LIGHTLY EDITED FILE

   DNR Outdoor Recreation Task Force Meeting - 1 of 2

                    August 26th, 2020

     Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR)

                         Remote

               1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. (CDT)

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>> Gratia Joice: Good afternoon, everyone.

This is Gratia.

It looks like it's 1:00.

But we still have a handful of members and staff

rolling in, so we'll just give it a couple more minutes

before we get started.

So just hang tight.

>> Gratia Joice: All right, so it looks like

several more folks joined in the last minute or two.

I know a couple people aren't able to attend today.

And I've received a couple messages of people running a

little late, so we'll just go ahead and get started,

and others can join us as -- as they're able.

Before going over some logistics and the agenda, I'm

going to immediately pass it over to our chair, John

Edman for a few opening remarks.

>> John Edman: Great, thank you, Gratia.

Hopefully you all can hear me all right.

Thanks, everybody, for taking the time to be here today

for today's task force meeting and thanks for all the

work that you've done up to this point.

I know there's been a lot of work behind the scenes

that all of you have been doing in all the separate

meetings that you've all been having as we move towards

some recommendations at the completion of this task

force process.

Actually, you know, today I want to welcome you to

today's meeting, but today is actually one of two days

of meetings.

We have a day today, and then an all-day tomorrow.

Today I think the agenda that has been sent out to all

of you, we're going to hear about some outdoor

recreation efforts in other states, and then tomorrow

we're going to reflect on a lot of the work that you've

done so far.

I'll only personally be able to be here with you today,

but Leanne from my office will be with you all tomorrow

as well as folks from the Department of Natural

Resources.

But as I mentioned, we're going to hear from the

National Office of the Outdoor Recreation first.

And we kind of thought it would be important for us to

hear about what's going on on this whole effort from a

national perspective, because it's not just going on

here in Minnesota.

It's going on in virtually every state in the country.

So we're going to hear about the benefits and successes

of this effort in various states.

And we're also going to hear about where these efforts

have fallen short hopefully and what can be done to

better address these goals.

After hearing a little bit more about this from a

national perspective, we're going to hear from a panel

of experts from a couple of other states.

People that have already a little bit farther ahead

than Minnesota, that have created some of these

efforts, and we want to hear about, you know, how they

came to be, a little bit about their structure, and

some of their successes.

But we also want to hear from our panel about what does

not work with these efforts.

We're hoping we can really have an honest conversation.

We want to hear about coordination with other partners,

elected officials, the public, other agencies, what's

worked, what hasn't worked on all of this, and to

really dig deep into what -- what has been some of the

experiences?

I know you've asked for some of that information, and I

personally gathered from my colleagues, but we want to

hear directly from the source of these efforts in other

states.

But, you know, when we're listening to these

conversations today, you know, evened thinking about it

tomorrow and beyond, really, I would encourage you to

think about what works best for Minnesota.

There are some things that we might be able to apply

here, and some might work.

Some might not work as we see that best for our state.

So think about all of this through the lens of a

Minnesota solution.

That flows from your work, all of things that you've

talked about, all your task forces and your

recommendations, as well as the goals of this task

force when we first began.

So I hope we can apply some of the things that we hear

about today.

Some of the things that you can recommend, and for a

solution for the state, no matter what that potential

solution may or may not be.

So that's really it.

I guess I just wanted to thank everybody for coming.

Sort of introduce the topics for today's presentation,

and really to encourage any and all discussion,

questions, feedback, to think critically, and to think

about what will work best for the state of Minnesota.

So with that, I think I'll turn it over to -- back to

you, Gratia, and you'll lead us through today's

discussions.

>> Gratia Joice: Thank you so much, John, for that.

For those opening words.

John gave a great kind of recap of the plan for today.

I just wanted to give out a few reminders related to

some logistics.

If you're having technical difficulties, please use the

chat function to either message me or Madison.

I have the generic Minnesota Outdoor Recreation Task

Force account.

And we'll do our best to kind of work behind the scenes

to get you connected.

Also, to our members who are using the chat function to

communicate with one another, whether it's a question

or a thought, please remember to direct those chats to

all panelists.

If you do all attendees, we can't see those.

And then too, any members of the public who are here

today, and today's meeting, and we do not have a

dedicated Q&A portion.

We do have one tomorrow.

But still feel free to submit those questions, and if

there is time at the end, we can get to them, or else

we will definitely address them tomorrow.

So those are just some logistics.

You should see some live captioning on your screen.

I've also put the link to that in the chat in case you

don't see that.

So with that, we can just take a look at the agenda.

Kind of as John mentioned, first we'll hear about some

of the national efforts.

We're going to hear from two members of that Outdoor

Recreation Roundtable, then we'll move into a panel

discussion.

We have three guests here today to talk a little bit

more about their states' efforts related to outdoor

recreation.

And then we'll hand it back to ORR and NGA to talk a

little bit about different ways these offices have come

to be and kind of next steps to consider, if this is a

route you all decide Minnesota should go down.

So with that, I am going -- I would like to introduce

our first two presenters.

They're from Outdoor Recreation Roundtable.

Shortened to ORR.

ORR is America's leading coalition of 30 outdoor

recreation trade association and organizations working

to promote the growth of the outdoor recreation economy

and activities.

ORR has a state committee which is focused on outdoor

recreation issues at the state level, and includes

working with or encouraging the development of Offices

of Outdoor Recreation.

Specifically today we have Ashley Brinkman and Jill

Sims who serve as co-chairs of the ORR state committee.

Ashley works for the RV Industry Association and Jill

works for the National Marine Manufacturers

Association.

So with that, I am going to turn it over to Jill and

Ashley to share a little bit more about ORR.

>> Jill Sims: Thanks so much, Gratia.

Really appreciate it.

We can head to the next slide.

Thank you.

So as Gratia mentioned, I'm Jill Sims.

I work for the National Marine Manufacturers

Association.

I am based in Minneapolis.

I am at the MSP airport, traveling to Alaska.

That's why I have my mask on.

Born and raised in Minnesota and used to work out in

D.C., recently worked back to work with the boat

manufacturers and I cover the Great Lakes and the

Midwest.

So if you ever attend the Minneapolis Boat Show or are

down at the legislature working on policy issues, you

might see me there.

And I'll kick it to Ashley to say a little bit more

about yourself.

>> Ashley Brinkman:  All right, great.

I work on the government affairs team at the RV

Industry Association.

So that's the national trade association representing

RV manufacturers, like Winnebago, you guys might

recognize some of those companies.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been especially uniting for

the RV industry as a whole, I'd say, and so we've been

working really closely also with other associations

that represent RV dealerships and service centers and

RV parks and campgrounds and that's what I've been

focusing a lot on these last couple months is a state

by state effort really to, you know, figure out that

essential business designation for all of the range of

RV industry companies.

And so alongside Jill, I've been co-chair on ORR state

policy committee.

And developed an outdoor recreation industries model

legislation for creating an Office of Outdoor

Recreation through state legislature.

And this year, I helped lead with Jill Indiana's state

legislature and successful passage of a resolution to

create an OREC office in early March.

So I also -- I previously worked on the government

affairs team at the American Sport fishing Association,

and although I'm not from Minnesota, I'm from Indiana,

when I was at the Sport fishing association, one of the

areas I worked on was the Minnesota Boundary waters.

So hopefully I can visit someday in the future and get

some kayaking in.

>> Jill Sims: Thanks, Ashley.

So Gratia already kind of touched on what ORR is.

So we're the leading coalition for recreation

businesses.

We've got 32 members and we represent over 110,000

businesses and the full spectrum from skiing to

hunting, climbing, fishes, diving, off-roading,

boating, RVing and so much more.

So we really have something for everyone and where we

unify is that because we are outdoor businesses with

the shared goal of maximizing opportunities for

recreation, for every American, by improving

infrastructure and access.

We're also incredibly focused on collaboration between

industries and agencies, removing barriers to access in

the outdoors, conserving our core infrastructure,

public lands and waters, and ensuring recognition of

recreation's contributions to the national and state

economy.

So that's why at ORR we have three committees.

We have a larger government relations committee that's

focused on the federal side.

We have a communications committee which focuses on

getting our messaging out.

And then we have the state committee which Ashley and I

are co-chairs of, and that is a newer committee and

really designed to help -- work with states that have

existing offices, and then support outdoor recreation

efforts in states that may be don't have an Outdoor

Recreation Office but are looking to kind of rally the

community which we see as an opportunity here.

So I know that some of you on the call may have quite a

bit of knowledge of what an Office of Outdoor

Recreation is, and some -- this might be your intro,

but we hope to cover a good swath of that information

and feel free to ask us questions at the end.

We will be referring them as OREC offices as Ashley

indicated, so just wanted to make sure that everyone

has that baseline.

And then we're ready for the next slide.

So what is an OREC office?

So out door rec offices implement strategic plans to

grow recreation through state policies, programs, and

initiatives.

And that's sort of a vague definition, but it's

intentional, because what we like to say is every state

it's have the opportunity to choose your own adventure.

So what we think is so wonderful about this task force

and, you know, there's also a task force in Maryland,

for example, is you're able to look and assess the

needs for the outdoor recreation community, and those

do vary state to state and what the focus is.

For me, I focus on the Great Lakes and Midwest.

So I can tell you, Wisconsin has an office and they

place their office in tourism.

So they -- while they do a lot of the same things as

all the other Outdoor Recreation Offices, they have a

heavy focus on tourism.

In Michigan, for example, it's straddled between the

Department of Natural Resources and their economic

development corporation.

So there they're getting a balance of the economic side

as well as DNR, but they pull in all the other

stakeholders and you'll hear from Brad later.

So I think it's really important that this is not a one

size fits all.

It's not a cookie cutter.

We really like to say it's -- it is a choose your own

adventure.

Next slide, please.

So this all started back in 2013 when republican

governor Gary Herbert of Utah created the first state

Office of Outdoor Recreation.

Since then, OREC have expanded to over 17 states.

And do for this purposes include if there's a task

force, like I mentioned Maryland and Minnesota are

counted in that because there is a task force assessing

the outdoor recreation needs.

Additionally, there is a -- there's the Confluence of

States, which is a group of states focused on

bipartisan collaboration to give outdoor recreation a

voice.

And through that confluence, they are focused on four

shared principles.

The first being conservation and stewardship.

The second being education and workforce training.

The third being economic development.

And the fourth being public health and wellness.

I believe off the top of my head, there are 12 states

that are members and I know our directors can probably

speak to that later as Michigan and Oregon are both

members of the confluence, but that's an opportunity

for when there isn't an established Office of Outdoor

Recreation, F.A.I.R. those directors to get together

and -- for those directors to get together and info

share and make sure that we're moving forward in a

unified -- under those four principles to elevate the

outdoor recreation industry.

Next slide, please.

So why do we focus on these.

I think there's a whole host of reasons.

Some of which are listed there.

But I really like to focus on the economics.

I think everyone on the call is probably aware of the

big numbers that the outdoor recreation industry puts

out, but we are 2.2% of U.S. GDP.

Outdoor recreation generates $778 billion annually in

economic output, and we provide 5.2 million jobs.

Pre-pandemic, we were growing faster than the economy

as a whole in every indicator, surpassing other key

sectors such as petroleum, coal, computer, and

electronic products.

This is huge.

And I think that we are working to unify and make our

voice heard because we are such a key player in the

economy.

Especially on a national level.

And I think we're seeing that with things such as the

Great American Outdoors Act that passed earlier this

August.

But we can also have the opportunity to focus locally.

So when we look at the economy in Minnesota, outdoor

recreation supports 101,000 jobs.

We are 2.7% of Minnesota's economy.

And we contribute $9.6 billion annually to the

Minnesota economy.

So these are really big numbers and I think it's really

important that when we are looking at different

opportunities for our industry that we can have a

unified voice in St. Paul, and ensure that we can help

push forward our priorities so we can get, you know, we

can increase rural prosperity.

We can help build healthy communities.

We can promote environmental stewardship, and we can

help grow the businesses and access for users.

To the outdoors.

I also think that COVID has really shined a light on

the benefit -- well, Ashley's going to talk more about

the benefits, but I would say, you know, in the outdoor

recreation industry, we have seen such an impact.

We did a member survey, and 88% of our businesses have

laid off or furloughed employees.

And 94% had seen a decrease in revenue.

As many of your businesses probably did as well.

But when we look at the pandemic and what people are

doing, I mean, I myself, I'm in the airport going to

Alaska to spend a vacation outdoors.

I've gone to Montana and Wyoming to spend time

outdoors.

So what we -- I think a really good resource that these

offices have been and why, you know, there is such a

national effort pushing them is because, again,

question help grow the economy, help grow jobs and

provide opportunities for the business community, and

in particular, and in rural areas, because that's where

you typically find a lot of these businesses.

And furthermore, when we talk about building healthy

communities, and I would lump increasing access to all,

you know, to all users, whether you live in Minnesota

or -- excuse me, in Minneapolis, or if you live in

Duluth or if you live in St. James, like we want to

make sure that you have equal access and that there are

that critical infrastructure has been updated.

So having a central location were there's a person who

can kind of help or group of people that can help

navigate those challenges when it comes to -- to

getting projects done, and Ashley will touch more on

that, I think is really important.

Next slide.

Ashley, I'll kick it to you to talk a little bit about

the benefits and successes.

>> Ashley Brinkman:  So I just want to go over the

positive difference of having a OREC office in the

states that already have.

Four main themes that I've seen and experienced and

have found really valuable.

