Donald M. Spalding

Now, how long did that assignment last?

Four years.

Four years, so you were there after Hartzog was fired?

From there they were having a problem in Death Valley, where I had been years ago, in mining, so the Director asked me if I’d go down and write a report At any rate, that assignment lasted almost three years. After completing a report to Congress on the mining in the parks, I moved to San Francisco.

So, what year did you finish at Death Valley?

I would guess ’79, approximately. I was Chief of Operations Evaluations at Region, and ended up being Associate Regional Director for Administration for awhile. I’m not that type, but a very interesting assignment. Regions are run generally by a squad of key people and evaluations were truly a management evaluation and then some criminal investigation also.

How many Associate Regional Directors were there when you were there?

Five.

Five, okay, and there was a Deputy Regional Director?

We had a Deputy and we abolished that position and moved him out. The position really wasn’t needed, but they reinstated it again. Depends on the operation of the manager. The way it was we didn’t need him. You have to make staffing cuts at times; they are hard to do. Funny how the ball goes round in circles. BOR, Bureau of Outdoor Recreation, was changed to a different name, what was the last name?

Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service.

Right, we had a new Secretary of Interior and he decided that the organization was going to be abolished. The Park Service was going to absorb that staff. That was one of the jobs that I had to do was to fit that staff within our organization. Every region had to pick up so many. We had to pick up forty people

Was it from their regional office or did they have sort of a pool you had to pick from?

They had regional offices, almost the same as the Park Service did. In fact their office was in the same building we were in, and that created a very interesting situation .