Two days before leaving home I sat in a meeting on Stewardship. One of the speakers defined visionary leaders as "those that have their necks out there a mile. They have the courage to do something bigger than themselves." As you will see shortly, with your active support ANPR will be the leaders that do something bigger than ourselves.

Over the past year, the leadership of ANPR has been highly successful in advancing our advocacy program at all levels. We have been moderately successful, to partly successful in achieving our social enrichment goals. But we are failing at perpetuating this Association.

Years ago ANPR President Rick Gale asked, "Who will do the work of this Association?" The work of this Association, I am happy to report, is not the concern that it once was; it is being enthusiastically, aggressively and admirably accomplished by perhaps the broadest group of member volunteers ever, starting with your elected officers and backed by active committee members and three of the greatest paid staff that any Association has ever had. We have been successful at recruiting volunteers and focusing them to accomplish the work of this Association.

John F. Kennedy had a vision of putting a man on the moon at a time when the country did not have the technology to do it. The nation could see the moon and wondered what it would be like. As a nation we found a way of realizing his vision. When I was elected as your President two years ago, I advanced a vision of ANPR as the premier organization embracing rangers at heart - that is, employees of the NPS that carry in their hearts, and their jobs, the values that our predecessors established as the ranger contribution to the NPS mission. I set out to communicate that vision and validate it. The membership and the Board embraced the Ranger at Heart concept and incorporated the notion into our organizational culture and institutionalized it in our by-laws. The Board has built on this concept; has set goals and establish teams empowered to work on achieving those goals. ANPR is firmly on track in this regard. You can track ANPR's accomplishments every quarter in Ranger magazine.

It is not enough in these times to be doing the right thing - to be the dynamic organization for rangers and employees that are rangers at heart. Two years ago we set out to take the burden of sustaining this Association off the backs of the membership. We hired an additional paid staff member, Executive Director Jeff McFarland, and we set out to get grants that would help sustain the work of this Association.

I don't know if we were naive or not. We are working with a Corporate Advisory Group to re-align our external persona to make ourselves more attractive to granting institutions. As much as we are committed to our profession; to working on a legacy of resource stewardship; as an organization we are finding that we have little to offer to the community of Grant-giving institutions. We aren't set up to give them publicity on the scale that they desire; we can't grant any kind of rights and little acknowledgement. We do the good work but that in itself doesn't make people want to give us money. This advisory group is working to help us change that. We may not be able to achieve the goal of over half of our income coming from sources other than dues in three years as hoped. We will achieve some supplementing income because we are doing legacy work and a few institutions are set up to recognize this work.

Twenty-five years ago rangers were focused on worklife issues and this Association made a difference in housing, grades, job series, and Ranger Careers. Today Privatization threatens the very same jobs that we fought two decades ago to create. Other initiatives such as E-government, stove piping of reality and appraisal functions, potential stove piping of administrative functions, and others, threaten to take all of us out of the field and make every permanent employee a project manager, compliance specialist, or planner. Internally, morale is the lowest in anyone's memory. It is as critical to day as it was 27 yeas ago that ANPR work on behalf of rangers - maybe more so.

Our goal to be a forum for social enrichment requires more attention than ever. ANPR still has hard, necessary work to do. We have the commitment of the Board and committees to tackle these issues. But that is not enough. Good work; committed members, Board and staff and a wealth of volunteers are not enough. We are like a rock climbing team that has scaled the wall only to find an angle of rock. We must determine if we have the support crew to continue. After 27 years I may be the President that has to propose to the membership and to the Board that we close the books on this Association.

It is not enough to have the vision; to make good progress on identified goals; or to be committed to working towards the legacy that we all feel in our hearts. It is not enough to know who is going to do the work of this Association, or to empower them to get that work done.

We must also have new members to establish our base of support. We are failing at recruiting and sustaining our membership. The old methods are not as effective as they once were. As I've already said, ANPR still works to better the professional and social standing of rangers and rangers at heart. In so doing ALL employees benefited from our work. When we achieved our goals in Ranger Careers, all benefited, not just those in ANPR. And that is the way it should be. When we partly achieved our goals in housing, 025/026 disparity, professional development, training opportunities and so on, all benefited. And that is how it should be. ANPR is providing a legacy. Why join this Association when you can enjoy the professional benefits anyway? Why join when family and career concerns are so paramount today? Why join when NPS morale continues to decline despite successes; when most employees are hunkered down in a survival mode? When most people are at the lowest level of Maslo's triangle-at the level of concern for family, shelter and food, why join?

