|
AN OHV TALE: HOW AN ENTHUSIAST HELPED FORM A
CLUB, OPEN A NEW RIDING AREA, AND GO FOR HIS
DEGREE IN OHV RECREATION
A rider's
successful quest to increase riding
opportunities and work towards a career in
off-highway vehicle recreation
Russ Hanson started riding ATVs at age 13,
and even then he imagined himself one day having
a career involved with his favorite sport. “Of
course I thought this was a crazy dream because
unless I built them or raced them, I couldn’t
really picture any way of accomplishing this.”
Hanson joined the military in 1992 and
started racing ATVs with some success in his
native northwest, but racing at that time wasn’t
very popular so he reverted back to trail
riding. “I heard about the ATV Jamboree in
Richfield, Utah so a friend and I loaded up the
quads and made the trek from Great Falls,
Montana where I was stationed at the time. I
think it was only the second year of the event.
My friend had a 300EX and actually loaded up
enough stuff to do the 4-day Mountain Man
Marathon. You could barely see red plastic under
the duffel bags and hundreds of bungees holding
it all down. It was a sight to see!”
Russ continues, “Along this trek Max Reid (USFS) and Stan
Adams (BLM) made an impression on me. They were
our guides on the trail and they had full-time
jobs managing OHV recreation. I thought ‘how can
I do this too, how can I get into this line of
work?’ But I was still new to the Air Force and
not quite ready to get out and try something
different. I packed up from Utah and went back
to the military life, still dreaming about being
more involved in OHV recreation somehow.
“When I got home I hooked up with the local OHV club in Great
Falls which were primarily dirt bike riders.
This is where I first met Russ Ehnes who was the
club president. I wanted to branch off and start
an ATV club because at the time four-wheeler
recreation was exploding. With the help of Russ
we started working on issues and having
meetings. About the time we really started to
make progress with the club I got orders to
relocate to Hill AFB in Utah.”
While Hanson was based in Utah he naturally attended the
Jamboree a few more times. “One year I pulled
Max Reid aside and asked him how I could get a
job doing what he does. He told me my best bet
was to get a degree in the field of recreation
or forestry. Another year at the Jamboree, we
saw this Forest Service truck pulling a trailer
with six ATVs. The ranger said they were going
out to survey an area to see about connecting
two trails. Of course I asked all kinds of
questions about how he ended up getting this
gig. Right then, there was no doubt this was
what I wanted to do and I was determined to find
a way. I knew I had to get back in school, but
being active military I did not have the time
plus there were no schools close enough for the
degree I needed and online classes were still a
thing of the future.”
Hanson’s next military stop was in California. He continued
to try and find a school that had a degree
program in outdoor recreation. “I was having no
luck until one day I was thumbing through Dirt
Wheels Magazine and saw a short article
mentioning an organization called the National
Off-Highway Vehicle Conservation Council
(NOHVCC) and how they had helped create the
college-level educational programs that I had
been dreaming about. So I signed up for this
series of online OHV recreation management
classes that were available through Marshall
University (West Virginia). These classes proved
to be paramount to the next project which I was
about to embark on.
“Soon thereafter I was trying to find a school where I
could get a recreation bachelors degree online
and ran across Northern Arizona University
online Parks and Recreation Management degree
program. This was, at the time, the only school
to offer this degree online (editor’s note:
Marshall University is only months away from
offering their entire OHV Recreation Management
series of courses online as well). This program
is currently teaching me how recreation and
leisure services impact society and how to apply
what I learn to the OHV specific arena. I will
be using the OHV management classes as my
emphasis. I am now well on my way to earning a
degree in the recreation field just like I have
always wanted.”
Somehow, in the middle of all this activity, Hanson got
involved with what would soon become a huge
project right at the Vandenberg AFB where he was
stationed in California. There had been an area
to ride OHVs on the base but it had recently
been shut down due to Unexploded Ordinance found
on one of the trails! Also, the area was not
managed at all making the OHV area very
unpopular to the anti-motorized access crowd. “I
kept asking when a new area was going to be
opened with no one knowing or seeming to really
care.” Vandenberg has 99,000 acres of land to
work with.
“To get the ball rolling some of us OHV enthusiasts had an
informal meeting to discuss the process of
opening a new OHV area on the base. This very
smart environmental compliance officer who just
happened to be an avid Jeep recreationist led
the meeting. He laid out everything that needed
to be done in order to get an OHV park
constructed. He mentioned things like NEPA, SHPO
and all the planning and surveys that needed to
happen, not to mention that we needed to sell
the idea to base leadership.”
Page 1
2 Next
Page
|
