Ann Hamilton Interview, Part 1 of 2

  • DT:My name is David Todd and I'm here for the Conservation History Association of Texas. It's October 21 st, 2003. We're in Houston at the home of Ann Hamilton, who's been involved for many years in conservation, most specifically, in land protection and in fund raising and in grants making for protecting the resources in Colorado and Texas. And I want to take this chance to thank you for talking with us.
  • AH:Thank you.
  • DT:Ann, I was hoping that you could help us get started by telling us how you got started. There was an episode in your childhood, early years, where a family member or friend or teacher introduced you to the outdoors and a love of it.
  • H:The outdoors was just always a part of my life. From the time I can remember as a-a little child, I was always outdoors. I loved being outdoors. My mother was an outdoor gardener, an-an organic gardener before an organic gardener was even known very well.
  • I was born in Tennessee and we had-eastern Tennessee and we had lots of space around us, lots of woods and so I was always outdoors. One of my favorite early memories was we lived across the street from a firehouse and I spent a lot of time with firemen over at the firehouse and the dog, which was a-a spotted dog, a Dalmatian, and would run back and forth between the firehouse and the-and my house. And those were wonderful memories.
  • I just stayed outside a lot the-in those days. There was no fear ofbeing outside or being, you know, kidnapped or something like parents worry about today. This was a idyllic childhood. And then we moved to east Texas where my father built a petrochemical plant on the banks of the Sabine River in Longview, Texas. That's the cross I bear as a conservationist.
  • But, again, we had woods all around us and I-I just played in the woods and dug to China one summer, or tried to, and I-there was a fallen tree, I remember in the woods next door and we-we made it into a ship and had a-had a shipwreck and played pirate and just lots of fantasy in the woods. And-and, at one point, I even built a playhouse in the woods and the-the neighbors were extraordinarilyupset because they could see this playhouse from their back windows and always thought it was-looked like an outhouse, which it did.
  • And so, but these were my wonderful, joyful memories of childhood in the woods of east Texas and east Tennessee. So that's-that's sort of my memory and-and I've always been a natural, open space, sort of, kind of person. It's strange for me to say that now that I'm here in Houston, but you see the woods around me and I feel like I'm home again.
  • DT:And as you grew up and went to school and college, was there any sort of opportunity there that you had to learn about nature?
  • AH:Well, I went to the University of Colorado and then that time-it was this early 60's-and there were many of us in Colorado at that point in time that were very involved in out-out of doors. We loved Colorado, we swam in the high mountain lakes and-and hiked and camped and drank beer in the woods and had a wonderful time and did a lot of laughing and just cared so much about the natural world because Colorado is so beautiful. And I got very involved, at one point, in Governor Lamm's campaign and, as you probably remember, he ran for office in the early 70's and he walked the state. And so there were a bunch of us that-that got behind him and-and he-he ran on an environmental platform.
  • And so, I guess that was a-a real turning point in my life as a-as a young mother and early-I had married and had a couple of children and Governor Lamm was sort of one of our heroes. And Earth Day was very important at that point in my life and I remember sitting on the banks of a-of a-a bluff above my house and that was the first Earth Day. And Dennis Hayes was there in-in Colorado running a solar energy organization.
  • And I sewed a green flag and flew that green flag for probably, gosh, I guess a good ten years after that. Every Earth Day we'd fly the green flag and, of course, our neighbors wondered about that, but. I felt like a modern day Betsy Ross, sewing a green flag. It was-I-I guess my former husband still has that green flag. I think it hangs in his apartment up in Fairplay, Colorado.
  • DT:You talked just a moment ago about some of your field trips, hiking trips out to the mountains of Colorado. Is there one or two of those trips that you can tell us about?
  • AH:I think probably the-one of the most magical ones was we were-we were with another young couple and they had children and we had two young children and-and we went to Estes Park and-and climbed way up high at Estes Park and found a high mountain stream and we all jumped in and just had a wonderful afternoon and it was just magic. It was-the sun was out, the-the lake was cold, but crisp and, I don't know, that was a-a real memory that I will always treasure, being with those wonderful people and being surrounded by extraordinary beauty.
  • So that's probably one that I-that I will always treasure. There's-there were floods. I remember when I graduated from college in 1965, we couldn't even be outside because of the bad floods in Colorado and it was-it was May of '65 and-and we had a terrible flood. I mean, it was-it was really awful and took out several homes in-in the canyon. And so, I got to see nature at its worst, too, in that horrible flood of '65.
  • DT:You also mentioned that you watched or participated in Governor Lamm's campaign. Is there anything you can tell about that?
