The Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management (PRTM) Blog

Paul Leonard, Ph.D., Science Coordinator for the Arctic Program of the US Fish & Wildlife Service in Fairbanks, Alaska, was recently honored with the Dwight A. Holder Award by the Clemson University Institute for Parks in recognition of his outstanding work as a conservation researcher and teacher.

The Institute for Parks presents the annual awards program, which is named for George B. Hartzog Jr., the seventh director of the National Park Service, to showcase leading figures in the field of conservation. Specific awards were named after visionary leaders that Hartzog respected and admired. Award recipients are following in Hartzog’s footsteps by making significant contributions to the management of parks and preservation of our natural, historical and cultural heritage.

The Dwight A. Holder Award recognizes academic professionals that exemplify Mr. Holder’s illustrious career as an entrepreneur and public servant, which included leading South Carolina’s parks to a new era of service. Dr. Leonard received this award for outstanding work and sustained achievement that fosters understanding, wise use and conservation of natural and cultural resources.

Professor Rob Baldwin Endowed Chair and Professor of Conservation Biology at Clemson University, said when presenting the award that Leonard is one of those unique public servants who cares more about the land than their own careers. 

“As a scientist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, he has applied his understanding of landscape ecology and conservation biology to complex problems surrounding climate change, native peoples, wildlife migration and energy extraction,” Baldwin said. “Paul has made an early impact as a researcher and I’m excited to see where his career continues to take him.”

Leonard earned his master and doctoral degrees at Clemson University and was a postdoctoral fellow at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service – Appalachian Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) before moving to Alaska in 2018. Working with multiple levels of government, NGOs and Alaska native communities, the goal of his research is to provide resource managers and partners with the information, science and translational tools necessary to be better stewards of functional ecosystems. He investigates ecological patterns and processes using applied, bottom-up questions that deal with everything from Caribou movement ecology to the recreational experiences in soundscapes and viewsheds of wilderness. 

Before moving to Alaska, Leonard was developing a conservation plan for a 15-state conservation cooperative centered around the Central and Southern Appalachians. This planning process incorporated thousands of private parcels, conservations easements, state and national parks, and other public lands and placed them into a framework for understanding their contribution to regional conservation efforts. This work was conducted during his postdoctoral fellowship, where he was first inspired by the power of federal agencies to bring people together to plan for future landscapes.

Baldwin is inspired by Leonard’s work and vision for conservation and hopes his career brings him close to Clemson’s hills again sometime in the future. 

“Today he explores the trails and waterways of the land he is committed to conserve,” said Baldwin. “He is an avid birder, and like the birds he watches, he will migrate again someday. We hope his travel lands somewhere near here, if only for a stopover.”

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Watch Robert Baldwin, Ph.D., present the award to Paul Leonard, Ph.D. and his acceptance speech.

The Clemson University Institute for Parks (CUIP) provides research, education, training, and outreach that enhances the management of the world’s parks and protected areas. It accomplishes this by providing park and protected area managers with innovative research to support science-based decision-making; and by developing current and future leaders in the park movement by providing interdisciplinary and transformative education and training programs. The Institute currently consists of 35 Fellows and 10 Scholars working on park-related research.

Visit the CUIP website for more information about the George B. Hartzog, Jr. Environmental Awards program and its recipients.

Kerri Cahill, Ph.D., Branch Chief of the National Park Service’s Denver Service Center Planning Division, was recently honored with the Walter T. Cox Award by the Clemson University Institute for Parks in recognition of her sustained leadership and achievement in public service that preserves our natural and cultural heritage.

The Institute for Parks presents the annual awards program, which is named for George B. Hartzog Jr., the seventh director of the National Park Service (NPS), to showcase leading figures in the field of conservation. Specific awards were named after visionary leaders that Hartzog respected and admired. Award recipients are following in Hartzog’s footsteps by making significant contributions to the management of parks and preservation of our natural, historical and cultural heritage.

The Walter T. Cox Award recognizes park administrators that exemplify Dr. Cox’s distinguished career in education and public service, which included his tenure as President of Clemson University and as the Director of the Santee-Cooper Authority.

Jeff Hallo, Interim Chair of the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management at Clemson University, said when presenting the award that Cahill’s contributions span across regions, national programs, other agencies and with international partners. She has also applied a scientific lens to her agency’s planning work.

“In her role as branch chief, Dr. Cahill has built a truly amazing technical team in the field of visitor use management and socioeconomics,” Hallo said. “This is one of her greatest accomplishments and has truly impacted our field for the positive.”

Hallo adds that having a centralized team at the Denver Service Center ensures that technical expertise and leadership is available to parks and other land management agencies looking to understand and respond to needs and opportunities related to visitor use.

