CHANGING ROLES FOR TRAIL CONTRACTORS

ROGER BELL, PRESIDENT, 
1) WESTERN TRAILBUILDERS ASSOCIATION, 
2) BELLFREE CONTRACTORS, INC., & 
3) NATURTEC: TRAIL AND BRIDGE TECHNOLOGIES

We are here to tell you that there are some hardy souls who try their darndest to make a living building trails, and that some 30 of us have gathered ourselves into a professional group called the Western Trailbuilders Association. While we are concentrated in several Western states--California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Colorado--most of us are quite mobile. My company, for instance, has completed over 200 projects in 14 states, including several in the East and Midwest, over the past 25 years or so. Our Association meets annually in Reno and our conference is attended by a rich mixture of Agency (mostly Forest Service) reps, vendors, and contractors. We produce an informal newsletter, help revise the Forest Service Standard Trail Specifications, swap stories, and try to keep abreast of developments which impact our small industry.

Obviously, the current budget crunch is one such development, and we have lent our voices of protest against those who propose such drastic and unconscionable cuts. But we also see some very healthy and promising changes afoot and we believe that contractors, working with you, can be facilitating agents or brokers in the process of putting quality trails on the ground. More than just hired hands who respond to prepackaged designs--our traditional role--we want to assist with a whole mix of factors that make trails happen: conception, promotion, fund raising, design, layout, estimating, construction, management, training, problem solving, product development, etc. Coming from the level of construction experts, we are broadening our capabilities to provide a range of services. More and more, I find myself consulting about and conceptualizing trails and trail related products as well as carving them into the landscape. Since Jim and I ain't as young as we used to be, for us it's a welcome development!

In any event, the two of us have made this trek to Washington DC to tell our unique and timely story, which we hope will also fairly represent the views of our members--who paid our way! I will provide an overview and Jim Angell will flesh out some ideas about an emerging role that contractors like us might fill as an essential bridge between land managers, funding sources, and advocacy groups.

Let me begin by thanking you. It isn't everyday we get a chance to mount a soapbox to talk about our business; Jim and I, in our...well ... twilight years, fortunately are endowed with an attribute to which most trail builders don't wish to lay claim, one that hopefully will sustain us a few more years in the business we love, namely, we have strong opinions and little hesitation in sharing same! That some of you would gather, however briefly, to receive our ill-gotten pearls of wisdom is more than we could have hoped. We shall try to merit your patience and good will.

Our business is in a state of dynamic change due to two primary and somewhat contradictory factors, one which is most unsettling and causes us to be rather defensive about what we are losing, and another which is truly exciting because it opens us to new opportunity and challenge. I suppose all change produces those seemingly contradictory responses, opposite sides of the same coin. I believe we need a healthy dose of both responses:

On the one hand, we naturally want to fight against the financial threat to our forest trails, which of course also threatens our livelihood as contractors. Having put so many hard years into building good trails, contractors understand better than many that the drastic cutbacks which are currently contemplated are shortsighted in the extreme. We know that trail reconstruction-- which constitutes about 90% of the Forest Service trail budget-- must be continual or trails will deteriorate almost overnight. I am told that under the continuing resolution funding levels by Congress, much of the Forest Service effort would have to be devoted to trail closure, rather than repair, because normal attrition, without adequate construction dollars, will create many situations which are simply too unsafe for public use. In other words, we can reach a point where momentum stops and we begin to slip backward down the proverbial slope.

Just think what would happen if our roads were treated similarly and we had to start closing them for safety reasons--such self-defeating action probably would not withstand public disdain long term. To put this in perspective, consider that we are talking about an annual level of funding for all Forest Service trails that is the equivalent of one or two highway projects--and we have to beg for that. It's really quite absurd!

As we seek to get the attention of politicians to support increased trail funding, let me suggest a small strategic caution about too much emphasis upon volunteerism. It cuts two ways. On the one hand, strong volunteer support is an indication of popular interest in trails, which should encourage politicians to provide more funding. But on the other hand, it may also give the impression that, since trail work can be done by volunteers, perhaps appropriated dollars aren't necessary. Why pay for what we can get for free? Remember that a thousand points of light is a catch phrase that means we would prefer not to use tax dollars. The idea of a thousand points is that they are suppose to burn on their own so that funding can be spent in areas where such free assistance is not readily available. I warn you that this may be an assumption, conscious or not, we will encounter.

Most of us understand that many--perhaps most--trails projects require a level of expertise and contractual safeguards which volunteers and in-house crews lack. We need both types of support or the overall program will suffer. This is a key reason for us--contractors, agency reps, and advocacy groups--to view each other as allies and to work in harmony for common goals. I have always believed this is possible and desirable, not only politically but in terms of work on the ground as well. A blending of our talents will, I think, produce the best results.