  • AH:Well, I-I ended up working for Governor Lamm after-after I got my children in school, I went to work. And-and one of the first things I did was-was go to work as a sort of consultant for his office on the Commission on Children and their Families, right in a-a child advocacy group of things.
  • And then-and then there came the opportunity for me to run a-the Colorado Office of Volunteerism and-actually, it was called the Colorado Office of Voluntary Citizen Participation, OVCPA. But we just shortened it to the Colorado Office of Volunteerism. And I was going around the state, trying to-to convince people that they needed to get out and-and address very important issues in their cities through the use of volunteers.
  • And so, we did lots of volunteer training, recruitment, that sort of thing and teaching people in the regions of the state how to recruit and train volunteers for-for important issues and one of those issues was energy savings. If you remember, that was Carter administration and we had an energy shortage and so, I remember one of the first projects we did was Save Fort Collins.
  • And save meant save America's vital energy and we went to Co-Fort Collins and did a-did a pilot program on, you know, wrapping hot water heaters and-and saving water and saving energy. Putting bricks in your toilet to save water and that sort of thing.
  • And from that grew another organization called the Colorado-Colorado's for Out-Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado, excuse me. And they-that organization is still alive and well. I just went back to Colorado last fall. I met with the young man who runs that organization.
  • They've just had their 20 th anniversary and it is alive and well. They've got volunteers all over the state doing trail work and working on parks and open spaces. And it-it just has lasted and that is one of-a legacy that-that I got to participate in that is still alive and well.
  • Unfortunately, the Colorado Office of Volunteerism is no longer. We got it-we got it through the state legislature and got it statutorily set, but it had no money to go along with it. So it's no longer, but Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado is and they're making a big difference there. And so that-I'm very proud of that.
  • DT:Perhaps you could tell us a little bit about how you managed to inspire and encourage people to give of themselves. I mean, this idea of volunteering and doing altruistic things, I guess, is really central to a lot of environmental efforts.
  • AH:I-I think.
  • DT:How did you do it?
  • AH:Well, you do it because you do it yourself and-and I think you-there's a thing that I read way back called Servant Leaderand-and you-you don't sit back and-and expect people to do things and not do it with them. And I think you have to just jump in there and-and be a volunteer with the rest of them.
  • We used a lot of-in that office, we-we had a lot of good people who helped us with consulting and taught us how to recruit volunteers. There's an energy there that you find people with the passion for being either out of doors or-or doing human service type work. You tap into that.
  • One of the things that we did when we started that office is we went around to all the extension services. And, I mean, those are naturals to get people involved. There's an extension service in every-every county. And so we hooked into the extension services and I met some of the most wonderful people in the world and they were all volunteers. I mean, they were just-and so you highlight those, you recognize people, you-you energize them just by your enthusiasm for the-for the cause. I don't how to-else to say it.
  • DT:Do you think there's something infectious?
  • AH:I do. Hmm-mmm. I do. I think that you can-I don't know. If you're with a bunch of people working on a trail project, and I remember the first one we ever did was in the-above the Poudre Canyon, above Fort Worth-Fort Collins. And we sort of got that one started because we had been in Fort Collins and done that Save project. We recruited volunteers from there and got them up into the mountains.
  • A lot of kids from-from Colorado State University came up there and helped us and there we were digging trails, and it's not easy work. But we laughed a lot and we, you know, ate hotdogs and sort of threw mud at one another occasionally. And it-it is infectious. It's-there's something about seeing your labor at-at the end of the day and seeing what you've done and then going back several years later and walking that trail.
  • I mean, they went-the-before the 20 thanniversary of this all-of this program, they went back and talked to some of the people were-that were there in that first encounter-that first project we did. And-and they talk about, you know, going back up there and-and walking that trail and remembering that time and-and I guess recognition and-and big thank yous and, you know, it is.
  • It's infectious and-enthusiasm, hope. Hope that you're doing-Mother-Mother always taught to me that, you know, leave things a little bit better than you found them. And-and I think that was imbued in me and that's what we wanted to do. And we wanted also to make it accessible to peoples so that they could get up into the mountains and-and understand the beauty of the mountains and be in it and among it.
  • DT:You mentioned your mother and I'd sort of skipped past something you'd mentioned earlier. You said that she was a gardener.
  • AH:Yeah.
  • DT:And I was wondering if you can tell any memories you might have of her out hoeing her garden.
  • AH:Yes, I can. She worked really hard. She loved-she loved the outdoors as well. She was a birder. She could identify many, many birds and, just recently-well, about three years ago, I sent her birding book to my first grandchild, hoping that that will take with Morgan. That book is very dear to me, Peterson's Birding Guide.
