcetera; ‘selling’ the concepts of partnering and habitat conservation.

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John Cornely -- Good afternoon. I’m John Cornely and I’m here this afternoon with Paul Hartman. And we’re going to talk about the early days of the Prairie Pothole Joint Venture; the Flagship Joint Venture of the North American Waterfowl Management Plan. And Paul and I had the privilege of working very closely together at the very beginning of the this Plan, as he was the first Coordinator and I moved to Region 6 as a Regional Migratory Bird Coordinator right in about the same time frame as … as these Joint Ventures were getting started. And Paul, I’d like you to talk about the … how … how you came to be the Prairie Pothole Joint Venture Coordinator, and who supervised the position when you first got started.

Paul Hartman -- Well, it … this is going … this is my story and I’m going to stick with it type of thing, ‘cause, God only knows what happened behind the scenes, but some of the original players, in Region 6 at least, that were involved in the Joint Venture -- Marv Plenert, Marv Dunkan to some extent, Gaylan Butebaugh, Frank Dunkle played a role when he was in our Region … were all people that kind of came together, more or less accidentally. I had worked with Plenert back in Jamestown, North Dakota, when he was an ascertainment biologist and I was a realty staff person doing land acquisition appraisals and negotiations. I came up through the ranks, through Region 3, serving the Small Wetlands Acquisition Program and Assistant Coordinators position there. And then later, in 1973, transferred to Denver, where I was the Assistant Chief of Realty, also with the primary responsibility for administering the Small Wetlands Acquisition Program. So, that kind of the fast forward … career ladder that I had, in 1996, or in 1986, when the North American Plan was first approved, I was still in that position as the Assistant Chief of Realty, administering the Small Wetlands Acquisition Program. Marv Plenert, on the other hand, during his career from the Jamestown years to when he came to Denver, had an interim stop in Montana. And I think it was shortly after the Wilderness Bill was signed, where there was an effort to identify wilderness areas. And, as I recall, one of his … his job there in Montana, was to assist in the preparation of documents, etcetera, to identify potential wilderness areas. So, in that role, he became very familiar in a professional level, and maybe even a personal level, of Frank Dunkle, who happened to be the state Director for the Game and Fish Department. So, fast

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forward that … he gets to Denver. Shortly after that, Frank Dunkle comes to Denver and is an Assistant to the Regional Director. And, low and behold, about that time, or in that same one or two year time frame, the North American Plan was started. Marv Plenert, and Sam Marler, Marv Dunkan, and I were hunting and fishing buddies, and we’d socialize, with our wives, as families and so forth. And it … I can remember when the North American Plan was … we saw drafts of it, and we started talking about it, you know, over a beer or two, about, oh my God, ‘cause we already had a long history of successes, but a lot of failures, in both North and South Dakota, in terms of the regulation process. In my arena, more so with the land acquisition program, ‘cause every land acquisition fee title that we had in North Dakota had to be approved by the governor of that state. We … we worked … the Governor appointed the Director of the Game and Fish Department as his contact person, and his intermediary, if you will. So we worked a lot with the … directly with the State Director, and his staff, in getting lands approved. And while the staff was very supportive of what we were doing, in terms of land acquisition, ‘cause they could see benefits to other residence species and so forth, the politics in North Dakota were not in our favor, and very … very opposed to the program. Because we were taking land out of agriculture production. And there was a lot of complaints by farmers and residents about the government buying more and more property, and all that’s [indecipherable]. So, we had a lot of tension and … well, may… I guess tension is the best way to put it, between our Agency and the state government, if you will. So we had some history there that, when the North American Plan came out and we … the direction was partnerships and doing things, you know, in concert with Game and Fish and NGOs, most of us, I think, at that time, were thinking ‘oh, is this ever going to work? this is going to be a like pulling teeth again, were going …’ My concern, quite frankly, at the time, was that … and we had experienced some of this when the Endangered Species Act was passed, that those type of programs that were not readily accepted by the states and other entities had a way of slopping over into other programs that were off and running. So my fear was that … and my job at the time as the Wetlands Supervisor, if you will, for the Small Wetlands Program, was that – it’s going to impact what we already … what we’ve spent years to develop with the states. Even though it was a sort of a strained relationship with the states in getting our fee title transactions

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approved, it was working. And they would approve a few, and then they wouldn’t approve, you know, and we just had to go with the flow. But it took a lot of years. And my main concern is, here comes another program that’s going to jeopardize what we’ve already spent so many hard years trying to accomplish. So anyway, to make … already a long story maybe a little shorter, was that Plenert kept telling me he says ‘you know, you really need to think about this job.’ And I kept saying ‘it’s a no win job, I mean, that’s going to be … frustrating … you know, as any job I can imagine.’ Well, the next day he’d come back with a little bit more information and … whatever was happening behind the scenes, I have no clue maybe I was being punished for something I’d done. [Laughter] Who knows. but anyway, the more I thought about it, I said ‘well, if I really want to … if I’m so concerned about what the impacts it might have on the program already … maybe the best thing for me is to … okay, get in that chair and then I can help … it, make sure that one doesn’t conflict with the other.’ So, in only a way that Marv Plenert can, in his persuasive manner, it came down to the point ‘Hartman, you think … you probably better think pretty seriously about taking this job.’ So, I did, and we … we went from there.