The current lack of funding support for recreation and natural resources must be resisted with whatever collective passion and smart action we can muster. Our presence as contractors here at this auspicious gathering reflects a growing awareness by our members that we must make common cause with agency reps and trail advocacy groups to assure that, at the very least, meager public funding for trails is not cut any further. It is disheartening and scary to watch our primary contracting agency, the Forest Service, losing the budget battle and to see the construction skills we have honed in the backcountry and the small businesses we have created jeopardized by political in-fighting, with apparent disregard for the disruption it produces for us.

As the Forest Service budget shrinks, another scary scenario begins to unfold. The meager trail dollars that remain begin to get siphoned off into other areas. For example, in Region 5, California, the Regional Forester decided to use almost none of the specifically appropriated dollars for maintenance of trails and instead used them for general recreation or for overhead to accommodate the lack of support dollars for various activities from timber sales. One of our intentions in coming to Washington is to register our objection to this kind of practice. It is like a double whammy--fewer dollars totally and then a practice of, in our view, mis-using what remains. We want to make clear to the power structure within the Forest Service that if we are to continue efforts to restore trail budgets, we expect that a significant portion of that money will actually make it's way to the ground as trail projects. In fact, we have some ideas, which Jim will explain, about ways we as contractors can take a more activist role in increasing the amount of each trail dollar that translates into actual trail projects.

These are some of our concerns about the negative aspects of change, about the shortfall of funds, and about our wish to restore what is being lost. I want to take a look at the other side of the coin as well, because to some extent the lack of funding reflects something else at work in our culture and consciousness. Trails have exploded in our imagination and I believe this is reflected in the energy and commitment of this conference, and in all the State and local meetings discussing trails and outdoor recreation.

I went off to the mountains for many years to build backcountry trails and then woke up one day to realize my own local communities had trail committees, and that the skills and know-how I had accumulated in the wilds had manifold applications right in my own backyard! I think the urban trail movement is here to stay and that if offers opportunities for utilizing--and in fact desperately needs--the kinds of capabilities we can bring to the process, assuming of course that we are also willing to learn some new ways of thinking and operating. In my own case, it feels like a circle is completing itself, because I began my professional life as an academic and college dean so the world of words and writing is not foreign and I am discovering that I can combine that with hard earned knowledge about what makes good trails technically and aesthetically. I think Jim has a similarly diverse background. In fact, he arrived at our conference a few years ago with a laptop computer, so we immediately made him secretary for life!

What I am suggesting is that there is an aspect of this change process which opens us to many new opportunities and new ways of doing business which is rather exciting and stimulating. It calls upon us to hone a whole new set of skills and energies not previously emphasized. It bears some similarity to what is going on in terms of gearing up to understand and accommodate to the onslaught of modern technology. Trail contractors that survive this period of transition will need to acquire many new capabilities. Up to recently we have been able to stay back in the woods and do our thing, bidding on previously designed projects and scratching to make a buck in the face of tight margins and many small disasters that are our stock in trade, not to mention a source of many hilarious campfire stories!

Such new skills we are learning include speaking to groups about trails; marketing ourselves and staying alert to entrepreneurial opportunities that will allow us to continue to make a livelihood from trail related activity; writing about trails; promoting new funding sources; going to conferences and networking over the internet about trails; developing expertise about surfacing materials, equipment, and other technologies more common to so-called urban trails.

Last year for the first time I can remember since I started this work in the early 70's, I didn't have one Forest Service contract. Instead, I did a variety of State and local projects that arose at least partly from my own marketing efforts. Several were design- and-build projects, or ones where I worked alongside CCC crews, or consulted with volunteers, or used larger rental equipment as well as our tailor-made, small scale tools, or arose from the sales activity of a second company I started which markets various trail technologies, such as fiberglass bridges and soil stabilization products. Contractors have quite an arsenal of specially designed equipment, suited especially to narrow and hard to reach trails, and we have acquired a good understanding of the products that work and don't work for various problem situations. There is almost no structural or design problem Jim or I or any of our colleagues haven't had to solve at one time or another. We are, in other words, a resource you should not neglect, and we are prepared to work with you in a variety of ways that will make your project succeed. Make use of the talents we have and those we are adding to the mix.

As conference organizer for several of the recent WTBA meetings, I have been helping to bring to the table a number of new ideas and methods. This year, for example, we sponsored an accessibility workshop led by Whole Access. Next year we are thinking about an in-depth program on partnerships--both in terms of developing trail projects and in terms of operating as an alternative to traditional and somewhat more adversarial contract relationships. We intend to help our members learn about some of these new ways of doing business and to stretch themselves in ways that will make our skills more generally available to the trails community. Jim and I believe partnering--which is an essential part of a niche he has uniquely developed and will tell you more about--is a wave of the future which we intend to help fashion, and if any of you would have interest in attending our meeting or providing such training, please let me know. We have a brochure available which has the names of all our members, and you could contact Jim or I for more details about the Association and our annual conference.