  • Mother was an organic gardener. We never threw anything away in our house that was organic, we saved it all and she composted, I mean, everything, including eggshells. She would save eggshells in this big, big jar of water and then every-about every two weeks or so, she would un-unscrew it and if you've ever smelled old eggshells, it is not a-it is not a nice odor. And she would-she would water all the indoor plants with this eggshell water. And my father would come home from work and say are you cooking a horse in the basement?
  • AH:It was pretty awful, but she had a green thumb that wouldn't stop. She could grow anything. I mean, she could just put a piece of ivy down in the earth and it would grow. It was really amazing; she had quite a knack for it. And she just loved digging in the dirt and being outdoors and I think that's-that's where I got my-and that came from her parents. You know, it kind of comes on up through generations. And I think that's where I got my love of the earth and outdoors.
  • DT:Did you help her weed or...?
  • Yeah. Oh, yeah. I remember when they moved into a-a new house. It was pretty barren and we ended up being out in the backyard, getting ivy started. And we'd take these sprigs of ivy and go down the path and every three inches or so, we'd plant another sprig of ivy. Same with the first house we moved into in Longview, Texas. It was red dirt-clay dirt, you know. And we-she brought in a-a thing of topsoil and she-we didn't do sod in those days.
  • You pat-you planted St. Augustine sprig by sprigand that's what we did. We got out in the backyard and planted the St. Augustine and we had a beautiful yard. She would dump-we had birds and-and canaries and she would dump birdseed-this is how much of a-a-of a-well, she was Scottish, very Scottish and she didn't want to throw anything away. And she would dump birdseed out the backdoor and when it grew, she would pick it and cook it and we'd eat it. I-so-I don't know what was in that, but it was pretty amazing. She was-she used everything
  • .DT:Well, so, part of her ethic was one of being frugal and careful.
  • Absolutely. Absolutely. She was a McNeil and her-her ancestors were from-from Scotland and she was-of course, my mother and daddy both grew up during the Depression and that's part of it as well, is those time of-they were bad, hard times. And so they always were very careful about saving and-and recycling and redoing and-and not being extravagant with their money.
  • Well, we were talking earlier, before visiting with your mom and her experiences, about your life in Colorado and with volunteers there. Maybe you can move us on through the next phase and after living in Colorado for a number of years, you came back to Texas. Is that right?
  • I did. I came back to-to Houston in 1985. Came back to be near my father, who was getting older. My mother had-had died while I was in Colorado, and came back to be near my father, who still lived in Longview, and-and my sister and brother-in-law, who lived here in Houston. And my first job was with the Park People.
  • I was the first executive director of the Park People. Proud of that, they had had some coordinators, but never had had somebody that sort of came in and-and organized things and took charge. And the Park People was a-a small, open space advocacy organization promoting green space in Houston.
  • And it was a-was an organization that was started by a mentor, Terry Hershey, who-who believed that Houston didn't have enough open space. And that wastrue because they did a study from the National-NRPA did a study and-National Parks and Recreation Association-showing that Houston was way, way, way down on the list, per capita, park-for park space.
  • And so, Terry created the Park People as part of that study because we were looking for-to getting some federal dollars in here. And-and in order to do that, you had to have a citizen's group involved in this and so that's what happened. And Park People was created and I came to be their first executive director. And I never forget, when they interviewed me, I-I-you would've thought I'd been interviewing for the, you know, head of-of General Motors.
  • It was over at the Arboretum, in the-Mem-Memorial Park. There were six people, sort of in a semicircle and they brought me in and sat me sort of in the middle of this semicircle and they hit me with questions. It was Glenda Barrett and Vernon Henry and-and Tom Bass. Remember the county commissioner, Tom Bass? And three other people that I don't remember. I think two of them were the coordinators and just sort of started hitting me with questions.
  • How was-you know, how would I do this job? And what was my background? And-and I thought, my goodness. I-I'm not going to get this job and I had-I'd flown all the way from Colorado, hoping for this job because I really did want to move and-and get started back in Texas and right around that evening, Vernon Henry called me and offered the job
  • And-and I'm sure it was because I had run-I had started that Volunteers for Outdoor Colorado, which is how, you know, my-my sort of professional involvement in a-in an organization that had to do with outdoors and parks and open space and recruiting and training volunteers and knowing about projects and that sort of thing. And raising money and I had had to raise money for the Colorado Office of Volunteerism.
  • There's nothing harder than having to raise your own salary. Believe me, you have to be very, very-what's the word I want to use. You have to be very-it's a mix. It's sort of you-you have to be not too arrogant, but you have to be very convincing that-that what you're doing is extremely important for the good of the whole.
  • And I must've been able to do that because every job I've had, except for the one I have now, I've had to raise my own salary and it's-it's not always easy to do that. So I had had some experience in raising money and that-that was a plus for me because I had to do that at Park People.
