National Park Service Acquisition Function — The U.S. Government Accountability Office issued a report in September 2005 entitled “Framework for Assessing the Acquisition Function at Federal Agencies.” To review the GAO framework, visit http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05218g.pdf. The Department of the Interior is using this framework when conducting acquisition and financial assistance reviews in all of the bureaus. The NPS had an acquisition review in April 2006, and a draft report was issued in September 2006.

Like many federal agencies, the NPS increasingly relies on contractors to help accomplish our mission. Because of the amount of money spent each year on goods and services, it’s essential that the NPS handles acquisitions in an efficient, effective and accountable manner.

The GAO and the department continue to identify systemic weaknesses in key areas of acquisition. Many acquisition functions have been identified that have great vulnerability to fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement. When the final report is issued, we may see some sweeping changes to our acquisition function.

The GAO framework identifies four fundamental elements that are essential to an efficient, effective and accountable acquisition process:

• organizational alignment and leadership
• policies and processes
• human capital
• knowledge and information management.

Similar to other administrative operations, the NPS acquisition function is basically decentralized. Contracting employees at parks are hired and supervised by either superintendents or administrative officers. Contracting personnel at parks are generally hired with little or no input from, or coordination with, the NPS procurement chief or regional contracting chiefs.

As stated in the GAO framework:

“An acquisition function that is successful at effectively and efficiently meeting the agency’s missions generally reflects a consistent, cross-functional and multidisciplinary approach. This approach requires engagement by all relevant stakeholders, including representatives from program offices, contracting officials, financial managers, human capital officials, information technology officials and other appropriate participants. An integrated approach helps agencies better define their needs and identify, select and manage providers of goods and services.”

Top NPS executive leadership commitment is needed to successfully manage the contracting function. Our leadership must establish and maintain an environment that fosters a positive and supportive attitude toward internal control and risk mitigation. Management must support full, open and effective communication throughout the contracting function, especially as it relates to internal control and continuous improvement in the way in which the NPS acquires goods and services.

As reported by the NPS to the Federal Financial Assistance Awards System, the Service awards an estimated four percent (nearly $120 million) of the approximately $2.7 billion in grant and cooperative agreement obligations awarded by the Department of the Interior annually. It accounts for more than 11 percent (1,900 actions) of DOI’s annual grant and cooperative agreement award actions (an average of 17,000 actions).

In fiscal year 2005, new definitive NPS procurement awards, as reported to the Federal Procurement Data System – Next Generation (FPDS-NG), exceeded $487 million, more than 14 percent of DOI’s over $3.3 billion in procurement obligations. The new definitive actions (i.e., excludes follow-on actions, modifications) accounted for more than 17 percent (10,975 actions) of the department’s 62,493 total actions awarded.

As reported to FPDS-NG, in fiscal years 2003 through 2005, the top products/services (as measured by total dollars awarded) acquired by NPS included:

• commercial and institutional building construction
• water, sewer and pipeline construction
• highway, street and bridge construction
• all other heavy construction
• architectural services
• engineering services
• other apparel accessories and other apparel manufacturing
• radio and television broadcasting and wireless communications equipment
• security guards and patrol services

As of April 2006, NPS employees held an estimated 27 percent (431 warrants) of the more than 1,600 contracting officers’ warrants issued departmentwide.

The final report of the 2006 NPS review is sure to change the acquisition function Servicewide. As you can see, it’s one of many complex administrative operations in our agency.

Interpretation

Sharing our best techniques — It was a relief to see the memorandum in January from NPS Director Mary Bomar about her belief in an interpretive renaissance. I feel like a corner has been turned. As interpretation continues to grow and philosophically establish itself as a bedrock function in parks, I started thinking about something I’d been pondering to help interpreters help each other.

Have you ever thought up an interpretive technique, used it and found that it worked? Isn’t that a great moment? You invented a tool that you used deftly to effect a change in the perspective of a park visitor. Did you share it with other interpreters or keep it secret? Hopefully you shared your technique. Would it help if a mechanism was in place to store and disseminate it to all interpreters?

To support the renaissance, we need a professional interpretive library. The cornerstone of this library would be a digital database, not dusty books. Interpreters would log in and post proven methods they develop. These would be free for other interpreters to use. This library would archive and protect not only interpretive knowledge but also field experiences such as harrowing, on-the-spot interpretive challenges that were resolved with skilled techniques.

While we have the InTouch forum on InsideNPS, we need to develop a more sophisticated, searchable interpretive library and then use this library often. Guidance from Ph.D.s in information handling, such as science, psychology, politics, theology, propaganda, debate and journalism, could hone the various components of the interpretive arts, since what we do includes a little of all of the above. They would help us understand why what we do is effective and how to enhance that effectiveness.