And when we get to our probably, we'll have some

opportunity for questions, and I also I know some of

the OREC directors are ready to offer some challenges

and that, you know, they've faced in creating a new

office and working through their tasks as an office as

well.

So we can go to the next slide, please.

And this is what I'm going to focus on for a little

bit.

So one major area I absolutely want to emphasize is

number one up here:  Information sharing,

collaboration, facilitation, relationship building.

I think for a lot of people, this is hard to put into

tangible, you know, successes.

But I want to emphasize the collaborative role of an

OREC director, because this, in my opinion, is one of

the best things about having this role in state

government.

Oftentimes, you know, differing objectives can create

silos, and collaboration can prevent, you know,

reinventing the wheel, redundancy, and inefficiency.

For example, with ORR, the Outdoor Recreation

Roundtable, operates in a similar collaborative role,

RVIA, the RV Industry Association, as well as Jill's

association, the Marine Manufacturers, have overlapping

interests, and when we combine to brainstorm and share

our knowledge and resources, we exponentially grow our

effectiveness and impact.

Having ORR to facilitate that work is absolutely

necessary.

I mean, there's no way we collectively would have

accomplished as much as we have in the outdoor

recreation industry space over the past few years if we

didn't have ORR's helping us through the this and

facilitating those relationships and conversations.

Our diverse coalition from, you know, Jill mentioned

horse back riding, snorkeling, RVing, really needed

that leadership to guide us and keep us together.

And I view that similarly with the state agencies.

For example, you know, state's economic development

agency works to strengthen economic and community

vitality.

A DNR, you know -- thinking to Iowa, which is the state

I've been working in, a DNR manages, protects, and

promotes a state's natural resources, and a state's

tourism agency works to encourage people to live,

visit, and work in a state.

These three agencies' missions are distinctly

different, yet have major overlap when it comes to

outdoor recreation.

So in, you know, different cases in different states,

you know, wouldn't DNR benefit from the travel

marketing expertise in tourism?

Wouldn't economic development benefit from knowing, you

know, the dollar value of outdoor recreation industry

bringing into the state and have the help from DNR and

tourism on how to promote that?

And wouldn't, you know, tourism benefit from the

impressive DNR knowledge of all of our public spaces

and, you know, tourism can use their skills to better

the visitor experience in that park?

So I'm not here, you know, pointing fingers or saying

any agency staff is not doing an amazing job.

I want to be clear.

I'm saying that an OREC office can act as that binding

glue to facilitate collaboration, and maximize and

expand the talent that's already existing within state

government.

You know, some people say glue.

I also like to say butter, and OREC directors like

butter, encouraging collaboration, connection,

information sharing, and it's not just cross-agency

within one state.

But also connecting with a network of other OREC

directors to learn best practices and lessons learned

from other states that are working similarly, you know,

to better invest in outdoor recreation industry.

And Bevin will later delve more into the National

Governors Association's outdoor learning network to

give you an example of that.

But these OREC offices provide essential point of

contact, advocacy, and resources at the state level for

all the diverse constituents, businesses, and

communities that rely on, you know, the continued

health of the outdoor recreation economy.

One point of appreciation I'll make here is the

existence of this task force.

And I'll just make a comment that I guarantee not

everyone in this task force all knew each other before

this.

And yet, you know, you -- all are coming together with

a common goal and interest in this passion in working

through what Minnesota can be improving on in the

outdoor recreation space.

So I just ask you to think of your time on this task

force, incredibly new opportunities and relationships

and connections that you're making that I mean, in turn

will better, hopefully some aspect of your own work,

and I mean, all of that sharing and taking home ideas

and inspiring people to think of, you know,

problem-solving some issue in a different way, think of

that as a more tangible explanation for this

collaboration and information sharing, facilitating

role that an OREC office and a director could serve.

So another tangible example of this, you know, category

of work that an OREC office provides is from

Wisconsin's OREC office, one of the newer offices, part

of the pink seven creates last year.

The Wisconsin OREC office recently in June conducted a

stakeholder input survey where they were seeking

information from businesses, organizations, and

partners in Wisconsin to use in their strategic

planning process.

So I don't know if anybody has had that much experience

or work in government affairs or, you know, any kind of

level of politics, but having state government reaching

out to the industry stakeholders proactively and asking

in a very data-driven way, you know, what our

priorities are, what issues are most important to us,

what improvements we'd like to see made, what we care

most about, is really refreshing, and like this task

force, I mean, the kind of open communications we're

continuously striving for when we're advocating on

behalf of outdoor recreation.

So now I'll focus on number two I have here which is

actively promoting accessibility of the outdoors.

And this is really speaking to, you know, personally I

grew up as an inner city kid, and I didn't experience

outdoors unless it was on TV.

So this is a personal passion of mine.

You know, getting folks outdoors that I like to say

weren't raised in the life style.

That work, you know, takes active effort.

And from my professional experience, both with the RV

industry and the sport fishing industry, this

conversation has been ongoing tomorrow years in

different capacities, but the sentiment is there that

we need to be doing more and as soon as possible.

I mean, helping folks get more comfortable in the

space, teaching them how to be outdoors and enjoy it,

and providing them a leg up and the opportunity by

helping financially.

So there are tons of grant programs like the ones I'll

mention briefly.

And I believe, you know, Bevin and NGA and in

conjunction with ORR, we're working on creating a

comprehensive list of all of those grants in the

states, and I do not envy whoever is working on

creating that massive tracking document.

But I know I'm going to really appreciate it.

But really, what I'm pointing to here is that OREC

directors are increasing, improving, and modernizing a

lot of these state grant programs.

And so just an example I have is Colorado's OREC

director, you know, working on improving and expanding

the Colorado outdoor kids grant program, which that

program provides grant fund teeing encourage, you know,

underprivileged kids in urban areas to spend time

outdoors and they also have a program focused on

getting veterans into outdoors.

So those are just a couple examples of where we need to

be spending more focus and our OREC directors are

helping out with that.

And number three might be a little bit triggering for

some of the DNR staff, but I'd say in a lot of

instances, our OREC directors have been very helpful in

drafting and planning the state comprehensive outdoor

recreation plan, the SCORP, and for those of you who

may not be familiar, every state must prepare a SCORP,

this comprehensive outdoor recreation plan, at least

every five years to be eligible for funding in the Land

and Water Conservation Fund.

And this process is definitely notoriously arduous.

I mean, it's a continuous planning process.

It takes a lot of resources.

So having dedicated help with funding, coordinating,

and drafting of this big written plan is going -- it's

going to be even more important in the coming years

because of, you know, what Jill mentioned, our

successful passage of the federal legislation, the

Great American Outdoors Act, states are going to be

seeing a massive increase in funding availability, and

likely and will need to plan for what projects they

want to prioritize and refocus on how they want to

match those federal dollars.

Because for state -- for LWCF, 50% of the funds, yes,

come from the federal government, come from this fund,

but they are supposed to be matched at 50% with state,

local, and private funding.

So if you think the SCORP process for a state is

time-consuming and expensive.

Just imagine, you know, this massive increase that

we're going to see within the next year, within the

next couple years with this funding availability.

So I mean, if a state sees an increase of like ten

times what they've seen, that need for someone to help

coordinate and maximize those public-private

partnerships to get that matching funding is going to

be, you know, really important.

And I've heard a lot already that, you know, a lot of

states are struggling with being able to find those

matching dollars.

So -- and as I mentioned before, looking at the

industry diversity, just on y'all's task force has got

to be a bit eye-opening for most.

I mean, it really represents the vast group of

interests that could be tapped into on the private

side.

For those needed partnerships for that funding.

And the LWCF coalition recently reported that states

with an OREC director performed better in the LWCF

application process than a state without an OREC

office.

So that is something they're newly presenting this

year.

So I'll just point to Montana.

They were -- in their previous SCORP, so they just

completed their 2020-2024 SCORP.

Their plan.

And in their previous five-year plan, they had

suggested creating an OREC office.

And this current plan, they suggested additional

funding and staffing for the office.

And a better investment in the office of the work that

they created.

So I think that's a good story of how connected those

two things are.

And I'll just end with a conversation about COVID-19.

So I have here help in times of crises, and, you know,

particularly from my work through this era of

coronavirus, you know, helping lead the charge in RVIA,

try to firm better business and safety, certainty for

especially private RV parks and campgrounds, having the

OREC directors as a resource was unvaluable.

I mean, it's a -- invaluable.

I am, as a government affairs director, we often talk

about the importance of having strong relationships

where it counts in order to advocate to the best of

your abilities on the behalf.

People and businesses you represent.

But the pandemic really put that to the test, and, you

know, all of a sudden, every governor's office was

being inundated with thousands of letters and emails

and calls, all people and businesses in crises, and

asking for help.

And a phrase we like to say in the government affairs

space is, you know, when you're lobbying, your goal is

to get above the noise and have our issues and concerns

heard above the 20,000 letters coming in, how are you

going to be heard?

And so I'll just say at RVIA, we have three government

affairs professionals who cover 50 states.

And 100 different issue areas impacting our industry on

a normal day.

So in some instances, from previous issues we've

tackled, we already have established a solid network of

contacts and relationships, that when all this stuff

with COVID started unfolding, we knew who to call.

And then where I had the capacity and tertiary

connections, you know, I could lean on my outdoor

recreation colleagues for their connections and figure

out who in the governor's office or elsewhere could be

helpful.

But in some cases, oh, but in the cases of those states

with OREC directors, I knew exactly who to call, and I

didn't have to start from scratch with explaining why

the outdoor recreation industry is important in their

state, how many businesses, especially small

businesses, especially rural businesses are being

impacted by the shutdown.

What an RV campground looks like, that a private

campground is different than a public campground.

I'm not dealing with the massive level of basis

education on the industry we had to start at because I

mean, you know, the governor's office was on fire and

it was all hands on deck, tanned was rapid responding

to new information coming in, you know, every single

day.

And it was so in that situation, I mean, it was really

unlikely that I was getting an audience with anyone,

and that my message even made it.

So the OREC directors already knew how vital our

industry was, and they were already at work.

They were joining the governor's special task force to

focus on COVID.

They were already, you know, knew how we felt and how

we were being impacted and were checking in with us.

And they were also, you know, responding with, here's

what the reality is.

Giving us some business certainty.

Letting us know timelines for reopening.

Keeping us informed on questions or developments or

pushback from the governor's office so we could know

how to appropriately respond and be the best we could

in advocating for the industry.

So one example I'll give, a great example from this

time is out of North Carolina.

And that's the North Carolina OREC office helped to

develop a new website, a connecting manufacturers and

essential providers in response to COVID-19.

So as many others did, one of our member companies in

North Carolina, Sylvan Sport began manufacturing P.P.E.

at their facility and tapping into their supply chains

to source P.P.E. as well.

And I mean, going through this process and entirely

different manufacturing process than they were used to,

they faced, you know, obstacles like locating correct

materials and new regulatory information, and most

importantly, getting those direct connections to

essential providers, so even if they could manufacture

the products, where to get them to.

And this is a story I heard, you know, across the

industry.

And it's an incredible success story of the

North Carolina outdoor industry coalition has been

operating really well together in a vast diversity of

groups with the Outdoor Recreation Office.

And quickly within a couple weeks, I mean, 100%

volunteer effort, from a business management firm, and

the web design agency that had already been working

with the North Carolina OREC office, got a website up

to help in exactly responding to that issue.

So I'll just -- I'll end there.

And definitely if anybody has questions on these kind

of categories, I mean, these I'm mentioning are

benefits and some examples of successes.

And of course we're going to get into some challenges

and lessons learned as well.

>> Jill Sims: Thanks, I am going to piggy-back off

of one more example for number four.

I think Brad is on our call now.

Brad Garmon, you'll be hearing from him soon.

Since I cover the Great Lakes, Michigan, was one of my

states.

In boat manufacturing, we have quite a few

manufacturers.

We also have a lot of dealers and marinas, and I

remember, you know, Michigan was in a place I think it

was in April or May -- I think it was May, where things

were shifting back and forth and there were quite a few

restrictions to outdoor recreation access and Brad led

this task force and it was really great because, you

know, having an OREC director who can say, all right,

who are my industries that we need to bring in?

And we could really come together.

Was so incredibly helpful compared to states maybe

where I didn't have those resources.

And so, you know, and he'll probably talk more about

this, but there was basically a small working group

that was convened, like 90 folks, maybe more, that

convened over a week, but, you know, we had these

series of Zooms, but we talked about everything from

boating to biking to pools, and, you know, all the

like, and it was really cool to see the outdoor

industry kind of come together and offer feedback and

help navigate a time where I mean, let's face it, in

COVID, I mean, the decisions are being made by a very,

very, very small group of people.

So we have to unify I think as an industry to work

together to see where our strengths and our weaknesses

are and present reasonable plans, right, to the

governor's offices or the key decision makers.

So just hat's off to you, Brad, and I'm sure many other

directors did the same.

I know at least for the marine industry, you were a

huge help and it was a huge benefit, again, just to

helping us face the challenge of the day.

So with that, I think maybe we can move to any Q&A that

we might have from panelists.

Or from the task force?

>> Yeah, thank you, Jill and Ashley.

We do have about 20 minutes or for task force members

or staff to ask any questions of Jill and Ashley.

Of anything -- if you have questions for them to expand

on anything you heard, or just more general information

you'd like to know, now would be a great time to ask.

>> Hey, Gratia, this is Matt, can you hear me okay?

>> Gratia Joice: We sure can, Matt.

>> Matt Gruhn: Okay, I just have a quick question

here, and I think, Ashley, you might have touched on

this a little bit.