  • But it was a-it was basically-Park People is and was a-a park advocacy organization and involved, not just with city parks, but with county parks and State Parks and some National Parks. So their claim to fame back then was that they had-they had created one of the largest park-or helped create one of the largest State Parks in Texas here in Houston.
  • What's the name of that park? Sam? It's not Sam Houston, it's Lake Houston State Park, which is still with us today and hopefully will be. It-it's never been developed very well. It's 5000 acres. But I stayed with the Park People for only a year. When they-when they hired me, I told them and-that I'd-I'd do it for a year, but if something else came along, I would have to take it because I needed-I needed a good salary and-and that salary wasn't as good as it-as I'd really needed.
  • I had two children that I-were still with me and-and I needed to support them. And so the Houston Park Board job came along and that was for a-an-an executive director. They had not had an executive director and they had hired a-a development director, thinking that that's all they needed at the point-at that point.
  • And, unfortunately, she lasted only nine months and so I-I interview for that job and one of the-one of the Park Board members said to me when I told him that I was interviewing for the job, he looked at me and he said you'll never get that job. He said you don't have the experience for that. You haven't been in Houston long enough and you'll just never get that job.
  • Well, that's what spurred me on to get that job. You have to challenge me like that and then I'm going to do what I have to do. So I'd-I came up with some creative ways of interviewing for that job and interviewed a whole lot of-a whole lot of the board members and ended up with-with the job and had that job for four years.
  • It was an incredibly interesting job because it was very much like the job I had had in Colorado. It's sort of public-private. In other words, it was connected to the government and it was a mayoral appointed body of people who were not necessarily very interested in parks and open space. They were there because they had-they had done something that the mayor wanted them to do and they got this plum of a-of a-an appointment for it.
  • And anyway, I went around and talked to every one of the people on the Park Board and we-we started-started working on-on some campaigns and-and working on projects. One of the first projects we did was a little park on the east end called Parkadalia Amistad, which is in Hidalgo Park.
  • And we built a playground for the children of the-of the east end with Robert Leathers. Wonderful man who is very creative and does all his own-own playgrounds, but-and they're very distinctive. You'll-they're all wooden. Well, you-you can see-when you see them, you know that they're Robert Leather's playgrounds and
  • he comes into the community and literally talks to the people in the community and goes into the schools and talks to the kids in the schools and asks them what they want. And in front of them, he then draws what they want. Well, this one had to do with cars and little castle-like houses and-in and out, you know, lots of little tunnels and-and little bridges that you could walk over and teete totter on.
  • And-and we built this playground on the east end, right out there at the Turning Basin, it overlooks Buffalo Bayou at the Turning Basin and built it in five days with a team of volunteers. Hardest job I've ever done recruiting volunteers. It was really tough because this is a very, very poor neighborhood of Houston.
  • Anyway, we got it done and that nay-that park is still there today and it's a wonderful, wonderful playground. And you can drive out there and see children playing on it and it was just a great ex-exercise. And everybody's supposed to be involved in the actual construction, not just in the background, sort of cooking.
  • And-and one of the hardest things we had to do was-was try to get the women out of the kitchen, hammering and men into the kitchen, cleaning up. It was not easy; it's not a part of that culture and so.
  • But we managed to do that and lots of people got out and-and-and hammered and nailed and-and sawed and cut wood and it just was wonderful, wonderful project. The other things we did-let's see, we bought-we bought a park. We bought a big park, 750-acre park out in Fort Bend County and at the time, we were criticized for that because i wasn't necessarily right in the city limits.
  • It was in the ETJ, extraterritorial jurisdiction of Houston. But some of our board members who were on the Land Acquisition Committee decided that that part of Houston really did need a-need a park, a big park. And this piece of land came available. It was-had belonged to Doctor Cooley. It ended up in bankruptcy and ended up in-under the-Texas Commerce Bank owned it.
  • And so we had some people on that Park Board that were really very knowledgeable about land acquisition and they went after that piece of land and-and we got it. And it was thanks to-to the Brown Foundation, a lady by the name of Nina Cullinan had left us some money. We used some of her-her money for that. Several other foundations were involved and we ended up buying that 750-acre park in the middle of, what they thought, was nowhere. It's out on Highway 6 now.
  • It is now today surrounded by homes. Surrounded by homes. So the people out there now have a central park that they-that they will always have, which is a huge piece of green space that wouldn't have happened had-had those Park Board members not known that-where the growth was going to happen.