The military uses something similar. It keeps records chronicling battles, both successful and failed. Military students study those techniques for the challenges they will face one day. We should do the same because we are in a battle with visitors’ relationships with park resources. Parks have inherent values that need stewardship. Visitors have both the potential to bring indifference and a capacity to exploit. Our challenge is to facilitate a successful contact between visitors and parks. We need to better the visitor and protect the park.

What interpretive techniques protect parks? To answer this, we could study the effective techniques of other interpreters if such a collection of ideas existed. We’ve fought a lot of interpretive battles in parks through the years and have mastered those challenges. Let’s save our creative energy to deal with new challenges that the NPS is facing. No sense wasting our precious time reinventing the wheel.

Thinking about the interpreters I’ve worked with, I seldom see us share our interpretive concepts, meanings and connections. We freely share tangible facts or steal a joke that warms up the crowd, but we keep our slam-dunk interpretive techniques to ourselves.

I think this has been an instilled value by default. Our predecessors didn’t share concepts, and often today neither do we. Do we think that it is our job to create our own ideas? Are secondhand ideas an anathema? We’ve got to change how we see the ideas of our colleagues. They are tools to be shared. If you were holding a walnut, would you pass up the offer of a nutcracker just because someone else found the tool, not you? It would be absurd to say “No thanks, I must find a new way to crack this open.”

The practice of interpretation is usually a solitary pursuit. We craft programs on our own, write interpretive text alone and deal with the masses alone. It is tough asking for help when we struggled in our early years to become confident and self-reliant. This lone-ranger mentality is a double-edged sword. While it may cut through visitor indifference, it cuts the cords that could connect colleagues. We see interpretive skill as exclusively self-generated. We pass up opportunities to help others because of how we view our job and how we came to master it. It’s a vanity thing.

I get a rush when I design an effective interpretive moment. Every so often, I serendipitously hear an idea from someone else I just have to use. But, how often do we intentionally seek out points of view and the successful techniques of others in our profession? Our isolationist tendencies inhibit our individual professional growth. When we quit doing a program or retire, our tools get thrown out instead of saved. This holds us back.

I want to see a library one day full of ideas from interpreters. I want themes, interpretive techniques and philosophical concepts readily available and freely read. I want to see the ideas adopted by others and used in new ways. I want interpreters to expect that this library exists. It should be a performance standard to contribute to this network of ideas. We should all take time to share ideas with others. At your park, carve some staff time out of the week to discuss your interpretive successes, mistakes or challenges. It can only make us stronger and do more to support the renaissance in interpretation.

Protection

Infantry Skills during Deadly Force Encounters — I have long been intrigued by the parallels between rangering and soldiering. On any given day, park rangers are faced with situations that require a command of skills that novice infantrymen have mastered. Marksmanship, cover and concealment, land navigation, radio communications, and even something as basic as wearing the uniform well are all skills that both park rangers and soldiers must be able to perform expertly.

It would benefit us to educate ourselves in infantry training methodologies so that we will be as well-equipped as possible when a situation requires such skills. One area where this applies full-on but is rarely taught and practiced in the National Park Service, is the use of individual movement techniques (IMT) in the event of a deadly force encounter.

Specifically, I’m referring to the three staples of IMT drilled into troops in any military basic infantry training:

• the low crawl
• the high crawl
• the three- to five-second rush

It’s an almost instinctive thing for most folks to hit the ground whenever shots are fired in their general direction. But then what? In seasonal academies and in FLETC we’re taught to seek cover as quickly as possible and return fire if we have positive target acquisition. But when I went through both, they didn’t go into great detail on how to seek cover, especially if it is located a fair distance away.

That’s where IMT becomes an indispensable skill. The problem is that IMT is not instinctive. It must be learned, and the NPS needs to begin teaching it.

Here is a primer.

The Low Crawl

Use this technique whenever hostile fire is imminent and cover is not too far away. Of the three, it’s the slowest but the lowest. It works best whenever you have a fellow officer who can cover your movement with suppressive fire (the right way to do this is a subject for another time).

Hit the ground and get as flat as you possibly can. Visually locate the closest cover and point yourself in that direction. Put your left ear on the ground, and I mean on the ground! Dig it in. Get dirty. If not, you will be shot. Keep your eyes open so you can see the threat as well as the cover you’re about to move to.

Resist the urge to lift your head, even for a second, for any reason. Anyone who has seen the movie Band of Brothers will remember the scene where a troop got capped in the head when he looked up just a few inches to communicate with another soldier.

With your right hand, grasp your rifle by its sling at the front sight post. Bend your arm 90 degrees, laying the rifle across your forearm and bicep. This keeps the weapon out of the dirt. If you only have a pistol, carry it flat in your right hand. Reach your left hand as far out in front of you as you can and claw the earth. Cock your right leg toward your right elbow as far as you can get it, then purchase a good foothold with the inside edge of your right boot. Now, you’re ready to move.