I'm just curious on, do you feel like having an Office

of Outdoor Recreation here would help Minnesota manage

kind of the maintenance backlogs that we have, would

help us make sure that we're utilizing funding through

the LWCF program, you know, that was passed through the

Great American Outdoors Act and that sort of thing.

Is that one of the ways that an office like this could

help us?

>> Ashley Brinkman:  Hey, Matt, I'm going to go ahead

and say a loud yes!

The LWCF states funding rot rollout is also going to be

my focus in RVIA, so I'm learning very quickly how

giant of a project this is going to be.

I mean, you know, I just -- the amount of opportunities

that are going to come up to address exactly what you

said, the maintenance backlog, are going to be

incredible.

And that was -- I mean, the outdoor industry has been

loudly celebrating this passage as one of the greatest

accomplishments, I mean, we've seen in decades for a

reason.

It's a big deal that this has passed.

And so I mean, we're seeing millions more dollars than

we have before.

And the fact that, you know, the LWCF coalition who's

been working on the Land and Water Conservation Fund

since its inception, I mean, reporting that states with

an OREC director perform better in the LWCF application

process than a state without an OREC office is

significant.

And I'm not saying that those states without an OREC

director are, you know, going -- doing poorly.

I'm saying that the LWCF funding application process is

complicated.

And it's specific to each state, how they operate

through that.

And it's, you know, localities, submitting projects to

the state, and it's states submitting projects to the

National Park Service, and then the National Park

Service going over all 50 states' projects and

prioritizing them from there, and so it's like -- it's

a massive effort that, I mean, will yield incredible

results on dealing with the maintenance backlog

absolutely.

So having backup, having someone to help coordinate, I

mean, I would think that would be extremely beneficial.

>> Matt Gruhn: Thank you.

>> I'll piggy-back off that a little bit too.

I think one of my colleagues was going through a

report, and there were 38 potential outdoor recreation

infrastructure projects for LWCF state-side funding,

and 34 of those projects listed were in OREC office

states.

And then the 4 other projects, well, there was one in

California and three in Pennsylvania.

I think it's a pretty clear picture that people who

have the OREC offices in place typically can perform a

little bit better when it comes to LWCF.

>> Ashley Brinkman:  And also, you know, as I

mentioned, the stateside monies are 50% from local,

state, and private funds.

So I mean, being able to know who to call that could be

interested in supporting some of these projects to

tackle the maintenance backlog, you know, who's ready?

Making those connections for who's ready to support

these projects and can, you know, step in is going to

be another giant project in itself.

So --

[Overlapping conversations]

>> Go ahead, Mark.

>> Mark Norquist:  Sure.

Ashley, Jill, thanks so much for everything you've

shared today.

This is wonderful information, I think really good

insight into a lot of the things that are working well

and the benefits of the offices.

Can you elaborate maybe just a little bit more and I

know Gratia touched on this a little bit ago, and I

know you've talked a little bit about it, but creating

a new entity is quite a task.

If you could just elaborate a little bit more on what

those challenges were when those have been set up and

so we could really look at this and understand and

benefit from those learnings of challenges that the

other states have had.

>> Ashley Brinkman:  Yeah, I'll start, I've worked on

this a lot.

And I'll seen all different methods coming forward.

And so I've seen a lot of challenges.

And the number one challenge I would say I've seen is

not approaching the state correctly.

And not, you know, coming in with a one size fits all

plan or coming in with this is how you should do it.

And that's why, you know, it's my personal effort to

make sure, you know, that choose your own adventure

phrase is real for, you know -- I drafted the model

legislation to create an office, but it is very, you

know -- it's a jumping off point.

It's a starting point to start a conversation.

And I will say one step forward I've seen in the past

year to kind of help with that is that the outdoor

industry association has joined ORR, so the Outdoor

Recreation Roundtable, so I think we're definitely

going to have a more unified message and a more

white-gloved approach versus just dropping in draft

legislation and having people respond, like, what is

this?

Right?

You know, negative reaction immediately.

>> Jill Sims: Yeah, I'll piggy-back on that.

I think that brings up a really good point that I

forgot to touch on is that while ORR is one of the

leading groups doing this, outdoor industry

association, which has become part of ORR again and REI

are big drivers of this.

So we do all work together to make sure that we are

unified.

Some people may or may not be aware, but there was

legislation in 2019 in Minnesota, and it was more of a

cookie-cutter language that was dropped, and I kind of

even came in, you know, the ORR side came in a little

bit after it had been dropped, and I think Minnesota

was a great learning example for us.

That there need to be conversations with, you know, all

of the different agencies, with the legislators, with

the stakeholders, I mean, exactly the legwork that you

guys are doing right now.

By bringing everyone to the table.

Because there is no one size fits all and as you're

going to hear from the directors, everyone is a little

bit different.

Now, we find common ground, right, in uplifting the

outdoor recreation community and certain pillars.

But I think where we kind of maybe went a little wrong

was with the pretty broad language.

So I think the beautiful part of that, though, is that

this task force came out of the legislative language in

Minnesota that, quite frankly, didn't quite work.

Right away.

And I think that this is -- it just a huge opportunity,

and to give Ashley some credit, she did a lot of

legwork and a lot of stakeholder meetings to now we

have a more open drafted language and, two, if someone

wants to legislatively create an office or, you know,

some places, there are -- the governor will do maybe a

proclamation, and there might be an MOU between

agencies.

There's kind of quite a few different ways, but we

tried to broaden the resolution in Indiana, so we tried

to broaden the language to again make that choose your

own adventure and making sure that as a whole community

that we're unified and can help uplift nationally and

at the state level.

Does that help answer your question?

>> Mark Norquist:  Yeah, that helps.

I appreciate some additional clarification on it.

>> This is Linnea and I put a few things in the chat

and I just wanted to share about this real quick.

Thanks a lot for your presentation and I'm really

excited to be a part of this task force.

I think there's not enough cross-poll nation and

collaboration across sectors and that that's super

important.

So I'm not in an industry sub-part of the work.

I am a council member on the Met Council and the

council member for the Parks and trail -- metropolitan

Parks and Trails Open Space commission.

And have a background as an outdoor adventure guide in

the southwest.

For a number of years.

and one of the things that will be really important for

me to get on board and support is to feel like this is

a collaborative effort.

And some of the narratives shared about prosperity in

rural Minnesota or disadvantaged urban youth really

narratives that are really off-putting.

They promote stereo types.

And so the links -- or that I put in the chat, one is

to help -- if you take a look and just -- if you don't

want to read the report, or the link, that's on the

Minnesota Department of Health website, from policy

link, looking at our economic case for equity, and

health equity in particular, but it really makes the

case for equity for our GDP and our economy in general.

Just peruse the photos and the illustrations, the

graphs in it.  And you'll see that of our counties in

our state, 80% of them are going to be having 70% or

more of their population coming from Black, Indigenous,

People of Color communities.

That's where all the growth is.

And nearly half of them, 100%, half the counties in the

State of Minnesota are going to have all, 100% of their

growth coming from those populations.

If we continue to promote stereotypes in industry and

use that as a means of understanding opportunities to

find new audiences or raise revenue and increase

productivity, at a minimum, we're going to continue to

fail.

And it's just a downhill slide.

There's nothing to look forward to.

So I guess I just wanted to explain why I shared those

things.

And then also to really, you know, I guess ask for

partnership and support in seeking to understand that

perspective, and -- and to really resist the urge to

identify People of Color in buckets of poverty.

So that's the other information that I provided.

Not one of our communities is living the majority of

them in poverty.

And in fact, the Asian population in our state has a

higher income than the white population in our state on

average.

So I just want to kind of put that out there and see

how does -- I don't have the opportunity, like I said,

to have conversations with folks who work more in the

industry.

The for-profit side of the sector, how does that strike

you?

What does that make you think of?

Are there opportunities there?

Is there someone in industry who gets this?

Who gets this opportunity and sees it as an amazing

opportunity as opposed to charity?

I guess that's how it really feels.

Lynnea.

>> Ashley Brinkman:  Hey, Lynnea, thank you for that

comment.

I just --

>> Gratia Joice: So if you wouldn't mind sending to

all panelists so folks can access those links.

>> Lynnea:  Thank you.

>> Gratia Joice: Yeah, sorry, it's confusing, but

it doesn't show up to everyone.

>> Katy Friesz: Hey, Lynnea, this is Katy Friesz,

one of the things I highly value about this task force

is that we really do have an opportunity to make sure

that we are sharing the best and most current thinking

with each other, and even framing of issues.

And so thank you for providing, you know, that data and

I will say, you know, from an industry perspective,

yes, absolutely, you know, my company, I guess, I can

only speak for my company, but I can also, you know,

lend some support.

I'm so sorry.

I missed a little bit of Ashley and Jill's

presentation.

So forgive me.

But we absolutely -- I do think that industry, whether

they're slower to the table than they should be, or,

yes, we definitely are slower to the table than we

should be, but absolutely are seeing this as a market

opportunity, and taking that very seriously.

And not just seeing this as, you know, just seeing this

as a charity, to your point, or -- or even just, quote,

unquote, the right thing to do.

It is -- it is a right thing to do for all kinds of

reasons, but it absolutely is a market opportunity.

And so I think your points about just making sure that

we're not conflating income or considering, you know,

kind of poverty to be synonymous with People of Color,

I think is a really important point to emphasize to the

whole group.

And I will say that, you know, just from my

perspective, and the industries that I represent,

the -- that absolutely is happening.

And starting to move in that direction.

Again, very, you know, where we've been forever, right?

But absolutely, is something that is seen in that way.

So just wanted to share that.

And others may have something to share as well.

>> This is Asha.

Can you hear me?

>> Yep.

>> Asha Shoffner: Okay, cool.

To Lynnea and a little bit to Katy's point too.

So something I picked up on.

So where you're talking about actively promoting

accessibility to the outdoors, like some of the

examples were, like, RVing, horse back riding,

snorkeling, which snorkeling means you can swim.

Riding a horse, I mean, like, you have to get a horse

to ride a horse, right?

And an RV, I'm thinking about, like, the cost maybe and

the experience of those things and I'm wondering if, in

y'all's experience with these, like, outdoor rec

offices, does making it outdoors more accessible also

include, you know, reaching new audiences, thinking

about access in ways, you know, both, you know,

physical abilities but also of just, like, you know,

who are the people.

And thinking of recreational opportunities that

require, you know, knowing how to swim, the ability to

own or rent a horse or an RV or whatever.

So I was just wondering if that's what you've seen in

your experience or has it been more about, you know,

diversity of activities or access of activities, but

those activities only being accessible to some folks.

>> Ashley Brinkman:  Yeah, I'll say that's a really

good point.

And like, since I've started with the sport fishing

association, we've gone to the RV industry.

At the sport fishing association, I mean, trying to

communicate the giant gap that exists from being a

person that's never fished to going fishing is like you

need a rod and a reel and all kinds of equipment, stuff

like that.

It's definitely something that the industries are

trying to work through.

It's an ongoing process.

And I know they would advocate help and thoughts there.

To make some good progress.

I know there's a lot of great individual companies that

are doing good work.

But as the association, I think that's the general

thing I see is, it's definitely a work in progress.

And when I mentioned, you know, snorkeling and RVing

and stuff, I was really speaking to the diversity of

activities represented on the ORR.

It also includes, I mean, the hiking folks, it's the

whole range of the industry -- I mean, whatever you can

do outdoors, so -- thanks for that.

It's a really good point.

>> Gratia Joice: I do notice that Erika Rivers has

her hand raises.

So, Erica, if you wanted to jump in, feel free.

>> Erika Rivers: Well hi, everyone, good afternoon.

I kind of hate to bring us back to the question I had

given the really rich conversation we're having right

now about underrepresented audiences and expanding

access to the outdoors because as many of you know, in

this is a huge passion of mine as well.

And then I do hope that we'll actually continue to that

vein we were on.

But some clarifications on the Land and Water

Conservation Fund, because I don't think we've talked a

lot about that, and it was a momentous, probably a once

in a generation accomplishment that occurred here in

the last couple weeks and has been overshadowed by

other things.

But I did want to just have a couple of clarifications

on the LWCF program because it is run differently in

each state.

And Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is the

state liaison for LWCF here in Minnesota.

So just a couple clarifications on that.

As momentous as that LWCF legislation was, I just

wanted to point out that the funds that are attributed

to LWCF are divided much like our Legacy Funding here

in Minnesota, 40-40-20.

40% of those funds go directly to national lands.

So those are your national parks, your national

wildlife refuges, national forests, et cetera.

Another 40% goes to what is called the state-side

program.

And that comes through Minnesota and is managed

throughout the Department of Natural Resources.

Unlike other states, Minnesota is very unique.

In fact the 1970s, we divided up the state

legislature wisely divides up those stateside funds to

be half dedicated to state lands and half dedicated to

a really important grant program, that funnels funds to

state and local -- or to local and municipal

governments to support their outdoor recreation

systems.

So these go directly to communities.

Some $87 million has been devoted to that.

Over the years.

And then that last 20% is divided between six other --

or actually five other programs.

Forest legacy, Endangered Species, Battle Feeds and the

Highlands Conservation Act, and then the Outdoor

Recreation Legacy programs which devoted funds

specifically to communities who have 50,000 people

living in them or more, of which Minnesota only has 19

communities that qualify for those funds.

So while it is momentous and very exciting, I just

wanted to add a little bit of context for how that

works in Minnesota.

I think the 38 projects that either Jill or Ashley were

referring to were really those projects that fit into

that ORFP funding source.