  • And so, I think I was very proud of that project. That was not an easy one. There's another one that I am really proud of called E.R. and Anne Taylor Park that is just going to be dedicated on November 22 ndof this year. And one of my first acquisitions when I got to the Park Board was-I had been there, literally, two weeks. I was trying to get my feet wet, trying to understand what my job was. I was in the Parks department, working close to the Park Director, because I felt that was very necessary. And that was not easy, by the way.
  • What I was going to say to you is this-this-this fine line between the public and private is not an easy line to walk because you've got-and you've got politics all along the way.
  • And so, we-these two young people came into my office. I got this call and I answered the phone and it was the receptionist at the front desk and she said Mister and Missus Ma-Major Stevenson are here to speak with you. And I said all right. That's fine. I'll come up and get them. And I walked up and there were this just very young, dignified African American couple.
  • And they introduced themselves and we started walking back and I said then what can we do for you? And they said well, we want to talk to you about a donation of a piece of land. And I said okay. Tell me what you want to do. And-and they said-or how-how did you find out about Houston Park Board. And they said that they had seen a brochure.
  • There had been an article in the newspaper about oh-a thing we had come up with called The Greening of Houston. And it was an effort to get people to donate land to the Park Board. And they had seen it in the newspaper and so they came back, we sat down and I said well, tell me about your land.
  • Well, it turns out that this land was their homestead, their family's homestead. E.R. Taylor was the brother of Horace Taylor, who was the 20 th mayor of Houston. And Anne Taylor, who was Major's great-great grandmother, was a slave woman. And they lived out on this property on Alameda Road, south of Houston, in Pierce Junction and they-they had 690 acres of land that they lived on.
  • And it was his land and what had happened is-is E.R. Taylor had gone off to-and-and his-he was the son of, I believe his name was E.G. Taylor, and I can't think of their names right now. But E.G. had come to Houston in the 1840's and-and decided this is where he wanted to-to stay.
  • And, as I say, he was-he was, I think, the uncle of Horace Taylor, who was the 20th mayor of Houston. Anglo-Anglo people and-so anyway, Major and Beverly came to talk to me about the donation of their homestead land. And E.R. Taylor, excuse me, the grandfather had gone off to f-fight the Civil War and he gotten the mumps-tuberculosis fighting in Vicksburg. And was taken as a prisoner of war and sent back to Texas to get well and to be under the purview of his parents.
  • Well, his father decided that the best place for E.R. to be in recovery would be out on this parcel of land that he had bought for a modest amount of money. But it would healthy for him to be out there in the sort of the prairie land. And-and the other thing he had among-amongst his wealth was a-a slave woman named Anne, who he had purchased from, I believe, a plantation in-near Wharton.
  • Anyway, she was of ha-supposedly had curative powers. And Major sat there in-in my office that day and she-he looked at me straight on and said, and Miss Hamilton, not only did she cure him of tuberculosis, she bore him eight children.
  • Well, they lived on that land as husband and wife, although they were not allowed to be married, of course, because they were-she was a s-a black woman and he was a white man. They were not allowed to be married, but they lived as husband and wife and had eight children, two-two of whom died at birth and six of whom survived. Survived them. She is still buried out there, alongside her two children who died. And that is the-we have 25 acres of that parkland that we purchased back in 19-this was in 1986. That land is just now, finally, being developed.
  • Thankfully, what happened was they-they had-they, being Major and Beverly, who carried this thing all the way through these 17 years-had enough sense to put a reversionary clause. Convinced the city that they wanted a reversionary clause in the deed of land and they threatened to invoke the reversionary clause and take that land back if the Park Board and the Park Department didn't develop it the way their mother had wanted it.
  • Their mother being Molly Taylor Stevenson, who lived out there all-practically law-all her life. And it was her idea to-to do this park. She, unfortunately, died last April, but she died knowing that the park was going to get finished. And one of the reasons the park is getting developed is because, number one, they got a grant from Houston Endowment and they also got a grant from Texas Parks and Wildlife.
  • So that was my first land acquisition as the executive director of the Houston Park Board. And I left the Park Board before the thing had been completed. It was not an easy acquisition because it was owned by all the heirs to that family. So it was-there were seven-seven or eight owners and one of those owners was the Methodist Church. And so they had to go to Mem-Memphis to talk to the head of the Methodist Church to see if they would donate the land.
  • Anyway, the land is there and it's going to be dedicated and it's going to be a passive park with trails and birding and a birding platform, so that you can crawl up and-and observe and so that, I'm very proud of. The other thing at the Park Board was-at the time I came on board, I-I told you that they were land developers involved.
  • There were also bankers involved and-and early on, for some reason, all the Park Board money got mixed in with the Park Department money and-and that was not an easy thing to-to pull apart. And so the bankers were brought in to sort of look at-at how we pulled it apart and made sure that those monies weren't commingled anymore.
