Charles H. Odegaard served
as a park and recreation administrator at local, state, and national levels of
government and at a national nonprofit organization. He had extensive experience
in agency planning, analysis, coordination, cooperative programs, and
international relations. His infectious smile, effervescent personality, self
confidence, and contagious enthusiasm for the field endeared him to all those
who interacted with him.
Charles’ parents believed in hard work, education, and kindness. His parents stressed to Charles and his brother, Dick, that they should do the right thing, encourage others to do the right thing, and always follow the Golden Rule. Charles’ grandfather taught school in a one-room schoolhouse in Norway for 50 years and received a medal from the King for exceptional service.
As a boy in Beloit, Wisconsin, he lived a block away from a park. Maybe that pointed him toward his career. At the age of 14 he was paid for taking care of a ballfield and umpiring. Odegaard began his more than 50 years of service in the parks field as a seasonal playground worker in Beloit, after serving in World War II. He held the position while attending the University of Wisconsin in La Crosse from which he graduated with a BS degree. He later earned a Master’s degree in Urban Planning from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. As he rose to become a senior administrator in the parks field, Odegaard continued his professional education by participating in training seminars, including those organized by the Brookings Institution in Washington D C and the Federal Executive Institute. Throughout his career, he stressed the importance of Continuing Education to those who worked under his direction and practiced what he preached.
Career titles often are used to define a person’s life work and Odegaard’s record indicates that he exercised a leadership role in multiple areas of the field. In 1952, immediately following his college graduation, he was hired as Parks and Recreation Director in Marinette, Wisconsin. He became county recreation director in Waukesha, Wisconsin, and in 1956 initiated a successful experimental program involving a partnership of the US Department of Agriculture, the University of Wisconsin and Waukesha County, Wisconsin. In 1958 he moved to Seattle when the National Recreation Association hired him as Regional Director for the Pacific Northwest, which embraced Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington and Western Canada.
Charles was appointed by Governor Albert Rosellini as Director of the Washington State Park and Recreation Commission in November, 1963, and for the next 16 years under both Democratic and Republican governors believed that he had the best job in the country. His endearing personality and astute insights into the working of the political system ensured that state parks was well-funded even during downturns in the state’s economy. During his tenure, the department’s budget grew from $6 million to $40 million, and 18,600 acres of new parkland were added to the system.
Early in his career he knew he needed to master the art of working with the media. It served him well. He welcomed and thrived on the opportunity to evangelize about the virtues of the parks and recreation field on public stages, and gave scores of such speeches each year throughout his career.
In 1972, Washington State Parks won the inaugural National Gold Medal Award recognizing the system as the best state organization in the field. Under his leadership the state park system initiated programs in historic preservation; scenic and recreational highways; snowmobile parking and trails; outdoor learning centers, of which ten were developed during his tenure; access to ocean beaches for all citizens, which involved multiple court cases; a park classification system; and a system for tracking the operating impacts of capital developments. When he left state parks in 1979, the Seattle Times, reported: "He has been a professional in a post demanding professionalism. Our state parks long will carry the impact of his 16 years as director."
After leaving state parks, there was speculation in the press that he would run for state-wide office either as governor or land commissioner. A group of environmentalists formed a committee to develop statewide support for his candidacy for governor, but in 1979 Odegaard had accepted an invitation from the Secretary of Interior in the Carter Administration, Cecil Andus, to join the National Park Service as Deputy Regional Director based in Seattle and he elected to stay in that position rather than enter politics.
At that time, the region encompassed Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. In 1983, Russell Dickinson, Director of the National Park Service, asked him to move to Omaha, Nebraska, to be the Director of the Midwest Region which consisted of ten (10) states reaching north to the Canadian border, south to the Missouri River, east to Ohio and Illinois, and west to the borders of Wyoming. It was an exciting time as he strengthened the political ties of the local, state and national governmental entities with the National Park Service. His advance work and the meetings he held in state and local jurisdictions with US Senators and Congressmen contributed to their support for National Park Service programs, especially those in the Midwest region. Charles closed out his career by serving as Special Assistant to the Director of the National Park Service until his retirement from NPS in 1997.
While he was employed at the state and national level, he taught management classes at the University of Washington in Seattle from 1974 to 1981. He also taught park management at Oregon State University, the NPS Albright Training Institute in Arizona, and in New South Wales, Australia. After writing many articles and reports during his career, he was approached by Grant W. Sharpe, Professor in the College of Forest Resources at the University of Washington to co-author a book titled, Park Management. The book was published by John Wiley and Sons in 1983. In 1994, the second edition was published by Sagamore Publishing. It was especially noteworthy for the insights it offered on how to interact effectively with elected officials. The book was used by teachers and professionals in the park and recreation field. In addition Odegaard published articles in The American Academy for Park and Recreation Administration newsletter, Recreation and Parks, Canadian Journal of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, Trends and Way. He was a contributing author to the book Guide to New Approaches to Financing Parks and Recreation.
Odegaard’s leadership role extended to the field’s professional organizations. He served as president of eight professional organizations including the Natural Society for Park Resources, National Association of State Park Directors, American Youth Hostel Association, and the Academy of Park and Recreation Administration of which he was a charter member. He was a member of the National Recreation and Park Association Board of Trustees between 1972 and 1979 and was influential in helping the multiple elements of that organization to coalesce into a coherent entity after they had come together to form it a few years earlier.
In the Northwest, Charles was a member of the Federal Executive Board in Seattle from 1987 to 1995 and was its chairman in 1991. He facilitated a US/German youth exchange under the direction of Secretary of Interior Bill Rogers, and conducted major studies for Vancouver, B.C., Seattle, the Alaskan Air Command, and Larson AFB in Montana. After his retirement from NPS, he continued to offer advice and suggestions for improving park and recreation services to various groups. He served on the Seattle Police West Precinct Citizens Advisory Council, Downtown Seattle Rotary Club Board and the Odyssey Maritime Discovery Center Board. Charles and his wife Evelyn, continue to remain active in the Seattle area after his retirement, finding a warm part of the country to visit in the winter, and enjoy spending considerable time with their grandchildren.