JC -- And okay and Marv was … was he the Deputy ARD for …

Both -- Refuges and Wildlife.

JC -- At the time?

PH -- Correct.

JC -- Okay, and you say … and Gaylan Buterbaugh was the …

PH -- Gaylan was the …

JC -- … Regional Director? 4

PH -- … Regional Director.

JC -- And ….

PH -- And I ended up working directly for directly for Gaylan.

JC -- Okay.

PH -- He was my immediate, first line supervisor.

JC -- Okay. Do you know if that happened in other … with other Joint Venture Coordinators?

PH -- Well, …

JC -- Or that’s just … Regions kind of determined how they were going go?

PH -- I think the Regions did. And here’s maybe another … at least at that time we were the very first gen… Joint Venture I think to start to get organized. Another thing that came into play is that we had two Regions -- Region 3 …

JC -- Right

PH -- … had two states, Minnesota and Iowa, that were part of the Prairie Pothole Joint Venture. We had another … a Regional Director there.

JC -- Right

PH -- And even though the Region 6 was more or less designated as the lead Region, Gaylan and Jim Gritman, who happened to be the Regional Director in Region 3, from a working relationship it became Co-chair, I mean, there were,… there was no seniority,

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there was, you know, any of that type of thing, or it was an equal type of responsibility. I remem… as just a little side note I guess, I can remember Gritman telling me, early on, I mean, I don’t know how long it was on the job, maybe a few weeks, he says ‘Hartman, you make sure that you never come over to my states and tell them what to do. You come to me first.’

JC -- [chuckles]

PH -- That set the sta…. and … and it was … it really helped my situation, ‘cause it was two less, or three less, entities that I had to deal with. And it wasn’t very long before they assigned Joint Venture responsibilities to Jerry Shotscoe, who happened to be … his title wasn’t Joint Venture Coordinator, but he shared the responsibilities in his Region, just like I did in Region 6. And again, it was … it made for a whole lot easier relationship … and getting things done in each Region. One of the more challenging things, I think, that I faced in the early days of the Prairie Pothole Joint [Venture], was just a simple matter of communications. We had two Regional Offices, with staff, refuges, dangerous species, all these other programs needed to be in the loop, at least to the extent of they knew what was happening, and what impacts they could alert us to, that were going to effect them one way or the other. We had five states. So, this is before the days of cell phones and internet, you know, emails. Telephoning, and trips and whatnot … I mean, it … and there was such a thing, and it’s a human reaction, everybody wanted to get the information at the same time. If I forgot somebody, you know, and I … there was hell to pay. And rightly so. But … so, the more we can streamline it and the more shared responsibilities we … we could … we could do between the two Regional … Regional Offices, and getting the word out to the states, and working with them, the better off we were. And that really worked well for us.

JC -- Okay. And, what about Marv Dunkan. His name comes up periodically in Joint Venture / early North American Plan discussions. Did he … was he a Region 6 employee …

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PH -- He was.

JC -- And what … what was his job?

PH -- Well, Marv’s job was financial manage… or, in charge of the budget for the Region and …

JC -- Okay.

PH -- … and Joint Venture started out with no money.

JC -- Yeah.

PH -- So we de…you know, he was … he was the one that juggled the paperwork to borrow, beg, steal -- money from other programs, to get the thing off and running. my salary, before the Joint Venture, was through the Small Wetlands Program and it continued that for the full two years that I was the Joint Venture … or [it was] just after I vacated that position and went on to become the Chief of Realty that National Wetlands Act … or Conservation Act came into play, and then money started to flowing, and it became self sufficient.

JC -- Okay.

PH -- My original salary … and Carol Lively came on-board shortly after we started, and she was kind of an assistant of mine, her salary and all that was paid with whatever program … where they came from.

JC -- Okay. And, I was going to ask you about other staff. And when I first started working with you, Carol was on an IPA. And it was kind of you and then … and technically, you got, you know, came to me for some help, and we did some traveling

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together and stuff. And … Carol, then, came back from that IPA, and talk a little bit about her role and how she fit into that [indecipherable].