  • Because like, for instance, every vending machine in a recreation center, they sort of put the m-monies from those vending machines were put into a-a-a-a fund that was commingled with Park Department money. So we-we split out those monies and the Park-other thing I did when I was at the Park Board was create a 501c3 so that the Park Board could be an independent, nonprofit organization.
  • People like donating monies to nonprofits rather than to governmental entities because they have a better feel for where their money's going to be and how it's going to be spent. So those were the things that happened while-during my tenure at the Park Board that were very interesting.
  • DT:Well, you've talked about your experiences at the Park People and the Park Board and I guess a lot of your efforts there are sort of couched in the fact that Houston has not has a strong parks tradition going back a number of years. And I was wondering if you could explain why it is that the per capita park and open space set asides were traditionally pretty low here?
  • Well, I have heard this story and I don't know if it's true because I-I-I really can't prove it. But-but there-I understand there was a mayor early on that used to say why does Houston need parks? We all have backyards. So there-it's a developer city.
  • Houston's a developer city and-and what-the developers have never been truly asked or-or we've never demanded of them to create green spaces in their developments. And so, as a consequence, we've developed and it's-we've developed sometimes in the wrong places, like a lot of the banks of our bayous.
  • Had-had that first plan that was done way back when in 1912, had that plan taken effect and we had abided by that master plan that was done by Kessler, we would've had a park bountiful city because the-the plan was to develop parks-linear parks all along all of our bayous.
  • And somewhere along the line, that-that plan was dismissed and we'd-we didn't do that, to our-to our detriment because, as you know, we have a terrible problem with flooding in Houston. And pl-places are flooding now more than they've ever flooded before.
  • But there's now, I think, another-an ethic coming along because I think people have had it with-with flooding and having their living rooms flooded three and four times in three and four years. We now have a buyout program and-and people are fed up that-they are saying that's what we want. We want linear parks along our bayous and I-I think that's happening.
  • But why haven't we had park space? The ethic hasn't been there. We are a town of-of high diversity and people have-it's a can-do city and we're going to do it no matter what. And we're going to make money here. And it's a-it's sort of transactional, can do city where we make a lot of money.
  • And we haven't up until, I would say in the last four or five years, really cared about our quality of life. And now, we're beginning to-to create a group of people-and I don't take credit for this. I think that-that Mother Nature can take credit for it. I-I think we've decided-some of the young people that have moved into this city have said we want a quality of life here so that we can raise our children to be healthy, contributing citizens. And a-and the other issue is that a lot of young people aren't coming here.
  • And I think the-the leaders of this community have seen that and said wait a minute. We've got to do something about this. And so, I think we're beginning to see a-a new ethic of, not necessarily parks, but quality of life. And we have beautiful amenities around the city of Houston. There's a lot to be attracted to here, if we-if we can showcase them and if we let people know about them.
  • Most people don't understand. We-we're also a sports city. We're-as you know, we've built three stadiums within the last four years or so, five years. So there's a lot people that-that care about sports and that's fine. But there's a-there's a balance there that we need to-to create.
  • DT:You mentioned sports just now. It seems like there's often a tension in park development between creating open space and habitat that are set-asides for passive recreation or for wildlife and then interests that are more into ball fields. And I was wondering how you balanced that tension when you were at the Parks People and Parks Board.
  • AH:Well, I-I think that-that there are-one of the reasons we have what few parks we have in Houston is because we have had donors who have-have said I will give you this land, but let's keep it for passive park use. And-and so that's one way to do it, is-is that the donor who makes the land possible, or the money to buy the land possible, has to say I want it designated for passive park use. Or for recreational use.
  • Now we've just finished a plan that Houston Endowment helped fund of Memorial Park. And in that plan, there is a-there is a-a-part of it is that we will-we will move the recreational facilities. We want Memorial Park to be more of a passive park, for runners and joggers and bicyclists and that sort of thing.
  • But we won't move those ball fields until we find other places to put them and-and in order to do that, we're just going to have to acquire more land. I mean, we've just got to acquire more land. And we have to talk to developers. When they build developments, they need to set aside some land for these amenities, for-for detention ponds, for one thing. I mean, you can put ball fields in detention ponds.
  • And that was one of the first things that I heard about when I came to the Park People. Vernon Henry had-had-who was, at that time, the chair of the Park People, had done a plan to-to set aside massive amounts of land for detention ponds. And this was 1985. And I-it didn't happen. But that's what we need to do and-and, for recreational facilities, I think you can set aside detention ponds.
  • It's-they do it at every other place in the, you know-you-in the Texas. They do it in Baytown, they've done it out in Sugar Land and you can have bowls that have ball fields in the bottom of them and when it rains, they can fill up. Nobody's going to play ball in the rain anyway, so.