Cahill began her career in public service with a county environmental management department in Florida, and then went on to work for Florida State Parks, Office of Park Planning. During this time, she was inspired by planning as a forum for conversation to welcome a wide range of voices, along with integrating science and policy. Her work at the National Park Service began in 2003 after completing her Ph.D. at Virginia Tech in Forestry, specializing in recreation management. She has worked on a diverse array of projects in support of parks, including helping build the Interagency Visitor Use Management Council in 2011. Cahill chairs the council, which coordinates across six federal agencies to provide consistent guidance and tools for visitor use management. The council has produced several guidebooks on best practices and is developing related training. This guidance has been integrated into many projects, agency policy, and is now being adapted for use in other local, state, and federal agencies in the United States and around the world.

In addition to these accomplishments, Cahill helped develop planning guidelines for the National Park Service related to the topics of visitor use management and visitor capacity and co-led an NPS working group on visitor use management that developed tools and a central portal of resources for the agency.

Cahill has also collaborated with the international community, developing and sharing best practices for managing visitor use on public lands and waters. She received other awards during her career, including the 2017 George Wright Society Social Science Achievement Award and the 2016 Legends Award from the American Recreation Coalition. Cahill is forever grateful for these amazing career experiences and continues to be passionate about her work and collaborating with her talented colleagues in the National Park Service.

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Watch Jeff Hallo, Ph.D., present the award to Kerri Cahill, Ph.D. and Cahill’s acceptance speech.

The Clemson University Institute for Parks (CUIP) provides research, education, training, and outreach that enhances the management of the world’s parks and protected areas. It accomplishes this by providing park and protected area managers with innovative research to support science-based decision-making; and by developing current and future leaders in the park movement by providing interdisciplinary and transformative education and training programs. The Institute currently consists of 35 Fellows and 10 Scholars working on park-related research.

Visit the CUIP website for more information about the George B. Hartzog, Jr. Environmental Awards program and its recipients.

Kelly S. Bricker, Ph.D., Professor and Chair of the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism at the University of Utah, was recently honored with the Benton H. Box Award by the Clemson University Institute for Parks in recognition of her academic and instructional leadership in preserving our natural environment and inspiring the next generation of park and conservation leaders. 

The Institute presents the annual awards program, which is named for George B. Hartzog Jr., the seventh director of the National Park Service, to showcase leading figures in the field of parks and conservation. Specific awards were named after visionary leaders that Hartzog respected and admired. Award recipients are following in Hartzog’s footsteps by making significant contributions to the management of parks and preservation of our natural, historical and cultural heritage.

The Benton H. Box Award recognizes academic professionals that exemplify Dr. Box’s distinguished career as an educator and administrator. Dr. Bricker shares this year’s award with John W. Day Jr., Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, and College of the Coast and Environment at Louisiana State University, for leadership in preserving our natural environment and inspiring in students the quest for knowledge and the development of an environmental ethic.

Matt Brownlee, Associate Professor of Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management in the College of Behavioral, Social and Health Sciences at Clemson University, said when presenting the award that its description aptly reflects Dr. Bricker’s achievements as a scholar, teacher, and university administrator. 

“As a scholar, Kelly has co-authored and edited seven books focused on sustainable tourism and published several peer reviewed journal articles, yielding more than 2,500 citations,” said Brownlee. “She also has a prolific speaking record, travelling to more international destinations for keynote speeches in a single month than most of us dream of in a lifetime.”

Brownlee added that the encouragement and support Dr. Bricker provides to her students and faculty is also unmatched. “As a teacher and mentor, Kelly effectively guides students with empathy and support, while also challenging them to teach beyond their preconceived goals, climbing to new heights,” he said. “As an administrator, Dr. Bricker is equally kind and tenacious and, like water over limestone, she consistently and patiently perseveres without wavering once strategic goals are collectively identified.”

Over the past four decades, Bricker has focused her career on nature-based recreation and tourism as tools for conservation, sustainable resource management, and rural economic development. Her expertise blends more than 20 years of practical, on-the-ground experience in land management, environmental education, nature-based recreation and tourism, with an academic focus on social science research that examines the relationships between socio-economic, environmental and cultural management. In addition to her Professor and Department Chair roles at the University of Utah, Dr. Bricker serves on the boards of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council, the Tourism and Protected Area Specialist Group of the IUCN and the Central Wasatch Stakeholders Council. 

In 1998, Bricker and her husband launched an ecotourism program focused on river conservation and community well-being in the Republic of Fiji, called Rivers Fiji. The program is a unique collaboration between several landowning groups, a logging company and the area’s Native Land Trust Board focused on conservation. Together, they established the country’s first conservation area of its kind and its first internationally designated Wetland of International Importance, also called a Ramsar site. In return for their involvement, area partners receive lease payments, user fees and employment opportunities focused on sustainable, ‘leave no trace’ tourism. This creative approach to conservation has protected and preserved 28 kilometers of wetlands and pristine river habitat in the highlands of Fiji for future generations, while also promoting and preserving its people and heritage. 