So -- and the other thing I wanted to also just caution

is it's very much still in the legislature's hands

right now, how much of those dollars that are in that

40% to the stateside program will actually end up in

the stateside program.

It's actually quite active debate about the formula and

how that's set up right now, so we will try to keep

people informed as we learn more about that.

But with that, I really am just hoping that we can, you

know, move the conversation back to access, because

that certainly is something that is been talked about

quite heavily within this task force.

It's been a breath of fresh air.

And maybe back to Lynnea's question, specifically about

the outdoor industry and, you know, some of the

initiatives.

I know, for example, Matt Gruhn with the boat

manufacturers -- or the boat retailers has had quite a

bit of interest in -- in expanding their reach in the

outdoors and wonder if others on the call might have

anything they want to share regarding Lynnea's

question.

>> Erica, this is Greg, Greg Lais, and it's good to

hear your voice.

You know, Lynnea, you know, and I think about it, you

know, years ago, we worked hard on the accessibility

issues for people with disabilities.

In the '90s.

And the same thing happened there where people with

disabilities were equated to poverty or low income, you

know, and thought of as charity.

And it's -- it's always interesting how that evolves.

And I don't know how commonly held that is, but that

was really a -- kind of a you know sort of a widespread

belief which I always laughed at because some of my

wealthiest friends happened to have disabilities.

So -- but I just put that in there as, you know, it

seems to be kind of a common theme, not just for BIPOC,

but for whatever kind of underserved -- if I can use

the term underserved groups that be out there, and how

we educate people beyond that is, you know, is a

challenge.

But I would also that in Asha's email that she sent out

to the group, I don't know two weeks ago, and I forget

who responded, but I thought, you know, it kind of

highlights one of the issues that we have here which is

on the one hand, we talk about an outdoor recreation

industry, with, you know, for-profit companies, and

we're all kind of -- I mean, they're all motivated --

it's a bottom line industry and money is a part of that

industry.

And on the other hand, though, we're also all about

sharing the public estate that we have and public lands

which are of equal access to everybody, and should be

accessed by everybody.

And I think that one of the things about this task

force is, you know, maybe just kind of reconciling

that.

That part of this whole thing is -- yeah, I guess I

would just say reconciling the need for the boating

manufacturers, whatever those industries are, and then

also the whole thing about these public lands are for

everyone's benefit.

So I'll just sign off with that comment.

But I think that's kind of -- and I think Asha kind of

nailed with her email.

You know, that's sort of an act of -- active discussion

point for this group.

Thank you.

>> Hey, everyone, this is J.R.

I work with Polaris.

And I just share a couple of points is that I -- I

don't think that the power, you know, I'll speak for

the powersports industry, but maybe this would extend

beyond and supplement some of the points Greg made and

Katy too.

And this really goes back to continued thought around

Lynnea's points she made at the last call about her

experience in Greater Minnesota.

You know, it's -- I was just actually looking at the

Met Council website, and, you know, interestingly

enough, there's 56 regional parks and park preserves

with 400 miles of interconnected trails and if you look

at the map that they provide, you know, it's kind of a

Metro area map as we would kind of commonly define the

Metro area.

And, you know -- so there is a lot of opportunity here

in the Metro area too, so if we look at access as a

bigger question to Erica's point, is how do we think of

access I think is going to be really important.

And access is not only, you know, access to parcels of

land which provide a myriad of different recreational

opportunities, but it's also going to be access to the

types of equipment necessary.

To enjoy those types of recreation.

I don't think that outdoor rec should really be thought

of as something that only occurs in rural areas of the

state.

Or benefits rural areas of the state.

I think it's something that really should be thought of

as a very holistic kind of all-minnesota approach.

To it.

And frankly, even if you just look -- if you try to

think about the economics of it, and try to, you know,

just use facts and data, you know, the states

surrounding us, and Jill and the other speaker gave

some good points is they're really looking at it in the

economics of it.

And I think there's a great opportunity that if we do

the inclusivity and the -- with our BIPOC communities

better than anyone else, it benefits all of Minnesota

and it's both financially and just from, you know,

being more culturally diverse and recognizing those

gaps that we need to fill.

The powersports industry more specifically is on -- is

evolving in that space.

It's been historically very while male dominated.

Polaris has come quite a distance in trying to think

more inclusively with its marketing, its, you know, who

its customers are, where there's opportunity to

decrease the cost of ownership or decrease the entry of

participating in the types of powersports that we

produce machines for.

So, for instance, you know, if you think about what

does a snowmobile cost?

You know, it might cost anywhere between 6 to $15,000.

Not everybody is in a position to do that.

So what Polaris does is it created a rental program

that it leverages through us dealer network that

provides rental experiences that can just be for the

day or even a few hours so that people can really have

the opportunity to go out there and enjoy the outdoors

in a more accessible way.

And I think it's going to be important, as we look at

what the purpose of a task force is, is, it's to cause

all of these stakeholders, whether they're OEMs like

Polaris or organizations like Wilderness Inquiry or

non-profits and government agencies and frankly even

those of our policy makers at the legislature and

within the DNR and Explore Minnesota, to really think

about how we make it more accessible, not in terms of

just geography, but in terms of cost of entry and

experience.

So I would just kind of share those couple of thoughts

about things from Polaris's perspective.

So thanks.

>> Thanks, J.R., and everyone else for those comments.

I don't want to squash the conversation, but we do have

three panelists who are with us today that, for the

sake of their schedules, we will need to move on to

that portion of the agenda.

There will be another Q&A with -- with the folks who

are part of the panel.

So I think it will be a good opportunity to keep asking

questions about, you know, how maybe specifically their

offices and states are tackling some of the things that

you all are bringing up right now.

And also, tomorrow, when we transition to kind of our

normal task force meetings, I think it will -- there

will also be great opportunity for these conversations

to continue then.

So thank you all for your thoughtful questions and

discussion.

And thank you to Jill and Ashley for the overview of

ORR's work and helping us learn a little bit more about

Outdoor Recreation Offices across the U.S.

So next we are going to move into the panel, as I just

mentioned.

We have three panelists with us today.

I'm going to do a quick intro for each of them, and

then we'll get into the panel discussion.

And then we have some time at the end for want between

our staff members and our panelists.

So please keep in mind questions that you'd like to

ask.

And we'll have some time for that at the end.

So first I would like to introduce Brad Garmon from the

Michigan Office of Outdoor Recreation industry.

was named director of the Office of Outdoor Recreation

Industry.In September of 2019.

Though he grew up in the plains of western Kansas,

Garmon has spent the last 18 years focused on improving

Michigan public policy to better protect the Great

Lakes and natural areas, while also forging stronger

connections between resource conservation, job growth,

talent attraction and economic development.

Brad previously served as

the interim CEO of the Michigan Environmental Council

in Lansing.

Prior to that, he was the council's director of

Conservation and Emerging Issues.

It was his leadership in this arena that led to an

appointment to Michigan's State Parks and Outdoor

Recreation Blue Ribbon Panel in 2011.

More recently, he has advised the DNR, the Office of

the Great Lakes, and the Michigan Economic Development

Corporation on several different plans aimed at

improving and supporting Michigan's natural and

cultural resources.

Garmon also is a member of the Michigan Heritage

Leadership Council, was appointed to the state's Pigeon

River Country Advisory Council in 2013, and previously

served on the Michigan State Parks Advisory Council's

Finance Subcommittee.

He holds undergraduate degrees in Geology/Earth Science

and Geospatial Analysis and a master's degree in

English.

So welcome, Brad.

Brad, I'd love to know if you've ever recreated in

Minnesota before, and if so, where?

>> Brad Garmon:  Pretty short answer which is no, I

have not.

I feel like I have.

I know a lot of people who do.

But the way I reference Minnesota actually in my

office, long before I had this seat, was there was this

piece of data that I used in advocating for outdoor rec

a lot that was Minnesota had more college-educated 25

to 34-year-olds in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area than

the entire state of Michigan.

And that was just an astonishing fact to me.

>> Gratia Joice: Awesome.

Well, hopefully someday soon you get here to recreate.

It'd be awesome.

Next I'd -- oh, sorry, go ahead.

>> Brad Garmon:  Nope, nope, I'm working on it.  Go for

it.

>> Gratia Joice: Next I'd like too introduce Cailin

O'Brien-Feeney.

Cailin O'Brien-Feeney is the first head of the Oregon

Office of Outdoor Recreation, the purpose of which is

to elevate outdoor recreation in every corner of the

state.

Cailin has worked in the recreation field for 15 years,

including stints with the U.S. Forest Service and as a

river guide in Idaho, and was the State and Local

Policy Manager for the Outdoor Industry Association

until 2019.

The OIA is a national trade group, and under his

leadership, Cailin's worked with governors,

legislators, and agencies across the country to improve

access to outdoor recreation opportunities, encourage

strategies that increase economic benefits, and

promoted establishment of Offices of Outdoor Recreation

in other states.

He holds an Environmental Studies undergraduate degree

from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, and

an Environmental Science graduate degree from the

University of Idaho.

So, welcome, Cailin.

>> Cailin O'Brien-Feeney:  Hi, there.

>> Gratia Joice: Same question to you, Cailin.

Have you ever recreated in Minnesota?

>> I sure have.

I actually move to the Twin Cities as a family when I

was in sixth through eighth grade.

So a lot of firsts for me happened in Minnesota.

First time I went fishing, out on a pontoon boat, water

skiing, polar plunge, snow boarding, all of those

things happened for me in the great state of Minnesota.

So thanks for letting me sit in here today.

>> Gratia Joice: Yeah, awesome.

Thank you.

And lastly we have Lindsey Davis.

Lindsey is the vice president of the outdoor recreation

roundtable, the nation's leading coalition of outdoor

recreation trade associations and businesses.

She also serves on the board of advisors for the

outdoor alliance, a non-profit that protects public

lands and the human-powered recreation experience as

well as the Utah wildlife's federation and the Utah

Office of Outdoor Recreation advisory committee.

Lindsey is passionate about uniting different user

groups around issues of access, wildlife management,

and habitat protection.

In her off time, you can find her working in her

backyard garden, wrangling her bird dog, and scouting

for hunting season.

Welcome, Lindsey.

>> Thank you.

>> Gratia Joice: Had you been to Minnesota?

>> Lindsey Davis:  Yes, I have.

I had some formative years in Minnesota.

My grandparents, they spent their outdoor lives going

on canoe trips in the Boundary Waters and then raised

their kids that way, and so I grew up going on those

trips from the time I was -- I think 11 was the first

time.

So some of my happiest memories of being in the

outdoors are up there catching pike and canoeing with

the loons.

>> Gratia Joice: That's awesome.

Great to have you here today.

So first we're going to start with Brad.

Brad, I would love if you could just give the task

force a brief background on the Michigan office.

>> Brad Garmon:  Sure.

Start with the guy who's not been to Minnesota.

[ Laughter ]

feel inadequate now, thanks.

So I alluded in my biography there, you see reference

to the Michigan state parks blue ribbon panel.

In a lot of ways I think we can sort of trace the

historying of the creation of our office in Michigan

back to that panel discussion.

So I think in a lot of ways like you're well in advance

of where we were.

and hopefully can get there a lot faster.

That was the first in-depth study that started with the

idea, let's look at our state parks but quickly became

a conversation about, you know, sort of how state parks

and outdoor recreation are integral to Michigan's

quality of life, to our economics, to community

sustainability, and how to really integrate those

things, but then it, you know, after that, it was, you

know, a report given to our previous governor, governor

Snyder, report was handed out in 2012.

Great, you know, great group of folks.

Really good recommendations.

But it sort of -- there wasn't anything tangible to

hold onto there that some things happened in trail

development, some of those pieces did get advanced, but

I think, you know, it took five or six, seven years of

sort of stewing around that and struggling around that

conversation around how do you integrate the economics

with recreation.

Effectively without losing really the place that you

care so much about.

So, you know, in 2018, the governor Snyder effort

coalesced around the outdoor rec advisory council,

which I have to shout-out to J.R. from Polaris, which

also serves on my outdoor rec advisory council over in

Michigan.

And that's a great group of 18 really diverse voices

around the have I itself.

And I think that was the big thing that sort of trans

spired -- transpired between 2012 and 2018 was that

through that time, you saw outdoor recreation as the

private sector industry, sort of as you heard from

Ashley and Jill, like, really coalesced nationally

during that time frame.

And OIA and what Cailin was doing nationally really

gave a lot of footing I think to the industry itself.

And that was the thing that moved and really we created

our OREC with that in mind.

It still has non-profits.

It still has, you know, advocates on that panel as

well, but it's really got a lot of the same folks that

are sitting around your table too.

So REI and J.R. from the powersports side and just

really, you know, I think the notion that the industry

was going to speak and really join that conversation

that bring the connection between those things was what

moved it.

And then over time, you know, we kept advocating on the

outside of state government.

I worked, as I mentioned in my bio, for an advocacy

organization.

We still felt the creation of an office, a point of

contact, was really important in addition to the

advisory council.

So when governorship changed in Michigan and governor

Whitmer came in, we renewed those efforts and I can

really I think trace the creation of our office back to

the advocacy of some of our bigger outdoor brands in

Michigan, specifically Carhartt out of Dearborn,

Detroit area.

Specifically a tweet they sent at our request, we

should create an office.

We want to be more like a Colorado or a Utah and we

think we have the assets and the recreation and the

business to support that.

And so the office was created in May of 2019.

Technically.

Staffed by DNR professional.

