About Will

Will LaPage was the 2009 recipient of Walter T. Cox Award for sustained achievement in public service providing leadership in administration of public lands and for policy formation affecting our natural and cultural resources. This award was given as part of the George B. Hartzog, Jr. Environmental Awards Program, by Clemson University. Dr. LaPage was the 2006-2007 Reynold Carlson Distinguished Lecturer at Indiana University. He has worked with the State Department and the U.S.Agency for International Development (USAID) providing assistance to national park systems in Eastern Europe, Central America, and the Caribbean and has worked with outdoor recreation planners in South Africa. A member of the President's Commission on Americans Outdoors, the National Camping Hallof Fame, and a life member of the National Association of State Park Directors, LaPage has written extensively on park policy and the ethics of park management. He was selected poet in residence by Rocky Mountain and Acadia national parks.

Will La Page was the first recipient, in 1981, of the National Recreation and Park Association's Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt Award for excellence in park and recreation research, having authored over 100 research reports on outdoor recreation trends. From 1984 to 1994, he was director of New Hampshire's state parks and historic sites, converting them to America's first self-funding, litter-free, state park system. He is also the author of Partnerships for Parks: A Handbook for Building and Guiding Park Partnerships. He has taught environmental interpretation to professional groups and at the universities of New Hampshire, Maine, and Wyoming and was a senior lecturer in residence at Colorado State University from 1994 to1996.