Brownlee says that Dr. Bricker and her work continues to make a profound impact on the world and on the people she meets. “My life is better because I know Kelly. The fact is, my life is just not better, but it’s been positively transformed because of our collaborations,” said Brownlee. “Anyone lucky enough to interact with Kelly, operate under her leadership or receive her mentorship is better for it.”

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Watch Matthew Brownlee, Ph.D., present the award to Kelly S. Bricker, Ph.D. and Bricker’s acceptance speech.

The Clemson University Institute for Parks (CUIP) provides research, education, training, and outreach that enhances the management of the world’s parks and protected areas. It accomplishes this by providing park and protected area managers with innovative research to support science-based decision-making; and by developing current and future leaders in the park movement by providing interdisciplinary and transformative education and training programs. The Institute currently consists of 35 Fellows and 8 Scholars working on park-related research.

Visit the CUIP website for more information about the George B. Hartzog, Jr. Environmental Awards program and this year’s recipients.

John W. Day Jr., Ph.D., Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, College of the Coast and Environment, at Louisiana State University, was recently honored with the Benton H. Box Award by the Clemson University Institute for Parks in recognition of his academic and instructional leadership.

The Institute presents the annual awards program, which is named for George B. Hartzog Jr., the seventh director of the National Park Service, to showcase leading figures in the field of conservation. Specific awards were named after visionary leaders that Hartzog respected and admired. Award recipients are following in Hartzog’s footsteps by making significant contributions to the management of parks and preservation of our natural, historical and cultural heritage.

The Benton H. Box Award recognizes academic professionals that exemplify Dr. Box’s distinguished career as an educator and administrator. Day shares this year’s award with Kelly S. Bricker, Ph.D., Professor and Chair of the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism at the University of Utah, for leadership in preserving our natural environment and inspiring in students the quest for knowledge and the development of an environmental ethic.

William Conner, Ph.D., Professor in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Conservation in the College of Agriculture, Forestry and Life Sciences at Clemson University, said when presenting the award that his academic partnership with Day began in 1973, when Conner became one of his first graduate students. Almost five decades later, they are still working together– a testament to Day’s ongoing commitment to wetlands research and conservation throughout the world.

“During his career, John has always impressed upon his students the importance of wetlands and the impact man and nature has on them,” said Conner. “We’ve come away with an understanding from John that we need to preserve and protect the wetlands for the future generations that are coming behind us, because of all of the important ecosystem services that wetlands provide.”

John W. Day, Jr. began his career at Louisiana State University in 1971 and he has published extensively on the ecology and management of coastal and wetland ecosystems including the Mississippi Delta.  Day worked with noted ecologist Dr. H.T. Odum on his Ph.D. in marine and environmental sciences, which he earned from the University of North Carolina. He was a visiting professor in the Institute of Marine Sciences of the National University of Mexico in 1978-1979, at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands during 1986, at the Laboratoire d’Ecologie, Unversité Claude Bernard in Arles France during 1992-93, and in the Department of Geography at Cambridge University in 2000-2001. He has also worked at the University of Campeche and the Institute of Ecology in Xalapa, Mexico, and studied the impacts of climate change in the Mediterranean’s Venice Lagoon and Po, Rhone and Ebro deltas between 1992 and 2007. 

Day has served as major professor for 70 master’s and doctoral students, written and edited 17 books and monographs, and published over 400 peer-reviewed articles, with his work being cited more than 25,000 times. He has received several awards, including a Fulbright Fellowship for study in France, the Estuarine Research Federation Cronin Award for excellence in teaching in coastal sciences and the National Wetlands Award. He has also served on many panels and committees, including serving as chair of the National Technical Review Committee for the Mississippi delta’s restoration program and its Science and Engineering Special Team, which is focused on restoration efforts, as well as the Scientific Steering Committee of the Future Earth Coasts program, an international coastal science effort. Finally his current work focuses on addressing the impacts of 21st century megatrends on the sustainability of natural and human systems. 

“I can think of no better person for this year’s award,” said Conner. “It’s been my honor to work with John for the last 47 years, and to him I say congratulations.”

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Watch William Conner, Ph.D. present the award to John W. Day, Jr. and Day’s acceptance speech.

The Clemson University Institute for Parks (CUIP) provides research, education, training, and outreach that enhances the management of the world’s parks and protected areas. It accomplishes this by providing park and protected area managers with innovative research to support science-based decision-making; and by developing current and future leaders in the park movement by providing interdisciplinary and transformative education and training programs. The Institute currently consists of 35 Fellows and 8 Scholars working on park-related research.

Visit the CUIP website for more information about the George B. Hartzog, Jr. Environmental Awards program and this year’s recipients.