Kristin Phillips who's marketing and outreach for our

Department of Natural Resources.

And then over time, she quickly realized like it really

does warrant a staff time of its own, a member who can

really focus on it.

So I was hired in September of last year.

We joins the Confluence of States in October.

And as others may mention, really having a pointed of

contact, a director of your fission that's funded as

sort of a prerequisite and eligibility into getting

into that Confluence of States, and that's a really

valuable as set to have.

Both the FGA you'll hear about later from Bevin but

also to the Confluence of States.

So that's what I've done, I've had about six months

before COVID hit and my goal during that time was

really to focus in on a document of key projects and

I'll cut it short there, but really what I honed in on

is economic development.

I am clearly not trying to get into the lane of parks

and rec.

Although I work within DNR and I'm housed within DNR.

When I'm not working within my basement and focusing on

economic development and really what that means for

Michigan, number five in boating according to the

bureau of economic analysis, number seven in RVs, so we

have really strong trade organizations and those kind

of things and I'm really trying to fill in around that

and figure out what Michigan's strong suit is, product

design and engineering and really bring that home to

Michigan and outdoor recreation confluence.

And I'll stop there.

>> Gratia Joice: Thanks, Brad.

I'm hoping you can expand a little bit on some of the

learnings from, you know, your office is just over a

year old, some of the learnings that came out of the

first year, what were some of the highlights as well as

the growing pains with starting an office?

>> Brad Garmon:  Yeah, and I'll be, you know, brief.

I think there are certainly growing pains in anything

like this.

I feel really, really strongly that what we set up

really seems to be a really good model for us.

And hearing the conversation around diversity and

equity and other things that you're doing in Minnesota,

you're already going to bypass maybe some of the

learning curves that we had to go through.

But, you know, the learning curve really for me in

Michigan was to chart that course around carving out a

lane that is needed and not redundant with other

things.

So you look at, you know, the tourism, we're not

tourism, although I want to play really nicely with

tourism, the Travel Michigan brand is strong.

They have great staff.

I'm not trying to replicate that.

I'm trying to leverage that and building relationships

to make that clear.

I'm not on DNR.

We've got 1400 people in a good year, 1600 part-time

folks managing our resources for the state of

Department of Natural Resources.

We've got an amazing local park system.

So I'm not trying to replicate anything they're doing.

What I'm trying to do is sort of be a liaison and a

networker to the private sector side of equation.

So that's what I've really honed on and that was the

biggest piece was, like, learning to operate in this

space that's really around economic development and is

in partnership with the private sector while still

setting in a government chair.

So that's been the biggest learning curve, just how to

operate within that.

And so I've spent most of my time, you know, for the

time -- first six months were almost a world unto

themselves before COVID hit.

But I was learning my way around economic development

and our local economic development partners, our state

economic development agencies, the resources, the

tools.  How we support small business, how do we route

large businesses.

That's a really steep learning curve and then trying to

translate what I know about the industry into that

system and really learning and talking to people in the

industry whether it's our para folks or our ATVs and

ORVs, like learning the boating industry and what

theirs needs are and being the sort of translator of

that into the current system.

So that was -- it's a lot of learning all around, but

luckily there are great people that I lean on heavily.

And so once you get into the door and sort of think the

viability of having this office opens a lot of doors,

and get relationships built and then you can leverage

their expertise and plug them into the right

conversations.

>> Gratia Joice: Thanks, and then one final

question for you.

Clearly, diversity, equity, and inclusion has been a

big topic for our task force.

I'm curious how the Michigan Outdoor Recreation Office

has worked to bring for diversity, equity, and

inclusion to the industry.

>> Brad Garmon:  There's two sides to that.

Honestly, what I've really found, you know, and I think

every, you know, you sort of heard it from J.R. and

others.

I think the outdoor recreation industry as diverse as

it is, in sort of products from making shoes and ATVs

and everything else, it's not very diverse in its

leadership or its staffing, and I think that's been

something I've leaned very heavily into because the

industry wants to get better.

The shoe company in Michigan, you know, really talking

the talk, but then hiring Jenise Tenant to run their

marketing and branding piece.

It's got going to be a matter of talking the talk.

It's going to be how do we help industry to make the

change they want to see, to change representation, to

elevate voices in leadership.

For People of Color.

So that we see the industry through a different lens,

rather than the white male sort of dominant lens that

the industry has typically been that we're actually

empowering other folks.

And so the way I've done that is to just find and

really try to elevate and use my privilege in this seat

and this office and being a white male to try to get

different voices and different people the opportunities

to speak into these conversations.

So most recently, like I started hosting virtual

conversations.

We did one with a woman named Alice Jasper who's --

she's a mixed race African-American woman who loves the

outdoors and has got a TV show out of our PBS station.

So conversation with her and our lieutenant governor

that we hosted a few weeks ago who's also an

African-American male from Detroit and lieutenant

governor Gilchrist.

I love that conversation and giving more visibility to

those conversations are part of it.

And I keep trying to do that and I think a lot of our

big agencies are trying to get better at that.

The private sector is trying to get better at it.

So this coming Friday I'm hosting another one with our

diversity and inclusion specialist from our Department

of Natural Resources, and big brands, one of our

outfitters in Michigan and another conversation, just

really trying to center this idea that it's not a white

activity.

It's across the board and we just need to make sure

that we're elevating and giving space to all the folks

who really have something to offer.

>> Gratia Joice: Thank you so much, Brad.

Cailin, Lindsey, I'd like to open it up in case you

have anything you want to comment on that Brad said or

want to expand on your own experiences with any of

those questions.

>> Cailin O'Brien-Feeney:  One thing that Brad said

that I might follow up on because the Office of Outdoor

Recreation in Oregon is housed in a different agency.

Is just maybe a reminder to me, to Brad, to our

colleagues, and then maybe for the task force as well,

that the fit that makes sense for any specific state is

going to be different based on what you want to focus

on or what your area of emphasis is.

And so I think we're going to transition, and I'll have

a chance to share a little bit next but you'll hear

probably that the priorities that I've been working on

very different but complementary from the ones Brad has

been working on because I -- as Brad said, I'm trying

to do complementary rather than do duplicative work.

There's no formula here and I wanted to reinforce that,

and back to that idea of the Confluence of States,

which is 13 states at this point, will all have someone

in a role like Brad and I have, there's a lot of

information sharing and learning that's going on in

real time, even right now as we're still dealing with

COVID and state budget impacts where here in Oregon,

I'm learning from Michigan in terms of how they're

approaching funding and structure ideas within state

government.

So hopefully that's not too vague, but I'm happy to

give more detail on that.

It's just think about the area of emphasis and build

from that as kind of like a vector.

Is what I would suggest.

>> Gratia Joice: Thanks, Cailin.

Lindsey, did you have anything to add?

Or else we'll move on to Cailin.

>> Lindsey Davis:  Yeah, I think let's keep rolling.

>> Gratia Joice: All right, sounds good.

So, Cailin, you're up.

Thanks for chiming in to kind of build on the point

that Brad was making.

But I'd love if you could give some brief background on

the Oregon office.

>> Cailin O'Brien-Feeney:  Yeah, happy to.

And thanks again for inviting us in and frankly letting

us join 45 minutes or an hour early as well as was

really beneficial to me at least to hear the group's

conversation.

So by way of brief back story, the Office of Outdoor

Recreation in Oregon is old.

I'm doing air quotes here if you're not on video, in

that it was created, like, three years ago.

[ Laughter ]

and so I've been in this position for two years.

And the Office of Outdoor Recreation is housed within

the Oregon department of Parks and Recreation.

In Oregon we don't have either a Department of Commerce

or a Department of Natural Resources.

Economic development functions are split between

essentially business recruitment, retention, tourism,

and the governor's office.

And then parks natural resource functions are split

between the agency that the Office of Outdoor

Recreation is housed in, of Parks and Recreation

Department, as well as more than a half dozen others.

And so when the office was being created here, that

conversation about where the right place is for this

work to be housed and what the sort of the core 'em

ought to be -- emphasis ought to be was a robust and in

some ways was a part of the first year on the job.

And because of that kind of diffuse nature or, you

know, we heard earlier, the term "Silos" come up.

Governor Brown directed me last year, early last year,

to essentially serve as the convenor for an Outdoor

Recreation Task Force, much like this group.

And so my job there was to be a facility yore, I was a

non-voting member of that 33-person group that had

similar representation in terms of geographical and

demographic and racial, and interest.

Sort of representation on the group.

And we met for a year.

And finalized recommendations in April.

Which is a pretty interesting time to wrap up a year's

worth of strategic planning work around how to balance

conservation and stewardship, how to support the growth

of the outdoor recreation economy, and how to improve

access, especially for underrepresented communities in

Oregon.

So I won't go too much into the specific

recommendations of the Governor's Task Force on the

outdoors in Oregon, but we did publish our work

recently, and that is essentially going to serve as

the -- kind of the set of priorities for the state

going forward because maybe in a reverse situation to

how Minnesota is approaching some of this work, an

office was created at the sort of behest of non-profit

and industry advocacy, but the number of things you

could potentially work on are almost endless.

And so we needed to have that trust-building exercise

and the public engagement exercise through a task force

to actually hone in on some specific recommendations

which were, you know, more than 150 individual

recommendations that got down to sort of coherent 30

recommendations, and a top 5 sort of recommendations

for immediate action.

So that's the back story kind of as quick as I can give

it, I think.

>> Gratia Joice: Thank you.

So speaking as one of the older Outdoor Recreation

Offices, it sounds like that task force, and your

recommendations was a big success.

I'm wondering if you can speak to any other successes

you've had as well as any struggles you've had since

becoming an office.

>> Cailin O'Brien-Feeney:  Yeah, so I'll go back to

that first point on -- there are sort of four different

examples of activities of Offices of Outdoor Recreation

that was given during the last presentation, and I

really think the greatest value-add here so far in

Oregon has been around providing technical assistance

and serving as a convener or facilitator, a point of

contact, that just that folks who are interested first

in essentially the outdoors and know that there's -- in

state government that they can reach out that can help

them navigate whether that's grant programs, whether

that's networking to different parts of the state,

plugging in, understanding regulations, and, you know,

maybe the biggest, you know, success, although it's

hard to use exactly that word, is the role that I've

been trying to play here over the last five months or

so as essentially the convenor and point person for the

state's approach to outdoor recreation policy during a

pandemic.

And that's included economic recovery, but most

specifically, it's Office of Outdoor Recreation has

been the place where local, county, state, and federal

recreation providers gathered initially on an almost

daily basis, and then a weekly basis to develop

policies towards simply providing outdoor recreation

access, and then developing responsible outdoor

recreation messages of late, and that, you know, has

resulted in a lot of Oregonians actually being able to

get outside and get good information about what --

about how to be safe in the outdoors right now.

So those are a couple successes.

There's been some good research projects.

We put on an outdoor recreation summit.

The task force, as you mentioned, is sort of our policy

playbook going forward.

But without going into, you know, community level

examples, those are kind of the statewide ones.

>> Gratia Joice: Awesome.

Can you speak to any struggles that you've had as an

office?

>> Cailin O'Brien-Feeney:  Yeah, and I have to

apologize here, because there's landscaping going on

outside my window, so hopefully it's not too noisy.

So I'm not trying to shout.

Yeah, the struggle or the challenge is maybe two-fold.

So the idea of collaboration on something as broad as

outdoor recreation makes a lot of sense.

And it's because no individual agency or entity kind of

owns this work.

And the Office of Outdoor Recreation doesn't own this

work either.

It's just there to serve as a convenor.

But one of the challenges, frankly, has been internal

to -- internal to government perception, perhaps, that

agencies might be giving up some of their sovereignty

by participating.

And that's tricky.

Because that's not the intent.

It's not that the Office of Outdoor Recreation is above

any of these things.

It's just to serve as a convenor, sort of between, you

know, a hub with spokes going around it, if you're

imagining a wheel.

The other more recent challenge is just that here, the

Parks and Recreation department in Oregon is supported

by user fees.

And lottery revenue.

And not by general tax revenue at all.

And it's meant that our department is in a really tough

budget environment.

We've had to go through a pretty significant round of

layoffs and the position that I am in was one of those

that was temporarily identified for layoff.

And the sort of value I think especially through this

spring and early summer has resulted in a space right

now where bridge funding or short-term funding has been

provided by other state agencies because this is sort

of a shared function, even though it's only living

within one agency.

And so going forward, we're looking at how perhaps the,

you know, the cost, which is relatively minor, it's,

you know, one person, it's a one-person office, I do

have the ability to have staff support from the ODRP on

policy work, but it's still just one F.T.E., how the

overall sort of shared work can have a shared cost

structure behind it as well with money perhaps coming

from business development and tourism and fish and

wildlife and parks, for example, as opposed to only

coming from parks, which is how it was structured in

the first two years.

>> Gratia Joice: Thanks, Cailin.

Lindsey, or Brad, I'd like to offer you the opportunity

to chime in.

Or comment on anything that Cailin has mentioned.

If not, we can move on to Lindsey.

>> Brad Garmon:  Just real quick on that last point,

yes, I agree.

I mean, I think diversifying funding streams or

starting with one, is really going to be critical.

It's what I've been working towards too.

I might find myself in a very similar situation based

on where my budget is currently housed entirely within

our Department of Natural Resources, and that's just a

hazardous place to be given budget cuts and stuff.

So a diverse funding stream.

>> Gratia Joice: Thanks, Brad.

>> Lindsey Davis:  Yeah, and I would just add, I mean,

Cailin, congratulations on all of that last-minute work

this year.

