Park superintendent Bill Laitner sends his personal welcome to you in this video clip. (Click Photo To Watch Video)From the dramatic lookouts of Hurricane Ridge to the Hoh rain forest to vast stretches of wild coastline, Olympic National Park is blessed with extraordinary beauty and opportunities for Americans of all ages to explore and enjoy their natural heritage.
Few realize, however, the breadth and complexity of the operations and projects the park undertakes in order to provide a safe and enjoyable experience for our visitors. At the same time, we must carry out our mandates to protect the park for future generations and build upon our knowledge of the park's natural systems and cultural heritage.
We are involved in ecosystem restoration, law enforcement, archeology, road maintenance, public education, natural resource inventory and monitoring, rescue operations, fisheries management, utility provision, and trail building. We are studying watershed processes, rare species, and intertidal organisms. In short, the modern national park is a highly complex organization that defies easy description, either financially or functionally.
In order to better document and explain the complexity and needs of the park, Olympic has now joined the ranks of over fifty other national parks that have developed a business plan. The Business Plan Initiative is an innovative way of providing comprehensive but easy to understand information about park operations and finances to our stakeholders. In addition, we seek to clearly analyze where revenue shortfalls exist and to prioritize strategies for addressing these shortfalls.
At the dawn of the new century, the park faces challenges that were never envisioned at the time of its creation. Once a remote area, population growth in the Pacific Northwest has been increasing, creating demands for more recreational opportunities in the park and also fueling the growth of towns in the region. And while the pressures of increased development and visitation loom on the horizon, we also find ourselves in the enviable position of restoring key natural features and ecological systems in the park to their original condition. Most notable among these projects is the restoration of the Elwha River, a multimillion dollar undertaking of national significance and a powerful symbol of the National Park Service's commitment to preservingand restoring as appropriateAmerica's natural heritage for future generations.
If we are to manage Olympic's resources with intelligence and vision, we must clearly communicate to the public the challenges we face and the funding we need to meet those challenges. Together, we can help ensure that Olympic's spectacular vistas, remarkable biological diversity, cultural heritage, and endless recreational opportunities are protected and accessible for future generations.
Thank you for caring enough to take a closer look at Olympic National Park.
William G. Laitner
Superintendent