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Meet John Thorner: an interview with NRPA's new executive director

Parks & Recreation - April 1, 2003

John Thorner, CAE, took over as executive director of the National Recreation and Park Association on March 24. Before joining NRPA, Thorner was executive director of the Optical Society of America, headquartered in Washington, D.C. He previously served as the executive director of the Air and Waste Management Association, in Pittsburgh, Pa., director of public affairs and general counsel of the Water Environment Federation, in Alexandria, Va., and environmental counsel and director of communications for the American Paper Institute/National Forest Products Association in Washington, D.C. In addition to his 20 years of association management experience, Thorner is an accomplished journalist, having written for the Washington Post, Legal Times, Associated Press and Atlanta Constitution.

Thorner received his law degree from the University of Georgia School of Law. He also has a masters degree in Journalism from Columbia University. His undergraduate degree in history and political science was from Duke University.

Thorner is a member of the American Society of Association Executives and the Greater Washington Society of Association Executives. He's a certified association executive, and is licensed to practice law in two states and the District of Columbia.

Parks & Recreation talked with Thorner soon before he started his new duties.

Parks & Recreation: Let's start with your personal connection to parks and recreation. What can you tell NRPA members about that?

Thorner: Personally, I'm an avid hiker, biker and swimmer. I use parks and recreation facilities extensively. With five kids, I've been to more recreational soccer games, swim meets and softball games than I can count. And my family and I love to vacation in state and national parks.

Parks & Recreation: How about professionally?

Thorner: It might not look like it at first glance, but I've worked on a lot of issues related to parks and recreation. My first association job was with the American Paper Institute/National Forest Products Association, where, as environmental counsel, I was responsible for an array of issues relating to the Clean Air Act, including visibility in the Grand Canyon National Park. And I worked on many other issues relating to national forests. I also worked on issues relating to the safety of treated wood products in playgrounds.

At the Water Environment Federation and the Air and Waste Management Association, I worked on many issues relating to water quality and air quality.

Parks & Recreation: I'm curious how you go from a journalism background--the Washington Post, Associated Press, Legal Times--and a law degree to association management.

Thorner: I was covering environmental and energy issues at Legal Times when the opportunity came along at the American Paper Institute/National Forest Products Association. That was in the early 1980s. Maybe a better question is, "What does my background have to do with why I've stayed in association management?"

The combination of legal, communications and public policy experience is really useful in associations. Also, both legal and journalism training teach you to ask a lot of questions and to learn quickly. And to communicate. These skills are really helpful in a diverse organization such as NRPA.

On a personal level, I find association work extremely satisfying. It's very exciting to me to use all the different parts of my background in a typical day. As an executive director, the projects you need to see through are very varied. There are a lot of different needs to tend to hour to hour. I enjoy that.

Parks & Recreation: Can you walk us through each of your previous associations? How were they similar to and different from NRPA?

Thorner: The American Paper Institute/National Forest Products Association--now the American Forest and Paper Association--is the most dissimilar from NRPA. It's a trade association. But like I said, issue-wise, there was some relation. And doing that job, I became very familiar with extensive lobbying efforts, regulatory affairs initiatives and communications challenges.

From the late 80s to the mid 90s, I was at the Water Environment Federation. It's very similar to NRPA. It's larger--there are 40,000 members--but they're individual members. The structure is a lot like NRPA's. It's a federation of approximately 40 state associations and subspecialty groups, so there's a diverse constituency similar to NRPA. And there are more than 120 people on the board, compared to NRPA's 70-plus. So I've had that experience of bringing together parts of a large organization.

In 1994, I became executive director of the Air and Waste Management Association. It has about 16,000 individual members. So there is a similarity in size to NRPA. Another similarity to NRPA is that many members at both WEF and A&WMA are state and municipal officials.

In 1998, I became executive director of the Optical Society of America. On the face of it, this organization might seem dissimilar to NRPA. But not really. OSA is an individual membership organization. Its main purpose is to build the profession by sharing information and by educating members. We held numerous educational seminars and workshops, and we had a large annual meeting that consisted of short courses, paper sessions and a large exhibit. Our staff took great pride in its success in growing both the educational offerings and the annual meeting.

Optics is a branch of physics. And within that one branch, there are many sub-categories. Part of my job was to make sure all the groups representing the sub-categories were satisfied. I'll want to do the same thing with NRPA's branches.

Parks & Recreation: Let's talk about your goals for NRPA.

Thorner: Well, let me start by stressing that I want to learn a lot before making any major recommendations. So I'll talk in broad terms here.

On the public policy and advocacy front, we need to merge the voices of professionals and citizens. I believe there are many opportunities for increased funding and support for recreation and parks. With our combination of professional and public members, I hope to create a political force. By combining the knowledge of our professionals with the interests of citizens, I believe we can be very effective in influencing Congress.

Parks & Recreation: How do you make that case to Congress and others when people say parks and recreation are a luxury we maybe can't afford, given the war on terrorism and the state of the economy?

Thorner: We have the issues. The challenge is to make them compelling to decision makers when others seem to be taking precedence. When the administration and Congress are preoccupied with a war, we have to remind them what we are fighting for. We're fighting to preserve our quality of life. And our quality of life is based on being healthy. As Americans, we should want to live healthfully as well as happily. We've all seen the statistics on obesity and the diseases that result from obesity. We know that parks and recreation are part of the solution. As a father, I've long been concerned about this. We have to have a physically fit citizenry.

And we need to keep reminding our officials of the value of inner city recreation programs. These programs help kids succeed rather than going down the wrong path.

Parks & Recreation: Tell us about a public policy success you had elsewhere.

Thorner: At my last association, the Optical Society of America, the real issue was getting research dollars. The lion's share of research money in science goes to biological research. We had a real challenge getting resources for physical sciences, especially optics research. So we put together a coalition of several different organizations. We started a legislative effort to get a major sum for optics research and managed to get several hundred million dollars directed towards this area.

The relevance to the job at hand at NRPA is that we worked in a coalition to convince Congress of the importance of our field. We did that by showing in specific ways the value to society of what we would do with the resources we were seeking.

Parks & Recreation: I would imagine that because the members of the Optical Society are a pretty high-tech bunch, you utilized technology to serve them. What technology goals do you have for NRPA?

Thorner: We need to be very conscious of external trends, such as pressure on the ability to travel, and we need to be aware of new technology ways to serve our members if they are unable to get together in person as in the past. The advances in communications technology are fabulous, and we need to take advantage of them. Things like broadcast seminars, putting education programs on CD-ROMs, distance learning programs, things like that.

Parks & Recreation: How about on the membership side?

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