PH -- Well, about … and I’m like Charles, you’re kind of really expecting a lot from an old man here in terms of memory and how things sequentially played out, but, our Joint Venture, you know, you some people say ‘well, what did you start out doing?’ Well, it didn’t … the implication that you start step by step implies that you do one first … one thing first, you finish, and you start … it didn’t happen that way. There were a whole bunch of things that were on the table at the same time. One of those was the preparation of the Prairie Pothole Joint Venture Plan. Carol, at least from my perspective, her strengths … and she was a very good writer, very analytical, good organizer in terms of not only people skills, but on paper, you know, putting reports together and all that, so her … her role, initially, as my assistant, if you want to call her that, and I don’t remember if that was her title or not, but, was to help me with those kinds of things. And she was a life saver in a lot of ways. And she … I depended on her to do … do a lot of the in-house stuff as the develop… as the … as we grew and as the thing started to unfold, my job was have suitcase will travel. And I was in the field – talking, meeting with states one on one, meeting with their staffs. Carol’s role was to pick up whatever had to be done in the office. And she stayed home, so to speak, and did the paperwork and satisfied the internal people, maybe, that came with questions while I was gone. Again, one of Gaylan’s pet peeve, I’m sure in the early years, is whenever he needed me, I was in the field someplace. So Carol played that role of being the sounding board when I was gone and stuff.

JC -- Okay. To, maybe to just wrap up one piece here, the … were you … did you work directly for Gaylan the entire two years you were …

PH -- Yes.

JC -- … there? Okay.

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PH -- Yup.

JC -- And then at, you know, I guess, when Mitch King, who was … who was the next Coordinator …

PH -- He was my successor.

JC -- … after you, during that transition, they decided that the Coordinator would work for the ARD for Refuges and Wildlife, so that happened right at that transition.

PH -- Well, Gaylan needed to put me under something, you know.

JC -- Yeah. Yeah. Well, it’s interesting, because, you know, Bob Croft, who was the first …

PH -- Oh, yeah.

JC -- … Regional Migratory Bird Coordinator, worked directly for the Regional Director, too. Which, by the time I got there, why, I was working for the ARD as in Refuges and Wildlife as well. So, one of the things that I don’t think we’ve talked about that much, is the … one of the advantages …. Well, there’s a couple of things that … unique that I think were advantages to you once you accepted this role, so that you could keep them from screwing up all the work that you’d done in the past, but, you know, Region 3 and Region 6 are unique in the US, because of their wetland management districts. And talk a little bit about that, ‘cause you had a very active role in that, but, was that an advantage to have those the Small Wetland Program in place in those wetland districts, that basically, matched the Prairie Pothole Region, was pretty much covered with wetland districts, was that an advantage? A disadvantage? How did that ….

PH -- Oh, yeah, it definitely was a huge advantage …. Like you indicated, the advantage being -- you’ve already got people on the ground that know the habitat, know the local

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people. And when it comes to assigning or identifying projects, they know where the needs are. not only the small … the refuge folks, and the wetland management districts, but we also had key advantage of Harvey Nelson -- the Executive Director for the North American Plan, former Director of the Northern Prairie Wildlife Research there. That research was all about breeding habitat, in the Prairie Pothole Region. He knew the biology of it. He knew all the state people, and the counterparts that they worked with in the flyways, and all that kind of stuff. Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center itself was a huge basket of information. I mean, Lew Cordon was doing things that we just took off of his desk and implemented, in some fact. and the GIS system that he was working at the time -- four square mile stuff, or study plots, where we could identify the needs, and be … in a quantifiable way of, okay, we have wetlands here. Then we took the Small Wetlands Program activity and used those as core areas within those four square mile plots, to build on. Okay, we got wetlands protected here. We don’t have any uplands. We got to do something here to do … you know, to protect the uplands. Or, we have this four square mile area’s got ‘x’ number of acres of grain wetlands, those wetlands became, you know, a focus point that we need to restore those wetlands. Well, that becomes a project. So, we had … we had just a wealth of information that we … that I’m sure maybe other Joint Ventures, you know, didn’t have the privilege of, at their fingertips. And our … and our stuff was right there. And all we had to do was just go and [‘tschooo’ sound]

JC -- Yeah, that … that was … that was going to be my follow up point, is that Northern Prairie and … at that time in 1988, already 20, 25 years, of waterfowl and wetland research that they’d done, and, I think, in my experience, that’s been a tremendous advantage to the Joint Venture and to our Region in … to setting priorities and focusing on areas.