  • I-I-I think there's a balance that you have to reach and-and people want to be able to go to places where they can just sit and reflect and not be bombarded with noise and-and too much confusion. They want places of reflection and-and peace and green and-and those-I'm one of them.
  • I mean, I have a little neighborhood park over here called Graham Park that I walk my dogs over there. Now, it has this little playground, but we go over there and just enjoy the woods. And those are real important and there are people-there's a plan now. There's a master park plan in Houston that is going to try to address that.
  • It's not a great time to be raising money for park acquisition, but the other part of that plan is-is looking at excess property that the city owns that perhaps the city can donate as-as green space. And I think the Park Board is looking into that. I certainly support them in doing so.
  • DT:One of the other balancing acts that you've talked about, aside from this active-passive recreation is between the public sector's role and private sector's role, between the Parks Department and the developers that determine a lot of the land use decisions. And I was wondering if you could talk about how you managed to walk that tightrope.
  • AH:It's not easy. It's a lot of one to one. It's a lot of-of-well, for instance. I do better if I sort of hone in on land stories. At one point when I was at the Park Board-and I was there from 1986 to 1990-90. The Park Board president decided that I needed to be out of the Parks Department and the Board decided to pull me out of the Parks Department and put me in a private, corporate office.
  • And I did that willingly, thinking that that might be the best thing. Well, I lasted over there about, oh, less than a year, and quickly realized that you couldn't work with the public sector via the telephone. They generally didn't answer your calls or wouldn't call you back. That you had to be there with them, eye to eye, talking to them about-well, one of the things we were doing was developing neighborhood parks.
  • And there was a project that-whereby we would-we would give 25,000 if they-if the community could raise 25,000. So we had a Neighborhood Partnership program whereby we had a fund that-that would-for-if-if the community could match 25,000, then the Park Board would put in 25,000. And I think that funded and that pro-that is still going, called the Neighborhood Partnership.
  • So we-we would work with these communities in-in-in developing these neighborhood parks. And neighborhood parks are-are literally parks within that community and neighborhood, not regional parks or larger parks. There are several different kinds of parks. But these were neighborhood parks where you can walk to them and play in them and-and mothers can take their children over there.
  • So we were doing this projects and I couldn't get answers and that-and that-one of the things that would happen is we-we-the Park Department would-would design these projects. The commun-with the communities input. Well-and the Park Board would be very involved in all of that.
  • In order to move these things forward, you'd-it had to have somebody who was the advocate on the behalf of the community and that ended up being the Park Board.And-and you would-you would get the community and bring some of them in and we would go to the Parks Department and sit down and talk to Clyde Bragg and say, now here, Clyde and this-we've raised the money and we want this park finished and started and when are you going to start it and when can we expect it to be finished?
  • And-and, in order to do that, I had to be at the Parks Department. I couldn't be outside the Parks Department in a corporate office. I-at-at least, that was my feeling. So we moved back over to the Parks Department and-and had our own offices over there.
  • It-it's-it's bureaucracy and-and rules and regulations and those are all very important. But they have to be done in a timely manner and-and when you're dealing with private funding, when you're dealing with people's donations, they want to see their money spent and used and not just sitting somewhere, waiting for a bureaucracy to move.
  • And so, I guess that my job really was spurring that on, to get-speaking on behalf of the private sector to the public sector saying, you know, we've raised this money and now let's get this park finished so that the community can enjoy it.
  • So it's not-it's not an easy job. It's not easy to do and that's why I-after four years, I-I left it. I had to leave it. It-it became very political and it-Whitmire had left and a new mayor had come in and there were going to be new appointees and it just got extremely political.
  • And I decided to-to take a rest and, at that point in my career, I ended up going back up to-going, not back up, but-but off to north central Texas. And becoming the development director for a wildlife preserve called Fossil Rim Wildlife Center, which was another very interesting career move.
  • It's in north central Texas, 45 miles southwest of Fort Worth. It's on about 3000 acres, has over 1500 different kinds of hooves, stock and other endangered animals. Everything from wildebeest to scimitar horned Oryx to lots of rhino-rhino, ostriches.
  • It was a remarkable place and I thought I was going to go off and be the Meryl Streep of north central Texas and, unfortunately, it didn't work that way. I ended up living there, right in the middle of-of-of the pasture where the wildebeests were. And the wildebeests and the ostriches.
  • And ostriches are not nice animals, they are-my poor old dog, whose name was Howard Morgan, would get outside the fence where I-we were enclosed inside this sort of electrified fence so that the animals wouldn't come up-up on our front porch. And Howard would get out and-several times, he got kicked by an ostrich. He didn't like that very much.
