Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Deny Galvin Receives GMW Award for Excellence

Deny Galvin receiving the GMW Award for Excellence
from GWS Past President Rolf Diamant
photo: Samantha Weber

Former National Park Service Deputy Director Denis P. Galvin received the highest honor of the George Wright Society at a March 14 awards ceremony capping the Society’s biennial Conference on Parks, Protected Areas, and Cultural Sites.  Galvin received  the 2013 George Melendez Wright Award for Excellence for his outstanding lifetime achievements on behalf of America’s national parks as a leader, innovator, and mentor to countless NPS employees.

If one looks at the history of America’s national parks over the past 40 years,” the Society noted, “Deny’s fingerprints can be found on virtually every advance that has been realized over the period.”  These include seminal roles in creating the Natural Resource Challenge, designing professional development and recruitment programs, and championing national heritage areas, among many other accomplishments. 

The Society’s award citation concludes: “Like George Melendez Wright himself, Deny realizes that our calling is not merely to be managers of parklands.  We are stewards of a priceless heritage, and our stewardship must be informed by the highest ethical and professional standards we can bring to bear.  That is just what Deny did every day of his career.”


At the same event, five other winners in the Society’s “Imagine Excellence” Awards Program received their honors:

·       Vernon C. “Tom” Gilbert received a GWS Special Achievement Award for his ongoing work to support and reinvigorate the system of biosphere reserves in the United States.  Gilbert had a long career in the National Park Service and with UNESCO before retiring, after which he became the founding president of both the George Wright Society and the United States Biosphere Reserve Association.

·       Hugh C. Miller, who retired from the National Park Service in the post of chief historical architect, was recognized with the 2013 GWS Cultural Resource Achievement Award for his career-long achievements in preservation planning and design, which have “helped shape the policies, practices, and techniques that are at the core of modern-day preservation.”

·       Robert Winfree, chief science advisor in the National Park Service’s Alaska Region, was given the 2013 GWS Natural Resource Achievement Award for making scenario planning the centerpiece of NPS’s plans to respond to climate change-related impacts in the Region’s parks, and for boosting effective science communication among his peers inside the agency and elsewhere.

·       Peter Newman won the 2013 GWS Social Science Achievement Award for his cutting-edge research on visitor-related impacts in parks and protected areas while at the same time mentoring future researchers and park managers as associate professor of protected area management at Colorado State University.

·       Charles Jacobi was honored with the 2013 GWS Communication award for his innovative work to promote Leave No Trace principles at Acadia National Park, where he is a resource specialist.  Thanks to Jacobi, over 4,000 visitors are contacted each year and educated about the benefit of low-impact outdoor recreation.

Complete citations for all the awards can be found at http://www.georgewright.org/gws2013_awards.pdf.

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