PH -- Here’s a good example, and you probably remember this John, that and, again, I can’t remember how all things sequentially unfolded, but Forrest Lee was into, as I recall, into predator management type of … practical application of predator management on … on … on … on the ground. The four square mile, in a couple of cases, became target

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areas where they actually went out and fenced, did some predator fencing on these four square mile plots. Locally, in North Dakota, there was a very generous entrepreneur, who’s name was Bob Ingstead. And somehow, between his relationship … and he was a huge landowner in the Jamestown Valley City area. And he somehow they get … he’d develop a personal relationship with Forrest Lee. and he … so here’s a guy who’s got all kinds of land, and capital perhaps, he was … his … his … his main business in that area were numerous radio stations throughout North Dakota, Minnesota, and I think maybe, a few in Iowa, or something. and Forrest Lee, who’s got this neat activity that he … and … Bob’s love for hunting waterfowl, and his interest in doing something as a hobby, just happened to fall into place, by coincidence probable, but anyway, early years of the program we don’t have any money, right? So we … we’re all brainstorming and saying ‘well, how in the hell can we raise some money for this program?’ So Ingstead says ‘I got an idea.’ He says ‘I’m going to use the radio station, we’re going to dedicate one Saturday to this whole program, and all my radio stations.’ And I think they hired Tony Dean, from South Dakota, who was a sports caster, I think, out of South Dakota, as the host for this program. And we …

JC -- A radio-thon.

PH -- A radio-thon. There you go. Help me with the details here. But it was … it was called ‘Get Wild Saturday.’ and it turned out to be a question and answer, or they … Tony would say, you know, ‘how many ducks are produced in North Dakota’ or whatever he would say, you know, and the idea was for the callers, the listeners to call in with the correct answer, and if they got the correct answer, or anything that was seemed reasonable, they got a prize, right? And then we had some kind of a Bingo thing at the same time. And I don’t remember all the details exactly …

JC -- I don’t either …

PH -- … how that …

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JC -- … but I remember I … I won a print, you know, a signed, numbered, you know, Prairie Pothole …

PH -- Okay.

JC -- … print somehow, through a raffle or bingo or something.

PH -- Yeah. So the whole activity was generated by getting the word out about what was happening in North … in the Dakota’s and in hopes of getting private money to come to the table as sponsor of a particular project or particular activity or whatnot. Well, a long … to make a long story short, it didn’t really end up generating very much money. In fact, I think Mr. Ingstead lost money on … on the deal. But, those were the usual … we … we were trying to do everything, I mean …. And the immediate need, as we came … after we came together as a Joint Venture, is we needed money. And we didn’t know at the time that there was going to be any federal money coming down the pipe anytime soon. Another idea, if you remember right we … and I think it was Carol Lively’s idea, we were sitting ‘round the table and then she said, ‘you know, what we ought to do is get a credit card company to sponsor this program, and out of every [indecipherable] somebody buys a credit card with North American Plan on it for ‘x’ percent, you know, of their charges would go towards the program.’ Little did we know, that it wasn’t many years that became a very popular way. But …and everybody does their business that way now.

JC -- Right.

PH -- Railroad … I mean, airlines, everybody …. Well, that was one we kind of dropped the ball on. We never got that one to the stage either of where it needed to go, but that would have been a really … a moneymaker.

JC -- Yup. Yup.

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PH -- But anyway, those are the kind of things that we tried to deal with, at the same time that we’re setting up projects. Still getting the states to buy into this idea. Still getting the … Ducks Unlimited, Wildlife Management Institute … lot of these came to the table real quickly. And they came together with skills and talents ... not money – cash - so much, but expertise and ways of getting things done. And it took, you know, really, now, in retrospect, it happened a lot faster than I would have expected it. But it really did, at the time, thought ‘oh, we’re never going to get there.’ But we did. [indecipherable]

JC -- Well, the … and … talk about the first Management Board … and … you know, you had these two Regions, and … and … and so … and you had two strong personalities as Regional Directors, and you had five states. So, how … you know, was there a lot of thought that went into ... probably didn’t have to think too much about … you’re going to have the two Regional Directors, and you’re gonna try and get the Directors, or somebody, from those five states. And did … did the two RDs kind of facilitate that, or where … was it your responsibility to contact those states and kind of get them [indecipherable]

PH -- Well, as … the identification of them … I think, probably, what really happened was that our Management Board tried to mirror what was on the nationwide, or North American Implementation Board, those same types of players.

JC -- Okay.