I know that was a huge effort internally and something

that was kind of worry some to a lot of us looking at

these state positions and sort of, you know, how we

keep this last in, first out mentality away from these

Offices of Outdoor Recreation.

And it's tough because they're all organized

differently within the state and states' budgets.

But I think, you know, that's part of kind of the

long-term work here is we have so much established

around, you know, the initial B.EA numbers and the

state GDP numbers and there's so much internal

justification that has to happen in sort of the startup

side of all of these offices, but luckily we'll be

getting new BEA data soon, in November, they're going

to release 2018 and 2019 and I think, you know, the

more we continue to build the efficacy around how much

of a driver recreation is in our economies, you know,

the better our position will be in justifying the ROI

for states.

>> Gratia Joice: Thanks, Lindsey.

So, Lindsey, you're up next.

I know that Utah's OREC director, Pitt Grewe, couldn't

be here today.

But we're super happy to have you.

I understand that this meeting happened to fall right

at the same time of the Utah Outdoor Summit.

>> Lindsey Davis:  Yeah, so Pitt sends his regards.

He's a tremendous asset here in the state and is

certainly available to this group any time you guys

might need.

The office itself is seven years old now I think.

But he is new to the position following Tom Adams who

did a ton of work here.

But the office -- I mean, the summit for the office is

happening this week.

And there's a ton of sessions going on virtually, if

anybody in this group is interested.

It's worth taking a look at the program to see if there

might be relevant topics.

And I think a lot of it's being recorded too.

So it's definitely a huge asset here in the state for

us to have that convening body.

>> Gratia Joice: Awesome.

So, recently, I understand that the Utah OREC office

held a town hall with Senator Romney.

Can you talk about how it went and how other offices

engage with government stakeholders?

>> Lindsey Davis:  Yep, absolutely.

So this happened just about two weeks ago, and it was

co--- I guess produced by the Office of Outdoor

Recreation and the office of tourism and it was Romney

and his staff.

And to our surprise, over 400 people attended this

session which was really amazing to see, and I think

it's that, you know, the first time that people were

really gathering around the recreation economy in the

state here post-COVID, or mid-COVID, however you want

to look at it.

So it ended up being a really thorough conversation

around just kind of the state of businesses here in

Utah, and I think, you know, Pitt's main objective with

using that time is to actually define recreation as

more than a tourism driver, and that's one of the main

themes for the Utah office is to -- to really hit home

how much this is a quality of life driver for people

here in the state.

So that's, you know, being there with tourism,

interestingly enough, recreation is the -- according to

the Census Bureau, we're the second most affected

sector behind Food and Accommodation.

I think we're ranking at I think 31%, hit 31% higher

than the national average.

And so the statistics coming out, you know, in addition

to how vibrant of an economic driver we've been, and

the damages of COVID, and to be able to present

alongside tourism, who's kind of in the media for

being, you know, tourism and food, for being the most

effected sector -- affected sectors, it's kind of stark

for someone like, you know, your state Senators to be,

like, oh, wow, you know, this is bringing $5.5 billion

to my state and it's being hit this hard.

So it was a tremendous opportunity.

I think they see, you know, these -- forming these

relationships is really key, and then foundation to

their -- foundational to their role as a state office,

is making sure they have very strong relationships with

state and federal leaders.

>> Gratia Joice: Thanks for that.

Would you mind explaining your role on the Utah OREC

advisory committee, do you have an overview of its

makeup and history, and talk about what the committee

is prioritizing over this next year?

>> Lindsey Davis:  Sure, so I'm newly appointed to this

committee, but it's established about the same time the

office was established, and there's about 40-plus

people on it now.

So it meets monthly.

And it's -- the goal of it is really to support and

advise the Office of Outdoor Recreation.

And we have leaders from all across the state.

And from a ton of different sectors.

So it's businesses, agencies, you know, everybody you

could think of, people in non-profits, people in

conservation, to get kind of a wider representation of

what recreation looks like and means in the state.

And so I know that there, you know, I'm fresh to the

group, but priorities that they have this year, and

it's been a really key group for working through

C.A.R.E.S. Act and, you know, P.P.E. and EIDL

assistance this year with all the businesses being kind

of a resource group, it's also the same group that

helps administer some of our state grant processes.

So there's a hotel tax that goes into an -- a

recreation grant pot here in Utah.

And I think to date, they've distributed over

$15 million to different organizations throughout the

state, and so, you know, our group is kind of tapped

for reviewing those grants and, you know, forming

committees around tasks like that.

But we have -- we have -- definitely have a lot on our

plate moving forward.

I think where we're focusing is on how we can be better

about collecting data on recreation and measuring its

impact in the state.

I mean, there's -- I know for us, there's -- there's a

Google Mobility report that was released a couple of

weeks ago -- maybe it was longer, timelines are tough.

But it shows how much people's activities have changed

on a state by state basis.

And so you can look at things like shopping, or

recreation as a category, and for us, it's up I think

150%, and everybody who goes to a trail head here knows

that, and so the state's looking at that, like, okay,

you know, we have a vast swath of public lands and

people, you know, our visitation is through the roof.

How do we disperse people and organize and educate new

users too, in this time.

And then I know they want to, especially because state

budgets are tough then, you know, obviously fundraising

is tough for everybody right now.

Looking at how they can influence legislature to

increase funding for the grants that they have.

So those are just a few of the -- a few of the focuses

and priorities of the group.

>> Gratia Joice: Thanks for sharing those.

Can you discuss what the reception of other state

agencies, small businesses to the office have been

since the office came to be?

>> Lindsey Davis:  Yeah, of course.

So luckily, it's hard to find somebody in Utah who

doesn't want to talk about their passion for the

outdoors.

[ Laughter ]

whether that's, like, hiking or skiing or hunting or

biking.

There's really a ton to do in this state.

The same with Minnesota.

So the great foundation is that everybody loves outdoor

recreation.

I was just on a panel yesterday with Representative

Curtis for the summit, and that was his kind of closing

remarks, like, I always love rubbing elbows with you

guys.

You make me feel young.

Just wanted to talk about how he loved biking.

So I think, you know, like that common ground that we

can all kind of come to the table and talk about our

passion for recreation and it sort of sparks happy

memories for us at the same time is a good, you know,

place for people to be coming to the table.

But the -- there's just been so much benefit that has

come from the coordination between the agencies here in

the state and especially as we, like, the summit

itself, it gets everybody together from the mayors in

the small towns to the people, you know, organizing,

you know, the bigger urban issues in Salt Lake, and it

creates an opportunity through the office and through

the summit to go through the -- sort of the peaks and

valleys of recreation throughout the state, because

there are a lot of problems too that people need to

talk about.

So it ends up creating opportunities for people to

share best practices and also understand how, you know,

maybe the office of tourism, marketing here, or

recreation here, is creating, like, a major sewage

issue over here because we're driving too many people

to this one area, and I don't think we would know that

kind of stuff if we didn't have this office as a

convening body.

So ultimately it's been very beneficial, and I think

very key to also have that separation from tourism so

that we can all be, like, continuing to drive home how

this is -- this is something that we're doing for

Utahans.

This isn't something we're doing for people that don't

live here.

>> Gratia Joice: Thanks for sharing.

Before I open it up for Q&A with our task force and

staff, Cailin or Brad, I don't know if you had anything

you'd like to add onto any of Lindsey's answers to the

questions she was asked?

>> Yeah, this is Cailin again.

Just something very briefly that I've been inspired by

from afar is the approach that the Utah Office of

Outdoor Recreation has taken over the years that

recognizes that, you know, close to home recreation is

frankly in some ways probably the most important.

For your day-to-day health and well-being, community

liveability.

But that people, in that case Utahans, don't typically

think about under whose jurisdiction they're recreating

on first.

That there's this sort of all lands approach.

And that the office has served as a really good

convenor between those local, state, natural, and

private land partners.

That's something that I've -- have seen through the

years there and then have tried to emulate here in

Oregon, that it seems different than maybe past

efforts.

So just wanted to give sort of a kudos there to Utah

for inspiring that approach, and I think I've seen it

happen in other states as well, recognizing kind of the

full spectrum of opportunities --

>> Brad Garmon:  I would second that.

And in fact, both of you, I've talked to Cailin long

before I got this office, and this job.

But I think it just reiterates that, you know, this is

a work in progress across the country.

Like each of these offices is developing and looking to

each other and finding things to emulate and I found I

ton to emulate from Utah and learn from as well as

Cailin.

So it's definitely not like you create an office and

it's got a one size fit.

We are all learning and growing and learning from each

other along the way.

So, yes, many kudos to both of the other offices.

I've learned a lot from both of you and aspire in a lot

of ways.

>> Gratia Joice: Thanks, Brad.

I know we are a little bit behind schedule.

But I definitely want to give some time to the Q&A.

I don't need ten minutes for closing tend.

So let's spend the next 10 to 15 minutes, depending on

how many questions there are, with some questions to

our panelists.

And then we'll take a quick break before moving on to

kind of the last big chunk of the agenda.

So I will open it up now to our task force and staff to

ask questions of our panelists.

>> Hi, this is Steve from REI.

And I just a question for all the panelists.

As with your levels of experience and the office, what

would be the one or two top things or top pieces of

advice you would give us as we're considering our

recommendations?

Moving forward?

With your experience, what do you think would be those

top priorities that we should consider?

>> Cailin O'Brien-Feeney:  This is Cailin.

I'll try and speak to that in the fact that, you know,

I mentioned that here in Oregon, one of the main things

that I did over the last year or so was to help

facilitate an Outdoor Recreation Task Force.

I think as this group probably continues, you'll be

setting yourselves up for success by identifying a few

key priorities in Minnesota.

And, you know, maybe it's an office is necessary to

lead those priorities.

Maybe it isn't.

But just be really clear on steps towards

implementation.

Around the, you know, the actions that will improve

outdoor recreation.

Again, whether that's an office or not, but trying to

get as far down the road towards implementation and

evaluation as you can in this process I think would be

really important and the second is to consider funding

where, you know, my perspective at least was that

the -- this approach, this really very collaborative,

multi-jurisdictional approach that Offices of Outdoor

Recreation are tasked with is something of a startup

enterprise within state government, and need a little

bit of a runway.

And so, you know, both Brad and I spoke to, you know,

being somewhat newer, but needing to have some surety

of funding, and it doesn't need to be a ton or a huge

staff.

But knowing that you have a little bit of a runway to

implement those priorities is really important when

you're building trust with partners, doing outreach, so

that those folks know that you'll be around to follow

through on this priorities.

Requires money providing a few years of it so that you

can really build that trust to follow through.

>> Greg Lais:  That's great.

I have a question.

This is Greg Lais and I'm actually asking this on

behalf of Sarah Milligan-Toffler.

Any other groups that have set up outdoor equity funds

like New Mexico has.

By directing funding to that.

I'll sign off and see if you can answer.

>> Lindsey Davis:  As far as I know, that's the first

of its kind.

Is that, Cailin, Brad, what you guys know as well?

>> Cailin O'Brien-Feeney:  Yes, and I was actually

going to point back to Utah, where there is a youth out

for education grant program that shares some

similarities in Washington State where there's a "No

child left inside" grant program in Oregon where

there's money provided for all fifth graders to have an

outdoor school experience in public schools.

And there are sort of core equity grant scoring

measures as part of each of those programs, but

explicitly to the question of a new grant program run

by an office, I would say, no.

New Mexico is still the only one as far as I know.

>> I'm sorry, this is Lynnea.

And I don't know how to raise my hand.

[ Laughter ]

I thought I would just share.

We do have in the Metro area, Metropolitan Parks and

Open Space, we have a capital equity grant program that

was piloted last year, and I anticipate we will have an

equity grant program focused on program -- non-capital

investments coming up, my hope, fingers crossed, in

2021.

And then I would also arc that our parks and trail

legacy advisory fund and the 25-year plan has very

robust targets and goals for equity investments, how

we've been able to actually use the funds in alignment

with the goals and targets related to equity for the

plan I think we could be doing a lot better on.

But there are resources available for that specifically

identified through our Legacy Funds.

>> Yes, this is Perry May.

So for the presenters, with your offices, do you have

some metrics -- how do you measure success, that your

office is really going after the priorities and your

seeing the success of your efforts?

Do you have some metrics that you use?

Thank you.

>> Brad Garmon:  I hesitate to say much because I am

definitely the youngest office here.

We are still building our metrics.

And, you know, to the first question too, I think this

is somewhat to Cailin's point.

I think my advice in this space is really to think

through as a task force, you know, and figure out

what -- what you want to build.

Like, what you feel like the gaps are.

So a lot of what I'm doing in Michigan, the metrics are

sort of there because I have chosen in my advisory

council sort of allowed me to choose based on my read

of the data from BEA and outdoor industry association

and others, and working with our economic development

folks, they've let me sort of target in on something

that is very measurable, which is our economic sort of

the size and number of jobs and those kind of things.

It's a very traditional economic development metric

system.

focused entirely on an industry that Michigan just

hasn't necessarily prioritized.

It's something that I'm still building.

But it's also very different than necessarily what your

needs are or than what other states' metrics might look

like.

Along the way, I'm going to be trying to measure some

of the things we talked about earlier around diversity

and inclusion and some of those sort of health metrics

that we're starting to play around with, like access to

safe recreation nearby in communities, there's a lot of

ancillary data that I want to build into it, but I

think at the end of the day really for this office in

Michigan to have longevity and prove its worth, my

metrics and the others are looking to me for is really,

how do I help sort of using this industry, building

this industry, how am I impacting, jobs, quality of

life, startup business support, those kind of things,

targeting this industry.

