Martin J. Rosen, 1993 - Photo: Susan Ives
I’m about a week late in congratulating TPL founding board member and long-time TPL president Marty Rosen on his receipt of the Pugsley Medal from the American Academy for Park and Recreation Administration (AAPRA). According to the academy’s website, three medals are presented yearly to “recognize outstanding contributions to the promotion and development of public parks in the United States.”
This honor puts Marty in the company of previous awardees Stephen Mather, first director of the National Park Service, Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., former secretary of the interior Bruce Babbitt, former first lady Lady Bird Johnson, and TPL founder Huey Johnson, who received the medal last year. A list of all medal winners can be found here.
Cornelius Pugsley - Photo: U.S. House of Representatives
The Honorable Cornelius Amory Pugsley (1850-1936), for whom the award is named, was a Peekskill, New York, banker, U.S. Congressman, and political leader with an interest in parks. (Pugsley’s son, Chester, launched the medals program in his father’s honor in 1928.)
A Congressional contemporary of Cornelius Pugsley described him as a “vigorous talker and thinker,” a phrase that also describes Martin J. Rosen. One of my first assignments when I began consulting as a freelancer for TPL in the 1990s was to work with Marty, then TPL president, on ideas for magazine articles and publications. I quickly learned that a tape recorder was an absolutely essential tool for those conversations, because handwritten notes could never capture Marty’s tumble of ideas on the importance of parks and conserved lands to the American people.
Marty served 19 years as TPL’s president, from 1978 t0 1997, and continues serving on TPL’s national board of directors to this day.
A summary of Marty’s accomplishments can be found on the AAPRA website. For those wanting a taste of the man himself, I would recommend the KQED public television’s Quest program on the creation of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Marty served as one of the expert voices on the program and offered an eloquent description on the crucial importance of parks to the national identity.