Stay flat! Pull with your left hand and simultaneously push with your right foot. This action will move you toward the cover. Repeat this action moving as quickly as you can until you arrive at the cover. Remember you are only using your left arm and right leg to move yourself. Your right arm is only a platform for your long gun and your left leg just drags behind you.

The High Crawl

This technique is best applied to situations where cover is a little farther away and you have to move a little faster. It is the middle-speed/middle-silhouette of the three.

Hit the ground. This time, raise your head and chest up just high enough so that you can rest on both your elbows. Cradle your rifle flat inside the crooks formed between your biceps and forearms and wrap your hands overtop the pistol grip, magazine and carrying handle.

Cock your left elbow as far forward as you can, and do the same with your right leg, once again gaining a good foothold with the inside edge of your right boot. Visually locate the cover that you seek. OK, ready to move.

Pull with your left elbow and push with your right boot at the same time. The next step is to repeat the action with the opposite arm and leg. The difference here is that you will use both arms and both legs to move yourself forward. Continue this alternating action until you reach cover. Yes, this one hurts a bit, but not nearly as much as hot lead.

The 3- to 5-Second Rush

The final IMT is the fastest, but it comes at the price of being the most highly silhouetted. It is used whenever cover is a long way off and there is a lull in the firing. Covering fire is almost a necessity with this technique.

After hitting the ground, tell your buddy to cover you while you move. Eyeball cover that you know you can reach in three to five seconds and face it. From the prone position, place your rifle on the ground under the flat of your right hand and palm the earth with your left hand. Cock your right foot forward, with its heel raised (and you thought the agility run would never have real-life value). Ready to move.

Thrust yourself upward and forward into a sprinting position and do exactly that — sprint or “rush” toward the cover carrying your rifle at port arms. Resist the urge to rush for longer than 3 to 5 seconds, since this is about how much time it will take the enemy to acquire you in his crosshairs. To keep your time down, repeat out loud the following mantra as soon as you get on your feet: “I’m up, I’m moving, I’m down!” By the time you say the word “down,” you had better be back on the ground.

Upon reaching cover, hit your knees, orient your rifle vertically, muzzle up and fall forward breaking your fall with the rifle’s buttstock. Immediately assume the prone firing position, gain good shoulder and cheek welds, and acquire your threat. Now cover your buddy while he does the same thing.

Lastly, with all of these, remember a couple core tenets of IMT:

• The only reason to leave cover is to seek better cover.
• These techniques can save your life. Master them.
• Each of these works best when coupled with covering fire from a buddy.
• Any time you can use cover while you are moving, such as a ditch, berm, fallen log, do so.
• You will not be too smooth at any of them right away. Each requires practice.
• And finally, never intentionally draw fire . . . it irritates all those around you.

~ Kevin Moses, Big South Fork

Resource Management

At long last more American voices are emerging from the wilderness of denial to talk about global climate change. (I recall earlier this decade being cautioned to use that term in uniform and “not global warming.”) Even without yet having seen the documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, I perceive a groundswell of attention to the issue some scientists have been touting for years — the warming of the technologically advanced Earth at a pace quite atypical of the long-term average — and that’s “long” as in geologic time.

Recent news stories have featured real or potential changes in distribution of species in parks and other refugia, from coastal redwoods and whitebark pines to polar bears and alpine chipmunks in the High Sierras. The glaciers of Glacier are melting; the last decade has seen sea level rise two to four times that of its average rate of change over an 18,000-year period. Communities, such as the one nearest to me, are challenging businesses and residents to become “carbon-neutral” by increasing their energy efficiency, their use of renewable energy and their efforts to plant trees.

Critics say that facts are still in question; over the long span of Earth ice packs and sea levels and climates show many changes (those petrified trees in Yellowstone include magnolias and subtropical species). Skeptics say the actions are too little, too late or missing the big-ticket changes in modern human behavior needed to make a real difference. Perhaps the most prudent thing to do is assume the worst and take positive action accordingly.

In a partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Park Service has launched a new “Climate Friendly Parks” program in which participants commit to a program to reduce the park’s greenhouse gas emissions and criteria air pollutants while also educating their staff and visitors about climate change and what all can do to practice improved resource stewardship. So far, seven parks have signed up.

Can ANPR, as an organization, or through the power of its individual members, contribute to the vigorous environmental leadership that many citizens of our nation and world likely attribute to us? Perhaps this is a place for us to start. I’m sure there are other ways. As the organization looks to reinvigorate itself, might we consider taking on this mission as well as those, worthy though they have been, to improve our individual lot (through enhanced pay, retirement and housing conditions)?

~ Sue Consolo Murphy, Grand Teton

NOTE: Are you in resource management and interested in becoming a columnist in this space? Please contact the editor at fordedit@aol.com.