PH -- The logical ones, that we all … everybody thought of at the same time, in terms of the … Ducks Unlimited and Wildlife Management Institute were … were givens. The states, obviously, if this thing was going to work we had to find a way for them to buy into it. And then, two states particularly -- North Dakota and South Dakota -- their initial reaction was ‘waterfowl is not a priority in our state; our residents, or our cliental, want pheasants.’ North Dakota it was deer. I mean, the same type of feedback. Or it … ‘we don’t have time to spend … or … doing this stuff for waterfowl. We need to ….’ So it was a matter of taking our North American goals, or our Prairie Pothole goals, and

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saying, ‘these are the goals, but you can sell this program for wintering habitat for pheasants, for wintering habitat for deer, just as easily.’ And it was those kind of early discussions … and … it again, it wasn’t the thing that we had to do a lot of convincing, but once we started talking in those terms, in the positive way of what can we do together, rather than negatively … which … there was that reaction at …. In fact, I think I mentioned this morning at one of the other sessions, I remember Dale Henniker from North Dakota shaking his finger at me and looking in the eye and he says ‘this program is not going to work unless the Service is willing to do business differently.’ In essence, what he said, you know, because of the regulations, because of the Small Wetlands history, his attitude was that ‘we are not going to let Fish and Wildlife …’ well that was kind of the way he said it … ‘we’re tired of the Fish and Wildlife Service telling us how to manage ducks in North Dakota.’ You know. And it … and it was, if this is going to be more of the same, he wasn’t going to have any part of it. And he was one of the last ones really to come to the table at the Joint Venture meetings …

JC -- Yeah.

PH -- … and his representative … so there was ….

JC -- So you had the … you had the states, and you had the two Regional Directors, and you had the Wildlife Management Institute, and I … was Keith …

PH -- And Ducks Unlimited.

JC -- … Keith Harmon …

PH -- Keith Harmon …

JC -- … And as I recall, he had an interesting role of being on the Management Board and the Technical Committee …

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PH -- I think that’s right.

JC -- I think he was even, maybe the Chair, of the Technical Committee …

PH -- I think you’re right.

JC -- … to begin with.

PH -- Yeah.

JC -- Ducks Unlimited, who …

PH -- Bob … Bob Meeks.

JC -- Bob Meeks. And were there any other NGOs back in those days …

PH -- Not that I can remember …

JC -- … that you recall?

PH -- … in the first two years, and I …

JC -- Okay.

PH -- I think, maybe later on, maybe, I don’t know, if Audubon came to the table later on.

JC -- And we had some … I know we had some ex-officio kind of … I mean, somebody from Northern Prairie … at least, at the Technical Committee meetings … seemed like [indecipherable]

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PH -- We … we always have like Skip Ladd or Dave Sharp …

JC -- Uhhum.

PH -- … in the …

JC -- Right.

PH -- … in on the meetings.

JC -- Right.

PH -- They weren’t sitting, maybe, at the table as a Board member. Northern Prairie was the same way.

JC -- [indecipherable] Yeah.

PH -- Northern Prairie the same way.

JC -- Okay. Let’s … one thing that we … and part of it is we just … it wasn’t our objective and we didn’t have a lot of time, but, and it’s my bias, because I was on the first Technical Committee of that Joint Venture, and several others, but, that, at least back in those days, that Technical Committee played a pretty key role. But it kind of mirrored then the Management Board. You talk about the Management Board was a lot like the Implementation …

PH -- Right.

JC -- … Board, in some ways. So, basically, you know, I was Gaylan’s tech rep … Steve Wilds, my counterpart in Region 3, was …

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PH -- Sure.

JC -- … Gritman’s tech rep. And then, each of the states had their waterfowl specialist on there. Like I said, Keith was on both. And one of the things I remember that the … and I can’t remember if the Management Board directed the Tech Committee to do this, but I remember it kind of became our role, to be kind of an intermediary between Northern Prairie and their scientists, and the Joint Venture, and make recommendations. And that’s how the Habit Offices came about …

PH -- That’s right.

JC -- … to transfer some of the technology. And even, I remember, Dick Smith had some … he said ‘this is no longer research to Northern Prairie’ ‘cause he was …

PH -- Uhhum.

JC -- … he was the AD, or whatever, for research. He says ‘you need’ you know, they … ‘either the Regions need to take this over and make this practical management application, or you need to quite. But, you need to go on to do some more research.’ And we had a role in making a recommendation to the Board whether this was something that we thought we should do, or …

PH -- Uhhum.

JC -- … or not. Well, you’ve already … you’ve already talked about some of the road blocks, but you’ve also talked about, you know, things really started to … to take off. talk some more about … you seem to be a little surprised that that some of this stuff really came together and … and ….

PH -- Oh, it was amazing.

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JC -- … took off.

PH -- It was amazing.

JC -- Yeah.

PH -- I mean, I think, once we got first the … and maybe it was like the first shock of what this all meant, and the ramifications of … of what it meant to each individual that was, you know, either sitting at the Management Board table, or people … directly, that I was working with, and like the … the states were doing the same thing. They assigned people to this … to this task, that were additional duties …

JC -- Uhhum.

PH -- … to what the jobs, you know, that they already had. And, at least for the two years that I was there, those state representatives that were assigned the actual grunt work to do staff work for the … I mean, this was over and above …

JC -- Right.

PH -- … what was in their job descriptions.