We have a widening gap between the vision and goals of this Association and the reality of today's National Park Service. This Association is not reaching potential new members - those 17,000 NPS employees that are rangers at heart -because of this gap. Bridge this gap we must. Our rock climbing team is frozen on the face because we don't know how to assault the next pitch. In my view - and that of your Board of Directors - ANPR must provide the leadership to move NPS employees out of the Basic Survival mode. ANPR's leadership, and indeed the leadership of each and every one of us individually and collectively needs to overcome initiatives that de-value our work. We must overcome Privatization and weakening of environmental protections. How can we do this? Students of NPS history will recognize the term "Mission 66." That was the 10-year NPS-driven vision to re-build the crumbling infrastructure by our 50th Anniversary in 1966. Starting today every member of ANPR needs to contribute to, become an advocate and ambassador for, and become committed to achieving "Mission 16." In 2016, on the 100th Anniversary of the National Park Service, ANPR must have lead the way to re-building the resource stewardship capacity of the National Park Service!

Rebuild the resource stewardship capacity of the NPS. Not just rebuild, but build it better, more modern, able to stand up to the needs of the 21st century and beyond. What does "building the resource stewardship capacity of the NPS," mean? This is where the commitment of every ANPR member comes in. Over the next 2-3 years we must define it, flesh it out, and craft the messages so that all of our various publics can understand and get behind it. We need to start now in order to have enough steam behind it that is launches successfully in 2006 to build to its climax in 2016.

Your Board of Directors has taken some initial steps. We are well on our way to having the name "Mission 16" trademarked, along with some basic messages, so that we have a controlling interest to stay involved when others pick up the program. We have a vision paper that we will share with you in this afternoon's focus groups. A vision paper only. You must provide the leadership to help craft the rest. Right now ANPR needs sustained leadership to work on four key groups:

1. Over all strategy and vision/background report
2. Statistical baseline and projections.
3. Public Relations and Outreach
4. Membership Enhancement

Other work groups will be needed soon: work on a certified recreation professional program, work on a report on the ethical foundation of stewardship, and work on refinements to the initial white paper. This won't happen with just the commitment of the Board of Directors. This will only happen with the daily commitment - the daily commitment - of each and every member and potential new member. The commitment to carry Mission 16 to every employee in the Park Service.

Why do I keep mentioning that point? At the beginning of this address I said that traditional modes of operations for ANPR are meeting our social enrichment and advocacy needs. We are not achieving our membership goal. Only the commitment from every ANPR member - the commitment to take this to every potential new member - the commitment to enlist those new members - nothing short of this level of commitment will insure success.

As rangers and rangers at heart, we can no longer afford to be shy about tooting our horn. No one else is going to do it for us! We must take every opportunity to help others see that we are doing the honorable legacy work to provide resource stewardship for the National Parks and the nation. We cannot be shy about saying that we need help. Once again, all NPS employees will benefit from our good work; only this time ANPR cannot be effective without the leadership and membership of a good portion of the NPS workforce. There is too much at stake. There is too much to be done. Without active internal support and eventually National support for the vision and goals of Mission 16, the National Park Service as we know it is in serious jeopardy. Only your leadership and that of our fellow employees, as ANPR members, can overcome the obstacles and bring the appropriate messages to the appropriate audiences.

John F. Kennedy was something of a hero of mine. Earlier I used an example of how he created a vision for something that was impossible given the state of technology of the time. This vision for Mission 16 is impossible given the state of the Association today. So I'd like to paraphrase Kennedy. It is time that we ask not what ANPR will do for my career and me; we must ask what we can do for the leadership of ANPR. By that I mean that we must take the initiative and the leap of faith that Mission 16 will be successful. Indeed it is the best hope that we have right now of providing our agency with the critical capacity to meet its Mission.

Thank you.