So my metrics will look very, very different, I would

guess, than a lot of states where it's a very different

goal for this office.

So sort of tying those two answers together in some

way.

>> Cailin O'Brien-Feeney:  Thanks for your question,

Perry.

When the office was created here, there was a

requirement to provide an annual report on trends in

outdoor recreation participation as well as the related

economy back to the legislature with recommendations

for improvement.

That essentially serves as the metrics.

That plus executing against the plan that I mentioned

before, the task force plan, that'll be the addition

going forward.

And the -- the hardest thing that I've had to deal with

is trying to figure out what an appropriate metric

would be for -- for conservation and stewardship

related goals, with dealing with over-visitation or

overuse, maintenance backlog.

I'm still trying to brainstorm, especially with federal

land management partners about what an appropriate

metric would be that side where it just more

participation and growth are always better, that

conservation and stewardship are built in.

But I'm just being totally honest.

I don't have a good metric for that yet.

But it's certainly a big part of the dialogue here in

Oregon.

So --

>> Gratia Joice: I just want to be respectful of

the time.

It's 3:07.

I know we need about 50 minutes for the next

presentation.

And I also want to give people a break to run the

bathroom if they need to.

So if you still do have questions that you didn't get a

chance to ask our panelists.

Or Ashley or Jill, come the end of the meeting, please

forward those to me, and I can organize them and send

them out and I'm sure our panelists would be willing to

point us to some good information for those questions

that are still lingering out there.

But I do want to pay a special thank you to Cailin,

Brad, and Lindsey for joining us today and providing

some great information and learnings from your offices.

I really feel like, you know, this information can help

us form solid recommendations that really work for

Minnesota.

So we appreciate those who have come before us in these

efforts.

So thank you.

Feel free to stick around if you'd like to see the rest

of the meeting.

But in terms of the rest of the task force, let's take

a five-minute break.

And convene back at 3:-- what is that?

3:13.

And we will continue on with the presentation from

there.

Shooting back to Ashley and then we have somebody from

NGA, Bevin, who will be presenting.

And there will be another Q&A opportunity still left in

the day.

So you may have a chance to sneak in a few more

questions.

So with that, we will take a short break and convene

back here in five minutes.

>> Hi, this is Bevin checking in.

>> Gratia Joice: Hi, Bevin.

Thanks for being here today.

It does look like it's 3:13.

So I'll just immediately pass it over to you and Ashley

to begin the next presentation.

>> Okay, I think Ashley's going first.

Hi, Ashley.

>> Ashley Brinkman:  All right, I got my afternoon

snack.

Thank you for the break.

Let me pull up my notes.

Okay.

And we can go to the next slide.

Please.

So I'd like to introduce Bevin.

Bevin Buchheister.

Am I saying that right?

>> That was it.

You got it.

>> Ashley Brinkman:  Okay.

So Bevin is an amazing senior policy analyst for the

National Governors Association's Center for Best

Practices, where she helped to launch the Outdoor

Recreation Learning Network in 2019.

That's what we're going to talk about.

The network engages state outdoor recreation leaders to

share best practices to advance outdoor recreation and

explore issues related to conservation, stewardship,

education, workforce training, economic development,

infrastructure, equity, inclusion, public health, and

wellness.

Bevin also leads the water policy learning network,

co-chaired by Governor Hogan of Maryland and Governor

Inslee of Washington.

Additionally, Bevin manages the National Governors

Association's Federal Facilities Task Force working

with the Department of Energy and States on cleanup of

nuclear waste created by Cold War weapons production.

Prior to joining NGA, Bevin served for six years as the

Maryland director of the Chesapeake Bay Commission, a

tristate legislative commission where she developed and

worked to pass legislation to remove phosphorus from

maintenance lawn fertilizer, prevent overapplication of

chicken litter as fertilizer to reduce runoff of excess

phosphorus, ban microbeads in personal care products,

add a fuel source to the renewable portfolio standard,

and protect funds for land conservations.

Wow!

Before working for the commission, she was the chief of

staff to the chairman of the Environmental Matters

Committee in the Maryland House of Delegates and worked

as a staff attorney for the YWCA, representing clients

seeking protective orders.

She enjoys racing her sailboat on the Chesapeake Bay

with her husband and instilled a love of the outdoors

to her three grown sons.

Welcome, Bevin.

>> Bevin Buchheister:  Thanks, Ashley.

>> Ashley Brinkman:  And so I'll just quickly say, you

know, Bevin's going to go into talking about the

outdoor recreation you learning network which we've

mentioned a few times now, and then we'll get into some

details of the structure of an OREC office.

Like specifically Bevin is an expert in talking about

the financial side of things.

So take it away, Bevin.

>> Bevin Buchheister:  Thanks, Ashley.

So as you all see on the slide, we were formed to help

these Offices of Outdoor Recreation and not only the

offices but states without the offices as well, help

them make progress in leveraging their natural,

cultural, historical resources, to advance economic,

workforce, health and environmental benefits all

through outdoor recreation.

So could you do the next slide?

We were launched in 2019.

And we work with the states that -- that signed the

Confluence Accords and established the Confluence

Accords, and they came to us and they really needed a

place to house this network and keep it going because

they really didn't have the staff to keep it going, and

we run several other learning networks that the

governor's association, is non-profit, nonpartisan, we

work with all the states, all the governors, and their

policy advisors.

We run lots of other learning networks like Ashley

mentioned.

I run the water network, that insurance company leer

weapons cleanup waste network.

We have equity.

We have education.

Health.

Economic opportunity.

So this was a good fit for our organization and theirs

as well.

So here you can see our launch out in Utah with

governor Herbert right in the middle and a few other

governors, Governor Brown, Mills of Maine, Governor

Sisolak of Nevada, and Governor Scott from Vermont and

Governor Bullock from Montana.

Our sponsors are there.

RE, IOIA, ORR and VF are our current sponsors.

Also, the sponsors don't drive the content of the

network or influence what the network is working on.

That is really driven by the members, the governor's

advisors, either the office leads or the people who are

in charge in other states of, you know, of outdoor rec

on all these things that they work on.

So we have two members from each state, and we have an

annual meeting each year.

Our first one was in Utah last year when we launched.

And we have webinars and then we have monthly calls as

well.

And then let's see.

Yeah, I guess that's what we have so far.

Oh, and we have the website there which is was on the

first slide.

Queue go to the next slide?

Could you go to the next slide?

So I just wanted to mention some -- the key issues.

I did mention them.

The purpose, that was on the first slide as well.

Key issues, economic development which you heard from

Brad and Cailin and Lindsey, who was, you know, with

Pitt, they're all members of the network.

And they have been, you know, focused a lot on economic

development, and helping rural areas with their

economic development.

Conservation and stewardship.

Education.

Workforce training.

Public health.

Equity and wellness.

We haven't done a deep dive on a lot of these issues,

but they're all on our plate.

And we are certainly going to be looking into more of

them, and helping our networks tap, you know, federal

funds for things like economic development, USDA has

rural development funds for economic development and

outdoor rec, and so we're helping them, you know, tap

those funds and learn from each other about how they

can tap those funds.

Also, the benefits, it's a peer network, they share

best practices with each other on our monthly calls, at

our annual meeting.

We're helping them share ideas for legislation,

policies, programs, and also helping them coordinate

with other areas that they might not be experts in,

like how economic development, workforce, and

conservation, and also we're helping coordinate that,

you know, with our different divisions in NGA that work

on these areas too, so we're tapping their expertise.

And we also have a new diversity, inclusion and equity

task force so I'm linking them into that as well.

So some of the examples of the information sharing that

was really valuable this year was at our first meeting,

they learned about, you know, formation of offices,

funding sources for offices.

They all exist in sort of different divisions and

different agencies.

So that was pretty helpful.

Working with federal partners and especially in Utah,

there was a good session on keeping parks open during

the federal shutdown.

So they really wanted to support the local businesses

and the towns, the gateway towns of the big parks

there, and they really worked to fund park services to

keep the parks open during the federal shutdowns

because of the, you know, the budget and the political,

you know, sites that shut the government down.

So they were able to do that.

And it's really actually quite hard to fund government

agencies and government workers, federal government

workers, it took a lot of ingenuity, and so sharing

that information was really helpful to them.

They also shared information on getting outdoor

recreation put into state stewardship agreements with

bureau of land management and the forest service, so

that way, when it's in their plans, you can press to

get things to happen when they're spending money or

when there's grant money available, if outdoor

recreation is a part of their purpose, and then you

can, you know, get that, you know, help tap those

funds.

So they shared, you know, ideas.

They shared the language with each other.

One state did it.

Another state did it.

They were sharing information on funding sources for

economic impact studies.

How to handle federal government plans to acquire

recreation lands for military training, that happened

out in Washington.

Well, they avoided it in Washington, but it was

happening in Nevada, so that was good information

sharing for the state offices.

Inter-agency workshops to develop better working

partnerships with all the different cross-sector, you

know, offices they want to work with, you know,

development, workforce, conservation, health.

COVID response was -- it was a huge help for them this

year.

I mean, this is the first year that we've existed, and

then during the COVID response, a lot of the offices

were getting pulled into the governor's emergency

meetings.

And responding to the -- helping the state figure out

how to respond to the outbreak, advising them on park

closures or actually how to keep parks open.

And -- and helping with recovery and reopening efforts.

So that was really invaluable for our offices,

especially because, you know, the West Coast got hit

first, and they had to, like, figure it out, and then

all the other states could learn from what they were

doing.

And a lot of them did take different approaches.

Some closed down the parks totally.

New Mexico did.

Washington was trying to keep them all open.

And Pennsylvania had a hybrid.

But, you know, especially during COVID, this was the

only thing that people could do, so it was really

important to keep parks open and -- and, you know, keep

people and all these new people that were come in too.

They -- that didn't have, like, the outdoor ethic that

people who have learned over the years of "Leave no

trace" and dealing with the trash and the bathrooms and

all those issues.

We also had a call with federal agencies to get their

advice on what they were, you know, how they were

helping states and how they were working with states

and how they were following states' leads.

So we had, you know, that was a really helpful call to

we had too.

So we go to the next slide.

The next slide, that is what I think I was really

supposed to talk to you all about is where are these

offices?

Where do they live in state government?

And where are they gets their funds from.

>> Ashley Brinkman:  Bevin, I would just jump in real

quick to mention to the group that we mentioned

throughout this presentation that there's several

different main ways that Offices of Outdoor Recreation

can be created.

You know, executive action from the governor.

And an example of that's, like, Virginia.

Where they can declare an office more informally, or an

executive order, a memorandum of understanding.

Like an MOU like Michigan, or a bill, a piece of

legislation that goes through the state legislature and

needs to be signed by the governor.

I'm pretty sure, like, Nevada's process.

Or a resolution.

Passed by the state legislature, which is what happened

this year in Indiana.

So lots of different ways that an office can legally be

created.

There's also a myriad of ways in which an Office of

Outdoor Recreation can reside within the state

government.

And similarly, many different ways in which a state can

choose to fund the office.

And also decide the funding level.

So, Bevin, the expert here, is going to give us a

great, you know, picture of some examples of where

these different states are.

So I don't want anyone to get immediately overwhelmed

with the numbers, though.

There's lots of different places you can start.

>> Bevin Buchheister:  Yeah, there's lots of

information on the slide.

I know it's a bad slide because it's probably too much

information.

And we do have a follow-up doc that I've been polishing

up that I'll send to Ashley that she can send to you

all.

But I just wanted to, you know, give you an overview of

this -- where these offices live in the different

states.

And then what their funding level is generally.

And where the funding comes from.

So several states have it in their economic development

departments.

So Montana, and where it's not indicated, where the

source of funding comes from, I believe it just comes

from the -- that economic development division or that

agency.

So in Montana, it's under economic development.

New Mexico is under economic development.

As you can see, North Carolina, is a little bit

different.

They're under this quasi-governmental public-private

partnership, the economic development partnership of

North Carolina.

But most of their funds do come from the state

government.

And they're at about the 200 level too.

So you can see, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina,

their offices are all funded at about the 200 level.

New Mexico also has an extra 200,000 for special grant

programs.

And Utah as well, they are in the governor's office of

economic development.

And they're also at the 200 level.

For their office.

But then they have that one-time general fund for

$697,000.

And that was in 2018.

So then the offices that are under Parks and

Recreation, that's Oregon, Vermont, and Wyoming.

Apologize, I didn't have Wyoming's or Vermont's funding

level.

But Oregon is about the $273,000 level and that's

pre-COVID.

I know we've heard from Cailin before that it's

probably greatly reduced now.

And -- and then -- and as Cailin mentioned, they're

funded with state lottery and user fees, which did dry

up.

And it served to be a little, you know, or a lot

unstable during the COVID, the battering that state

budgets took from COVID.

Pandemic.

So under the natural resources division, or agencies,

Michigan, you heard from Brad.

He's sort of under natural resources and economic

development.

Because he's being funded by both.

So they've got a ten-year MOU from Michigan natural

resources department and the strategic fund, which is

run by their economic development corporation.

So and he's about at the 200 level for his office too.

Nevada, it's from state general funds, and from the

natural resources department.

They were supposed to go out in 2021, but I'm sure

that's probably gone down by now too, so in '19-'20,

they were at the $200,000 level.

And then Maine, Carolyn Willette in Maine, she is under

the office of tourism and they're getting about 300,000

annually from the tourism marketing promotion fund.

