wilderness society for some few decades or more, and as of 2014, serves as vice chair of the organization s governing townsy. council. my own role working with the national parks service goes back to the first collaborative agreement signed in 1994-95 when i was president of oah and i ve worked in philadelphia with the independence national historic parks and others and was one of the co-authors of imperilled promise that i ll speak about after bob stanton talks, and i was a member of the second century commission which delivered the report to congress on the state of affairs in the national parks service. so with those introductions, i ll turn to bob stanton, who s going to reflect on all these years in the parks service and some of the problems he sees. he or she is a better citizen with a keener appreciation of living here in the united states, who has toured the national parks. steven mather, the first director of the national parks service. good afternoon. it s a ple
the national parks service done by four members of oeh and issued a few years back. so bob stanton here to my right. grew up in ft. worth. he was recruited into a summer seasonal job while he was a student at houston hiliton college. that began a long career stretching out some 54 years in the nation s service as a stalwart member of the national parks service. so he started at the bottom in grand teton national park and worked his way all the way to the top when bill clinton, president bill clinton appointed him the director of the national parks service from 1997 to 2001. before that, he was superintendent of national capital park in the d.c. area as a virginia islands national park. he then served as regional director for the national capital region. and then he made the mistake of retiring, which meant that he was even in greater demand. and so he has served as senior adviser to the secretary of the department of interior, and then was appointed by president obama in 2014
matter. the agency is real. but there are these larger forces that impose these great constraints. and yet, when you get to the presidency, you actually start to see wow, this individual s one particular decision did matter. and that s not always true in other realms. and it does take you back to character. and it s why i think that character, both for great presidents and for the worst presidents, reenters the picture where these discussions of which are very important discussions to have. what was nixon s native american policy? or what was such and such position on this? important questions. but they don t speak to the presidents and the hold that they have over our imagination. and in a way, that s what discussion is about. and with that, i want to thank the audience for your attention, your wonderful questions, your wonderful tweets, and i want to thank the panel and say what a great pleasure it has been to share the stage with three such wonderful thinkers, but also
national parks. steven mather, the first director of the national parks service. good afternoon. it s a pleasure to be with you. and let me hasten to thank bill and gary, two pillars, if you will, two scholars and two outstanding friends of your national parks and your national parks service, that have known and worked with these gentlemen for many, many years. but also, to thank the leadership of the organization of american historians for the gracious invitation to be with you. when i think about it, scholars among all of you, and coupled with the opportunity to speak about an agency that i ve been associated with directly and indirectly for over half of a century, it s difficult to discipline my long windedness, because it is something that i cherish the opportunity to share the richness of the national parks and the responsibilities of the park service with such an audience. but i will attempt to be brief, because we want to allow for some opportunity to interact with you
but they didn t say exactly where. what happened was, the individual, the commissary sergeant, or whoever was in charge of the supplies in richmond, then sent a message back to the turnbull house, to lee s headquarters, asking for more specific instructions. but what had happened as tracy again mentioned, these union sixth army corps that morning had broken through the confederate lines,j basically were pamplin park is if you re familiar with that area, they broke through the union lines and lee was then forced to abandon his headquarters, so when that second message came for where do we send them, nobody was there to receive them. and that s to me and that comes out of the four volume seat of r.e. lee, it s an appendensy in the back of volume number 4. i think knowing that area quite -ñ well, i think that s probably is what happened. anyone else have a question? ron has a question. he is making his way to the microphone. i will throw something out for chris here. it s