JC -- Yeah

PH -- So they … the … the hurdles … once … were short lived. I mean …

JC -- Okay.

PH -- … and they … and at the time, I can remember, the frustration that I had. and I can honestly say that this whole job was, probably the most challenging of my career, and … and the most frustrating -- all at the same time. And it was, you know, like, Bob Streeter

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and those folks coming from the North American, just about every trip that they made to the Region, it was with … ‘well you got to hurry up and … do this,’ you know. So it was … we never had time to finish, it was … we had to continue do … to get assignment that we had last month finished, while they gave us another one, you know, to catch up and get things, not only projects on the ground, but get the reports done. Just the nuts and bolts of getting the state to say ‘okay, we … you know, we can see benefit in this for us, too.’ And, more importantly, for the … for the resource as a whole. But, they had, in order to sell it internally, they had to be able to articulate what it’s … ‘what’s in it for me’ type of … type of an approach.

JC -- Okay.

PH -- But really, once that happened, and I can say, it seems at, you know, today, that it wa… it took only a matter of a few months before we got through that initial orientation and past the few, you know, the ego and the things that all of individual kind of look out and, you know, first approach something like this. and once that happened, I literally, I can remember in the mornings, getting up and think ‘okay, I got to get this done, this,’ and make myself a little shopping list of things I get … only to step in the office and never, ever, have the opportunity to do any one of them, because there were all these other things that were coming down and say, …

JC -- Right.

PH -- … you know …. And it was … not that … and I wasn’t being asked to do anything all by myself.

JC -- Uhhum.

PH -- But it was something that I had to … okay … had to call this guy over in …

JC -- Yeah.

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PH -- … Region 3, you know, Jerry, and say ‘okay, check with your state people and see …’

JC -- Yeah.

PH -- ‘… if we can do … how we can do this,’ or getting information from … from all the sources, you know, and ….

JC -- And you had really … you know, you didn’t supervise any of these …

PH -- I didn’t.

JC -- … people, you know.

PH -- No.

JC -- And it was all kind of negotiations ….

PH -- Yeah, it was just, hey now we got something new today …

JC -- Right.

PH -- We got … we gotta get going. And, without a doubt, the Dick Bishops, and the Rodger Holmes, and the Van Dells, and all these state people, would be calling me and say ‘hey,’ … with ideas and that …

JC -- Uhhum.

PH -- So, we were all on the same page real quick.

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JC -- Uhhum.

PH -- And it was my … my whole thing after that was hustling to keep up.

JC -- Right.

PH -- You know, everything was being done over here, and I was going, you know, I was … I thought I was supposed to be in the lead of this thing ….

JC -- Uhhum.

PH -- No. No. No. I was just one that was …

JC -- Yeah. Yeah.

PH -- … trying to hurry to keep up.

JC -- Uhhum.

PH -- And it all happened so quickly.

JC -- Yeah.

PH -- And it … we had … fortunately, for our Joint Venture, I can honestly say that we had the best -- not only scientists -- but people type persons, personalities, that I could’ve ever have hoped for. We all meshed so well together. And we all had the same ideas, almost simultaneously. It was …

JC -- It was great.

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PH -- … you know, like, it was … it was great. It was … like I say, it was the most rewarding job, and, at the same time, the frustration was high, too. Because there was so much to do all at once.

JC -- There was another unique thing happening, right at the same period of time, that has turned out, I think, to be another very, wonderful program, but it had… it had a unique relationship to me, because when I got to Denver, I had no budget. And it’s because Region 6 and Region 3 started a pilot, private lands program. And they did it with my budget. They did it before I got there. So I had no control over it. But, when I got to Denver, they said well, all the, you know, what’s now my base budget, you know, it was out there in the field, doing the … the pilot, private lands program. But that was a Prairie Pothole Region effort. And, it seems like that would be, you know, very compatible, with this Joint Venture concept and working with land owners. Now, I don’t know when you were involved … I know that you knew, you know, when I got there, a lot more about what was going on with that than I did, but …. Did that work into the mix with getting the Prairie Pothole Joint Venture started or ….

PH -- Without a doubt in my mind, it was the key to the … to the entire success of the Joint Venture. Probably to this day. And certainly initially. There wasn’t any way that the Fish and Wildlife Service … and understanding my background, Small Wetlands Acquisition Program / Realty -- we buy land to protect it and preserve it in perpetuity.

JC -- Right.

PH -- Um …

JC -- And that’s …

PH -- The way …

JC -- That’s all they would let us talk about -- in perpetuity -- in those days.

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PH -- Exactly. And that was what I was weaned on. I mean, that whole concept was what … was my whole background …

JC -- Right.

