Brace Hayden
Brace Hayden, the regional issues specialist at Glacier National Park, works to resolve issues that impact the park from outside the park’s boundaries. Hayden is also responsible for issues involving approximately 80 private landowners within Glacier National Park. He and his wife, Kathleen, live in Kalispell. They have three grown children.
Interviewed by Steve Thompson, Senior Program Manager, Glacier Field Office
What does a “regional issues specialist” do?
When I was working for Governor Schwinden back in 1989, former Glacier Superintendent Gil Lusk and Flathead Forest Supervisor Ed Brannon approached me after a meeting of the Flathead Basin Commission and asked me if I’d be interested in helping the park work on external issues. Gil wanted someone on the staff to focus on what was happening on the edges of the park in terms of logging, oil and gas development, illegal livestock trespass, and growth issues.
One of the early things we did was help raise approximately $60,000 so that a neighborhood group in the Canyon could prepare a citizen-initiated land-use plan with the help of a professional planner. That’s an area where we’ve really been able to help: Providing expertise and coordination, helping raise money, and being the glue that help makes things work. But it is critical that the lead on such external planning endeavors be local citizens and not governmental agencies.
How did you end up moving from state government to the Park Service?
In my capacity as the natural resource advisor for Governor Schwinden in the late 1980s, I served as executive director of the Flathead Basin Commission [an interagency commission, with citizen representation, charged with protecting water quality in the Flathead Basin]. I got very involved in the Cabin Creek coal mine proposed in the Canadian Flathead, representing the governor. So I worked very closely with the Park Service. Gil Lusk, Glacier’s superintendent at the time, was a visionary, sort of a big-picture philosopher, and he saw the importance of the Park Service providing leadership on these types of issues in the Crown of the Continent.
Tell us about the Crown of the Continent.
The idea of the Crown of the Continent goes back to the George Bird Grinnell report in 1895. It’s become a common term to describe the greater ecosystem, not just Waterton- Glacier but the surrounding area in Alberta, British Columbia and Montana. You can’t put a fence around the park and manage from the signs inwards. That’s how many people traditionally looked at parks. But the Park Service has placed an increasing emphasis on ecosystems, a recognition that parks are not islands.
I’ve really enjoyed working with the people at Waterton. Some of the work [Chief Warden] Bill Dolan has done in Waterton really makes my heart sing. Working with The Nature Conservancy of Canada and ranchers to protect that native prairie on the doorstep of Waterton. That’s just a huge inspiration and a great example of cooperation across borders.
You were instrumental in creating a regular forum for the many natural resource managers in the Crown of the Continent region. What’s that all about?
The Crown Managers’ Partnership was conceived by the two parks. Waterton and Glacier have this close working relationship, and we wanted to foster that same cooperation with adjoining agencies and tribes. We’ve been able to work on cross-border issues such as cumulative effects and transboundary wildlife. At present, the members of the Crown Managers Partnership are focusing their work plan on fostering discussion and eventually achieving consensus on defi ning a healthy Crown ecosystem.
I think we’ve been successful at building bridges. There are always issues of continuity and budgets and different missions. But I’m optimistic; I really am, because there’s been a continuing commitment to the concept of working together across borders. Everyone always gets tugged in different directions, but we’ve been able to maintain a commitment by key leaders.
Any advice for NPCA?
One of the things I’ve appreciated during my career in government over 30 years is that the dynamics of good government require an involved citizenry. You can embolden the Park Service to do a better job. Sometimes that might be adversarial, and that’s part of the dynamic. But we defi nitely need the active involvement of groups like NPCA.
