Gary Johnson
Chief of Resource Planning
Blue Ridge Parkway

For the past 16 years, Gary Johnson has been Chief of the Resource Planning and Professional Services Division, Blue Ridge Parkway. Gary, a landscape architect and planner, heads a division staff of 13, including branch chief, land resources specialist, cultural and natural resource management specialists, park curator, resident landscape architect, community planner, and a computer aided draftsman. This group of professionals is responsible for all of the pre-implementation planning and compliance and resource management activities on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Prior to his current position, Gary served for 18 years in field assignments in the southeastern United States and in the Denver Service Center as a project manager/landscape architect and section chief on major planning, design, and construction projects in some 50 National Park Service units. From 1988 to 1994 he supervised a group of Denver Service Center planners responsible for planning NPS areas in Alaska, the Pacific Northwest, and the western United States. Project clients have included numerous NPS managers and non-profit organizations with an interest in resource protection and visitor use management. In addition to directing projects, Gary has published and lectured on the subjects of visual quality, corridor resource assessments, cultural landscapes, historic landscape integrity, interpretation planning, goal-driven and strategic planning, and tourism planning.

Gary is a graduate of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, where he received a BS in Sociology in 1969 and a BLA in Landscape Architecture in 1976.

Presentation

Corridor Conservation and the Community’s Role

Management of the Parkway until 1987 was very much inwardly focused with operational priorities, organizational structures, and staffing that defined management of the Parkway corridor in terms of and in reference to itself. This presentation briefly explores Parkway-centric management. The focus is on how shifting the management orientation to a more community-centric approach may be the way to protect the Blue Ridge Parkway so that it can be enjoyed by future generations of local residents and national visitors.

Community-centric management of the Blue Ridge Parkway as it implies would require that Parkway management and staff forge a pertinent and on-going working relationship with community leaders, local organizations, and individuals. This interrelationship of public and private interests would work towards accomplishing goals that benefit conservation of resources while ensuring sustained economic growth within the corridor.