PH -- … in Fish and Wildlife Service, so it … when the … but it was real … a realization by, just about everybody I think, at the time, that the North American Plan came out, that these are population objectives. What kind of real estate base do we need to support that? And the idea was -- this is the population, whether it was the ‘70s, or whatever it was that was the target, we had this much real estate, so we must need it all. Whatever existed in the ‘70s, we must need it all to support that. And look at how much land we’ve lost, or habitat we’ve lost, in the ‘70s to the late 1980s. So you’d say, there’s no doubt, we need to protect it all. Well, there isn’t any way that the Fish and Wildlife Service -- any government entity – politically, or otherwise, was ever gonna buy enough land to make a difference. So, there’s was a quick transition. And I’d be first to admit, because of my background, I was the first one to be a little reluctant to say ‘okay, we’re gonna do short term stuff, on private land.’ And … but … Carl Madsen, God bless ya, and his … and his works … to me, that’s synonymous with the success of the North American Plan now and into the future. Because, without preserving habitat on private land, it ain’t gonna happen.

JC -- Yeah.

PH -- And behind all that is, not just protecting habitat, it’s protecting the mindset of people that work the land.

JC -- Right.

PH -- It’s the changing the land use that we’re talking about. We don’t necessarily have to convert lot of acres from one use to the other, but we have to convince people that, for

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their pocket, the money into their pocket, conservation measures of all kinds, land use conservation measures, enhance their pocketbook just as much as they enhance the waterfall and wildlife resource. So, that is where the big payoff is. And it’s hard, because of the day to day activities that we all get wrapped up in, we don’t see that happening. But I can assure you, I’ve been retired now for 11 years, and I’ve had the good fortune of working with the state of Colorado on a contract basis for about four years, and the concept that we started with – partnerships -- and what it does on the ground, has spread nationwide, in just about every agency …. I can assure you, the state of Colorado, they don’t do anything without a partnership concept. And they don’t do anything without private land input into their decision making process. That’s where the big payoff …

JC -- Yeah.

PH -- … is gonna to be down the road.

JC -- Well, from my perspective, as a Fish and Wildlife Service employee, and my first ten years before I came to Denver and joined in this effort, and other migratory bird conservation efforts in the Region …. You know, I grew up working on my granddads farm in north central Kansas. And my first ten years, you know, almost every day I’m fighting with farmers and ranchers, and a lot of our refuge managers and our wetland managers, you know, at some … one time or another, were in that position. And the Dakotas were about … as you know, could be about as nasty as any place that way. And I would often think about this. I say, you know, I went to high school … grade school, high school, worked, played sports, with people just like this. I know they’re good people. Why can’t we get along with these people? There’s got to be …. And, I know that … that a lot of them, not all of them - I don’t buy this ‘that every farmer and rancher is a conservationist,’ but a lot of them, you know, do really care about the land. I said there’s got to be some way to find some common ground here, and work together. So, between these two efforts -- the North American Plan and the partnerships, and the

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…what’s now the partners for Fish and Wildlife, I’ve said this … I’ve said this earlier this week, to me, changed the whole way that we did business.

PH -- Absolutely.

JC -- And virtually all in a positive … in a positive way.

PH -- And the ripple effect …

JC -- Yeah.

PH -- … goes from our agency …

JC -- Yeah. See this is …

PH -- … to other agencies, to our partners that we enlisted. And they work with other partners.

JC -- Right.

PH -- And pretty soon it … it’s a snowballing in effect. And it … it’s fantastic.

JC -- Yeah.

PH -- Another example, just in that same area in Colorado, and this happened right after I retired, I think about 1966 or, I think, about 1997 or so, and I was working for the state …. We had a Cattleman’s Association -- Colorado Cattleman’s Association – came, and through the efforts of a divisional wildlife, and probably some other partners that they had, came to the understanding that what’s good for agriculture … well, no, the other way around -- what’s good for wildlife, in terms of habitat, is good for agriculture. Based … and we did too, we came … I mean, they … everybody kind of comes … ‘oh, we can

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have different goals, but the means at which we reach those goals are mutual; they benefit your goals, they benefit my goals.’ Colorado con… or Cattleman’s Association developed their own easement acquisition program, to protect agricultural lands from … in Colorado, as you might imagine, from subdivision. Those are the culprits. That changes a man … major change in land use planning, and use. Because, you build houses …

JC -- Right. That … that …

PH -- Although I’ve seen mallards nest in …

JC -- Right.

PH -- … in bushes next to the house. I mean, it’s …

JC -- Yeah. And that put … that put the conservationist and the ranchers on the same side.

PH -- On the same page. Here we have agriculture group now taking the lead on an easement program. And private land trusts that have a wildlife base, or, you know, interest, dovetailing into their program, rather than the other way around. I mean, it’s a real change of events.

JC -- Yeah.