  • Anyway, it was a very pastoral setting, but it was extremely difficult work because, again, I had gotten myself involved with a-with a-a privately owned facility and it was a solely owned proprietorship and-and my job was to raise money for this.
  • Well, I found out that that's not so easy because corporations want to make sure their money's going for, you know, tax exempt purposes. And-and so we created a tax-exempt entity, but it really wasn't split away from the privately owned facility. And it-it became increasingly difficult.
  • So we did lot of things like, we did some retreats and-and tried to talk to the owners about how it was very important either to be a privately held facility or a pure nonprofit. That-that it really was not very easy to do both and, almost impossible, frankly, to do both. And they didn't want to hear that and so I ended up leaving after nine months.
  • But it was an extraordinary experience because I-I learned a whole lot about endangered species and captive breeding. And learned that captive breeding is fine, but oftentimes when you captively breed these endangered species, they can't go back to their natural habitats because their natural habitats aren't there anymore because they're so rapidly being bought up or going away. And so that the animals increase and then-and then you get to-to the problem of culling herds and, if you've got an ethic of-of not-not doing euthanasia on animals, that becomes increasingly difficult.
  • So it was-it was an interesting job, a very wonderful learning experience for me, but I-I worked myself out of a job, frankly, because I told them that they needed to be either one or the other. And they-they decided they would be-continue to hold it privately and so I ended up leaving and coming back to Houston and-but I'm glad I was there and-and I have to tell you that today it is a nonprofit organization and it's doing very well. And the animals seem to be very happy and-and I need to get back up there. I'd love to see it again.
  • DT:While we're still talking about the nonprofit fundraising phase of your life, can you maybe pretend that I'm a grants maker and you're trying to give me the pitch for why park acquisition or park maintenance or wildlife habitat program ought to be funded?
  • AH:Okay. Let's use the example of Houston. Well, let's use the example of Texas, as a state that's 93 percent privately owned. Mister Todd, I don't know if you know this, but we're going to probably double our population in another 30 years in Texas. And that population is not going to be huge holders of large tracts of land.
  • That population is going to be urban dwellers. They're going to be probably minorities and they're going to live closer and closer together and they're going to need places of refuge. They're going to need places of recreation. They're going to need places to go with their families and enjoy the out of doors and learn from the out of doors. If they don't learn about it, they won't respect it. And in order to respect it, they have to get out in it and-and understand and learn from it and be happy and we really have got to increase our public parklands in Texas.
  • And that doesn't mean just the state, it means-it means setting aside conservation easements. It means working with private developers to-to create green spaces within their communities and I-I just know that you care about the out of doors so much and your family has come along, through these generations, loving and living on the large tracts of land and I hope that you can give that opportunity to some of these youngsters coming along to understand and revere the landscapes.
  • And if you could just see it as-as an investment in the future of this great state because, really, without land and the acquis-and-and the opportunities to get onto the land, it will be abused. It will be abused because if they don't know it, they're not going to respect it.
  • And so, I was hoping that you might think about a gift of-of a half a million dollars to help us buy this tract of land that we have found outside here of-up north of Houston that some of you ancestors timbered on. And I know that-that they benefited greatly from the timber that they got from that land and-and wouldn't it wonderful to have that as your legacy?
  • DT:Very persuasive. [misc] Now a lot of your donors are probably business people, when you're in that part of your life. What sort of responses would they give to a impassioned plea like that?
  • AH:They would-they would say-generally, they would say I'll think about it and you'd have to get back to them. Or they would-they would say who else is involved and-and want to know, you know, if some of their friends were involved or-or what they would also want to know much about the organization for which you were asking. You know, whether it be the-the state of Texas or whether it be the Nature Conservancy or whether it be the Conservation Fund or why-why is this an organization that I should give my money to and how do I know that it will be used wisely and quickly-time, in a timely fashion
  • So you have to have your ducks in a row when you make the-make the pitch. You know, you can't just be all passion and-and heartstring pulling. You have to-you have to know about the bottom line, exactly how much the land is going to cost, how big the land is, or whatever. Whatever the project is, you really have to have everything. And that's probably one of the reasons why you need professional staff to help you.
  • I-I know you were thinking about the difference between volunteerism and professional staff, but a lot of these board members who make these pitches and-and we kind of ask that boards do the pitch instead of the paid staff people. It's much more in-persuasive to do it that way.
  • But they don't have time to-to get all the nitty gritty, you know, details of a project and so you need the paid staff to really feed you that information and-so that you can make the pitch. And-and the-and be the passionate part of it and let the staff be the technical part of it, so-if-is usually the way it works and the way it works best.