April 2012 - Parks & Recreation - 48

We've been overwhelmed with interest in the last
couple years. "
He's now a decade into RRM, quite a feat of longevity for a self-professed person with attention deficit
disorder.
" I've done many interesting things, but I have really stayed with this the longest, and I plan to continue to stay with this because I think we can contribute
something on a national stage-to do something really important, " Meyer continues. " That's why I latched
on to this. Plus, it's really a blast being outdoors. My
business meetings aren't just in airport hotels, but in
parks a lot of the time. "

Making the Case for the Private Model
A great deal of Meyer's time goes to making the
case for the RRM business model. Over the years
he's spoken before various groups for and against
him, amassed a website of information and case studies (www.parkprivatization.com), debated the Sierra
Club, and written his own libertarian blog, Coyote
Blog, as well as a blog for Forbes.com. His message

This is not about a private takeover of the land.
It's not any kind of Trojan horse for building
condos and McDonald's.
-warren Meyer,
President recreation resources Management
distills into several basic points meant to counter
what he sees as misconceptions of his business.
" To some extent, the disagreements tend to be the
ones from folks who have a different picture of this, "
Meyer says. " [Parks] are public lands for a reason.
If we wanted to make them private and have them
used for the most profitable use, they would have already been sold off and states would have taken the
money. The reason they're public lands is because
we have objectives for maintaining the land, which in
some conditions may or may not be the most profitable condition. We have a goal of allowing very free
public access, so they are lands that are not restrictive in some way.
" What we have to do a lot of is, 'hey, this is not
about a private takeover of the land, " Meyer continues. " It's not any kind of Trojan horse for building
condos and McDonald's. "
Meyer points to the Forest Service as the best
counter-argument to the line of thinking that private
vendors will degrade public lands and the recreation experience. In Arizona, RRM operates recreation services for approximately 40 Forest Service

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locations while other vendors operate as many as 400
in California, Meyer says.
" We make our money making the parks the way
the public agencies want them to be, " Meyer says.
" I don't have a single agreement that allows us to
change a price, change a service, change a product
sold, or even to put two boards together for a structure without the agency's approval.
" So, basically, we're expected to run a park as is,
with current services, fees, etc. " he says. " We make
our money doing that and doing that very efficiently
and not by adding 'adult bookstores.' "
RRM's lower labor costs are often a source of consternation among Meyer's critics.
" The folks I hire for my employees-there's no getting around the fact the public agency people who
are paid in a certain way and have these benefit
packages are often hired for the full 12 months, even
for a seasonal park, " Meyer says. " That's the way civil
service works.
" We just can't hire that way, so we often hire different people with different expectations, " Meyer
continues. " Our folks are not paid as much. But they
don't need it. We get folks without paying as much.
We hire a lot of folks who have seasonal flexibility-
that means RV-ers and such. "
RRM's training program stresses the public-private nature of the company's client relationship. " We
train with respect to the fact that we're a tenant and
we have restrictions on us, so when we train people
on what the restrictions are and what we can and cannot do, then we seldom have problems with that. Our
folks understand we are still on public land, that the
public sets the rules and we're aware of the rules. We
almost never have a problem with that. "
And when he does have problems, Meyer finds the
termination process significantly more efficient. " The
good thing about being private is, if somebody is just
not getting it, we can get rid of them, " he says. " That's
hard to do in a public space. "

The Ultimate Example of Giving Up
Tom O'Rourke is executive director of the Charleston
County (South Carolina) Park and Recreation Commission and a member of the NRPA board of directors. O'Rourke staunchly believes in the ability of
public agencies to profitably operate public park and
recreations programs. In fact, he likens his approach
to a corporation. " This is no different from running a
business, no different at all, " O'Rourke told Parks &
Recreation late last year.
Outsourcing of entire parks or even portions of
parks greatly upsets O'Rourke as a professional.
April 2012 - Parks & Recreation

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