And then Wisconsin is under the office of tourism too,

and I didn't get their annual -- their funding level.

I'm open for questions.

>> one thing I did want to mention.

so this coming year, the things we are working on and

looking at are COVID recovery and helping each other

figure that out.

And I know Vermont was able to get some recovery funds

for specifically for outdoor recreation businesses.

And also, we're looking at helping all the states in

our network really tap the increased Land and Water

Conservation Funding that just passed in the Great

American Outdoors Act.

So really quickly on that, the funding went from, like,

an average of 400 million a year to 900 million a year,

and that's now supposed to be dedicated 900 million a

year.

So the fund, I think 40% of that goes to the states and

it's parsed out equally.

So there's going to be a lot more funding available for

parks and outdoor recreation facilities.

And it's about a 33% increase, and so this coming year,

Minnesota will be getting 3.8 million, so you're going

to add, you know, a 33% increase to that.

But the catch that the states or the locals, to tap

these funds, they have to come up with a 50% -- the 50%

match to access these funds.

So I think that our offices and our members are really

key people to help Bill these partnerships -- build

these partnerships to get to, you know, to create these

matching funds on the local and state level.

And especially their reach into -- and their connection

with outdoor recreation businesses.

And -- and state government.

They've got really good key person to be able to tap

those increased funds that are available to states.

>> Ashley Brinkman:  And, Bevin, could you talk about

the states that are a part of the Outdoor Recreation

Learning Network, that do not have outdoor rec offices?

>> Bevin Buchheister:  Sure, so we have 26 states in

the network.

And some of them -- they come from all of the

different -- the different agencies as well.

And so we asked their governor's office to appoint

somebody who's the key person, the point person for

outdoor recreation in their state.

And some of the states like Maryland, they have a task

force and they're looking into an office just like you

all in Minnesota.

And so they have department of commerce, I believe, and

DNR, are their two designees for the network.

So they're coming and learning from the, you know, the

older, established offices about the value and the

benefit of having an office.

And strategies like funding and multiple different

funding sources and things like that.

So, yeah, I mean, what else did you want me to cover

with them?

>> Ashley Brinkman:  Yeah, just, like, what would go

into being a part of the network, and --

>> Bevin Buchheister:  Okay, so I mean, there are full

members of the network just like any other state with

an office.

And -- we ask, you know, we do ask the governor's

office to support them and designate two members to be

on our network.

So Minnesota, we would love to have you on our network.

And they -- we fund their attendance at our annual

meeting, which of course this year will be virtual.

And they're, you know, pretty much treated like any

other state on the network.

But I think -- I think it's been -- I know Pennsylvania

was considering creating an office, that they really

came to learn all about, you know, what the older

established offices did and how they operate, and we

looked at, you know, advisory committees and how they

function and who should be on them.

And all kinds of operational aspects.

>> Ashley Brinkman:  Great, thank you, Bevin.

And Gratia, just the next slide is just my and Jill's

contact info.

And Jill had to leave because she's on her flight to

Alaska now.

But if any questions have come up, I think this is a

good time.

>> Asha Shoffner: Thanks, Ashley.

If you have any questions specifically about the

content you just heard, chime in with those.

Or if you have more questions to any -- or comments to

any of the content that was presented earlier too, you

know, we have plenty of time available for those

questions now too.

I think some of our panelists had to drop off.

But I know Ashley's super knowledgeable and probably

can help answer questions you may have.

So open it up for another Q&A from our members.

>> Ashley Brinkman:  And I'll say we do plan to provide

y'all with some materials.

I know Bevin's got some great stuff.

And, you know, we have some things we've shared with

DNR that we can combine in to, like, one document for

you guys soon.

So, you know, like the -- the funding mechanisms you

just saw, and model language for office creation.

Links, important links for, like, the Confluence of

Accords, so if you haven't heard that phrase, what

that's all about.

Stuff like that that we can offer.

Bevin, when is the next meeting of the network?

>> Bevin Buchheister:  Well, we're trying to figure

that out.

It was supposed to be in October in New Mexico, but

that got cancelled.

And we're going to move it virtually, and we're still

deciding whether we're going to do a couple days or a

couple hours, or we're just going to spread a bunch of

webinars and kind of briefings out through several

months.

And we do try to avoid the legislative session because

we know our members are often pulled into that.

So I mean, they're usually January through April.

But our next webinar is going to be focused on funding

partnerships to land -- to -- or tap that -- the Land

and Water Conservation Fund dollars.

>> Gratia Joice: This questions from -- any

questions from our task force members or staff on the

call?

>> Bevin Buchheister:  I'll give you time to ask, but

on the last session when you asked about metrics, I

mean, I would think that landing federal grants and

bringing millions of dollars to your state would be one

of the metrics you would want to look at.

And also, we're going to be looking at how that

increased funding and -- can help marginalized

communities, because obviously they're the ones that

are going to have the hardest time coming up with the

50% match for those dollars, so we're going to look at

stated funding -- state funding sources of match and,

you know, how that gets distributed and how our offices

can help focus on marginalized communities that maybe

haven't gotten those dollars in the past.

>> Hi, this is -- oh, sorry.

Laura Preus with the Department of Natural Resources.

Thanks so much for your presentation.

It's really helpful.

I'm wondering, in terms of this topic of, you know, you

brought up a couple times the potential to maybe

augment or gain access to different types of funds, and

you've talked about the Land and Water Conservation

Fund.

With the Confluence of States, are there other extort

of federal funding sources or other types of funding

sources that you've found that some of the people have

had success in.

Curious your looking beyond --

>> Bevin Buchheister:  Yeah, we have looked at -- the

USDA has got some rural development funds and some of

those are focused on outdoor recreation development.

Because they've realized that's a really good nexus for

rural areas, because that's where people go to recreate

a lot.

And so those gateway towns, they've got development

grants for them and planning grants for them to be able

to attract outdoor recreation.

So, yeah, we're looking at that.

And on USDA, even when the economy's bad, I still find

that the USDA still has a lot of money, so we really

want to help the states tap those funds.

[Overlapping conversations]

>> Lindsey Davis:  This is Lindsey from ORR in the Utah

office.

As we're looking at those rural economic development

opportunities and technical assistance, there's some

grants being developed for that.

And the funding is going to, at least for the technical

assistance, to kind of help with some of the

implementation there.

There are stipulations in those grants that prioritize

states that have Offices of Outdoor Recreation.

So just know -- I know earlier, there was a -- an

initial question on, you know, are the offices going to

be helpful with some of that land and water

conservation fund dollars, and I would say, again,

absolutely yes.

And it's definitely something that, you know, is a --

it's a helpful qualifier as you're looking at some of

these government funds.

You know, to know that there's a key point person in

the state who's going to be, you know, who's well

networked and is going to be, like, key primarily

focused on recreation development, it definitely adds a

lot of authority to applying for these funds.

>> Laura:  Thank you.

>> This is Gratia.

I'm just seeing that there was a question in the chat

from back when we were doing the panel that I'll throw

out there in case Lindsey or if Cailin's still on the

call, can answer, or maybe Ashley, you know as well.

But Molli was wondering if there have been any

successful initiatives put forth in any of the states

for improving access specifically for individuals with

disabilities.

[Overlapping conversations]

>> Lindsey Davis:  I think somebody else can tackle

this better than I can.

I'm happy to get Pitt to follow up with the group.

I'm happy to report back on behalf of the state since I

know we have a track record there.

I just don't know the specifics.

>> Gratia Joice: Thanks, yeah, that would be great.

>> Bevin Buchheister:  I do know Maryland -- I mean, I

just know this because it's in my local jurisdiction.

It's in Annapolis, Maryland.

We did tap our state dedicated funds and these are the

funds that we use to match to get the Land and Water

Conservation Funds, they use that to create a

accessible boating marina, accessible boating program

for people with disabilities.

So that's -- I'm not sure it's built yet, but it just

got approved.

>> Gratia Joice: Thanks for sharing that example.

Any other questions?

I'll give it another minute or so.

>> Hi, this is Katy with Winnebago Industries, and

really want to thank the panelists and Bevin for your

feedback.

I mean, I think a lot of us are just digesting a lot of

this really great information.

And so please don't take our lack of questions as not

appreciating it.

I think, you know, one of the things that has come up

in different themes is just, you know, as these

initiatives and offices take shape, really navigating

thoughtfully the existing infrastructure and, yeah, the

opportunities that -- that exist for connecting dots

that might not be there yet or connected yet.

And so, you know, I guess I would just love any -- any

additional thoughts or, Bevin, I don't know if you've

had a cancer to share that -- a chance to share that.

But just from a kind of relationship management or, you

know, navigating that complexity, if you have any

thoughts on advice for us as we do move down this path.

>> Bevin Buchheister:  You know, I'll just give you a

little anecdote that I have from the Virginia office.

I mean, when they started the office, there's some turf

issues with, you know, parks and recs going, you know,

like, hey, we already do this job.

What are you guys even doing?

And I think, you know, it's important that -- to

realize that none of our offices are running recreation

programs.

They're kind of the connector between industry and

state parks and actually, in Virginia, I think the turf

issue got a little bit settled and understood when, you

know, they had a huge maintenance backlog for their

state parks.

And they have some really wonderful beautiful state

parks, but it had a huge maintenance backlog, like

pretty much all the states do, and when the office was

out there at public meetings, advocating for increased

maintenance funding for the parks, and helped them get

that, I think that's when they realized, oh, we're not

on competing paths.

We're on complementary paths, you know?

So I think, you know, obviously working that out and

figuring that out between the different agencies is key

to begin with.

But, you know, I feel like these are just, you know,

they're like -- they're like boosters that are going to

complement existing offices, not compete with them.

And I'll give you one example also from Colorado.

Like during the COVID, you know -- the COVID crisis,

which we're sort of still in, but the Colorado office

really helped -- helped outdoor recreation brands in

their state pivot their manufacturing towards making

personal protective equipment.

And making donations of P.P.E.

So, you know, that's one thing where it's like, you

know, who else would have that relationship with all

these -- these industries in the state to get that done

and get it done really quickly too?

>> Yeah, no, that's great.

That's super helpful.

And this is just Katy again.

And one other point, that I don't think you were on the

call yet, Bevin, but a point that was raised earlier by

Lynnea and others is just the importance of all of us

thinking in the vein of, you know, you mentioned

marginalized and communities, and I think thinking

about how we frame that, and especially in your role as

a convenor of -- of these outdoor -- of, you know, a

learning convenor, I think it could be really powerful

and interesting to make sure that we are thinking

together about the market opportunity that People of

Color and people with disabilities, LGBTQ, all of the

elements of diversity, all of the different market

opportunities that are there, and so, you know, I think

I just wanted to amplify the earlier conversation,

because I do think there's, you know, I love that

you -- your organization exists, and can be a strong

learning resource for -- four all of us as we chart

this path of cross-sector collaboration and really --

really trying to get that right.

>> Bevin Buchheister:  Yeah, thanks, and that's really

I think the biggest value that we bring to the states

is taking the best of what each state is doing and

sharing that information with each other.

So we are going to be looking at New Mexico's equity

found fund, and all the other different states to see

what they're doing as well.

And I'd like to learn more about Minnesota's equity

grant program as well.

>> Lynnea:  I'm happy to provide some information to

the organizers that can be shared out.

>> Bevin Buchheister:  Great thanks.

>> Gratia Joice: Thanks, Lynnea.

Katy was right.

This was a super rich conversation with a lot of

information that I'm sure folks are still digesting and

I'm sure questions or thoughts or ideas are going to

come up as you reflect on this information around as we

continue conversations as a task force.

So I'd just encourage you to make note of those

questions.

Send them to me, and I'd be happy to pass those on to

this really knowledgeable group of folks we've been

lucky to have at the table today.

So please, you know, keep sending in your questions and

we've got some great resources here, both within the

task force and, you know, our guests today.

So I really would like to thank everyone, Ashley, Jill,

Brad, Cailin, Lindsey, and Bevin.

For all the work you put into today's presentation and

for being here.

It was a great conversation, and full of a lot of good

learning for me personally, and I hope for the task

force members as well.

And I'd also like to thank our task force members for

the thoughtful questions and discussion.

We had throughout the day.

I'm just continuously impressed by the level of care

you're putting into these conversations, and I'm

excited to see where the conversation continues to go

tomorrow and into the future.

I want to remind everyone that tomorrow we're meeting

again from 1:00 to 4:00 on WebEx.

Where we will be discussing our refined SWOTs.

And also developing an integrated vision statement for

outdoor recreation.

We'll also be discussing our public engagement plan.

And we also have an opportunity at tomorrow's meeting

for a public Q&A.

So for the public who are on the call today, if you had

any specific questions, please join us tomorrow.

There'll be an opportunity to get your questions

answered then or your comments read.

And if you can't make it to tomorrow's meeting, please

send your questions or comments in to the task force

email address which you can find on the task force web

page.

I'll also read it right now.

It's mortf.dnr@state.mn.us.

So if you're not able to be at tomorrow's meeting, just

send your questions in there.

We'll try and answer them at the meeting tomorrow, but

we'll also respond directly to you with an answer or

acknowledging your comment.

So that is all I had.

I did not think we were going to end this meeting

early.

But it is 3:53.

Again, thank you so much to everyone for your

participation today.

And if anything comes up in the meantime before

tomorrow's meeting, please feel free to send me an

email.

>> Thanks, everybody.

Bye!

>> Thanks!

>> Gratia Joice: Thank you so much!

>> Thank you!

>> Thank you all!

>> Thank you!

>> Thank you!

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