PH -- And I think that’s … that’s happening all … everywhere.

JC -- You talked about, in the panel earlier, you were asked what kind of advice you might give somebody today. So you’ve already covered that. But it’s … have in … in your role as a … as a contractor, have you been able to facilitate this partnership goal ….

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PH -- Many times.

JC -- Because of … because of your experience with the North American …

PH -- Many times.

JC -- … Plan, you’ve been able to apply that?

PH -- You betcha. in fact … of course, in my limited role these days, I could virtually say there isn’t any activity, whether its in our volunteer basis, and I do some volunteering for a couple of refuges there in the Denver metropolitan area, I still help the states do some things, I volunteer on a land trust, private land trust, in the winter park / middle park area … its all partnership. That’s why I was saying before, I mean, the ripple effect is … its success. You can’t beat success. And other people, seeing how it works, and it a … but the genesis … from, you know, from our experience, all started with the North American Plan. And it didn’t only benefit Fish and Wildlife Service, and the way we do business.

JC -- Right.

PH -- It’s … it’s benefited a lot of other conservation groups.

JC -- Well, I … I think that we’ve, you know, covered most of the things that I wanted to talk about. Do you have any final thoughts that you’d like to share as we end this?

PH -- Well, I … I [indecipherable] … you know, the new Joint Ventures, or maybe even some existing Joint Venture Coordinators that … kind of wondering, you know, are we doing any good type of thing, I can assure you that they are doing; they are doing good. And when you’re involved in the day to day activity, it’s hard to see that. And especially when you’re talking in terms of the … changing the land use ethic that work that we just talked about ….

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JC -- It’s a cultural …

[indecipherable]

Both -- It’s a cultural change.

JC -- Yeah.

PH -- And it takes time. But, looking back now and, you know, believe it or not, we’re talking about 1980, that’s 20 years, looking back now, you can see, from the way we did business back in 1988 and the late 19… even the beginning of the Joint Venture, and what I see happening with … with other conservation groups, and the big spin-off benefit that I see happening, aside from the partnerships, are the proliferation of private land trusts, at least in the country ...

JC -- Yeah.

PH -- … in Colorado country.

JC -- Yeah.

PH -- I don’t know if … I can’t speak for the rest of the …

JC -- Yeah, I think it’s …

PH -- That’s a …

JC -- … nationwide.

PH -- Those … those are all private people.

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JC -- Right.

PH -- They’re paid, or volunteer, doesn’t make any difference. But they are the grassroots of the conservation movement, or activity, at probably today. They’re … they match funds; they apply for grants; they’ve got a volunteer network, you know, that … that it is, in some cases, as big as Fish and Wildlife Service.

JC -- Right.

PH -- So, the whole proliferation of all this stuff … so it …

JC -- Yeah.

PH -- The work that those folks that are involved in the … the trenches on the day [to day], be patient.

JC -- Right.

PH -- Get your job satisfaction in … in small bits.

JC -- Uhhum.

PH -- Because the big picture won’t come all together, maybe until you’re gone, or all those little pieces ….

JC -- Right.

PH -- … of satisfaction, all the little things that you accomplished, all of a sudden are very visible and you see the big picture, you know, finally. Sometimes you have to retire to get it.

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JC -- Yeah. Well, and it …

PH -- If … if only …

JC -- Right. And … and one other thing sin… you hit … hit on this, and I’ve tried to apply this periodically in my career, we never are satisfied. Things never happen as … as fast as we like, or quite the way we like. This session is a good example, you know, you guys ruined my game plan the first thing. No. I’m just kidding. But, I mean, you have to be adaptable, for one thing. But, even though you get frustrated, and you think you’re not going anywhere, you have to look back, just like you said, to where you started, and then, you know, sometimes, you know, where you were ten years later, which is still ten years ago, and it’s remarkable how much we actually have accomplished.

PH -- It … it’s amazing.

JC -- But you have to remember to look back, and relax a little bit, and give yourself some credit. Say, well, you know, we … we did okay. And, that doesn’t mean were going to slow down, but, we shouldn’t be as frustrated, we should be a little bit more patient. And we should be proud of what we’ve done.

PH -- The other thing is -- give yourself credit for those things that do … whether they happen by coincidence, or whatever. Take credit for those, ‘cause there’s some… probably something else that you did a while back …

JC -- Yeah.

PH -- … that lead to the coincidence that took place there. And in that same vein, give credit to those others. They’re your partners, and the people that are working with you so hard. They need a stroke on the back too, every once in a while, and … and … and ….

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JC -- That’s …

PH -- A little … a little credit goes a long ways.

JC -- Yeah. That’s … that’s excellent advice.

PH -- Amen.

JC -- Okay. I … thank you very much. I ….

PH -- My pleasure.

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