Oh really!
Yes, as a result of that sickness. When I arrived there, employees were taking advantage of having a full-time nurse on board. The nurse happened to be the wife of one of the equipment operators. That was very convenient, but it was a result of a reaction to the Water Crisis. There was some good that came out of it, with increased employee morale. They’d come a long way, but there were some other things that weren’t moving along as fast as we would have liked.
Was that one of the reason why Russ Dickenson sent you down there (33)?
Part of it perhaps, yes. Again, this was kind of a programmatic thing. It wasn’t just me and Frank Betts, who was the superintendent of Crater Lake at the time. Frank was kind of anxious to have another bone to chew on, so to speak. There was a employee morale. They’d come a long way. But there were some other things that weren’t moving along as fast as we would have liked.
Was that one of the reasons why Russ Dickenson sent you down there (33)?
Perhaps that was it, yes. Again this was kind of a programmatic thing. It wasn’t just me and Frank Betts, who was the superintendent of Crater Lake at the time. Frank was kind of anxious to have another bone to chew on, so to speak. There was a superintendent at Mount McKinley who was looking for a different climate. I had not been aggressively seeking a new position at that point. Russ was aware that my interest lay in a full time park management position. There was a kind of four way deal which Russ arranged that came about through a series of phone calls to all four of us in one evening. It allowed for Dan Kuehn, superintendent of Mt. McKinley, to replace me in my role at the regional office. I would be going to Crater Lake while Frank Betts would be going to Mount McKinley. There was another individual involved, but that part of the four way dual didn’t work out. This just included the three of us, so it didn’t involve applying for the job. Everybody seemed to be pleased with these moves.
It was just a lateral transfer?
Yes. It gave everybody a little bone to chew on, rather than being due to anybody’s deficiencies or something like that. I think it was good for the health of the Park Service in general.
