Christopher Jarvi

Christopher K Jarvi
Cornelius Amory Pugsley Local Medal Award, 2000
Christopher K. Jarvi (1944- ) received the Pugsley Medal in 2000. He earned a BS in ornamental horticulture from California State Polytechnic College in 1967, and a MS in environmental horticulture in 1971 with an emphasis on park administration and management.
His early years in the field were spent with Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation Department, where he was first employed as a park management trainee in 1971. The department's management trainee program provided valuable insights into the attitudes of employees, formal and informal departmental organization, and different philosophies of supervision and management. He then moved to the park planning ranks where he was involved in the preparation of feasibility studies, federal and state grant applications, and environmental impact reports, together with considerable on-site field work coordinating construction and maintenance projects related to parks, trails and golf courses.
In 1976, he was promoted to head park planner with responsibility for all the agency's planning and design tasks. The Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation is the largest county parks agency in this field in terms of budget size and array of facilities, and ranks third among all types of local agencies in the US behind New York City and Chicago. Hence, this was a major responsibility involving the supervision of both in-house staff and contracted work.
Jarvi moved to Anaheim, California, in 1979. His initial appointment was as park superintendent, responsible for a budget of $3.2 million and 79 full-time staff. He was appointed director of the agency in 1982. Over the next 20 years, the City of Anaheim repeatedly broadened his administrative responsibilities in order to take advantage of his unusual management skills. When he was first appointed as department director, the agency was a parks and recreation department. Over time, human services, tree and parkway maintenance and then libraries and neighborhood services were added to his overall portfolio. Ultimately, Jarvi's responsibilities included a Department of Community Services that embraced all these services with an annual budget of $55.5 million, including $23.2 million in capital improvements. The staff consisted of 195 full-time and 702 part-time personnel. This department budget was the third largest in the city.
Jarvi's department delivered programs and services to a population which spoke 67 languages, and where 47% of school children were on a free or reduced fee lunch program. These characteristics guided Jarvi's philosophy throughout his two decades as director of Anaheim, which was characterized by his peers as being aggressively inclusive, ensuring that all segments of the community were served. His skills in building consensus across diverse groups and creating a sense of community were renowned both in the city of Anaheim and in the professional organizations in which he has invested so much energy.
A central feature of Jarvi's leadership at Anaheim was his commitment to partnerships with a wide variety of public, nonprofit and private sector agencies. This led to his subsequent appointment in 2003, as associate director for partnerships, interpretation/education, volunteers and outdoor recreation for the National Park Service in Washington, DC. His responsibilities in this position also included tourism, youth programs, nationwide technical assistance programs, the Land and Water Conservation Fund/UPARR/Federal Lands to Parks program administration, the Appalachian Trail and long distance scenic and Heritage River and trail program.
Early in his career, Jarvi was inspired by William E. Brown's book, Islands of Hope, and committed to its theory that park and recreation agencies had a mandate to advance sound environmental practices, and to interpret the concepts of environmental interpretation and education into their programs. As a professional who developed extensive volunteer programs, he recognized that volunteering is perhaps the best way to appreciate the benefits and frustrations experienced by volunteers. Hence, Jarvi has taken on the role of volunteer throughout his career in a myriad of different milieus.
He was a leader in this field in the movement to embrace strategic planning. He observed: "Two necessary ingredients for leadership are a shared vision and individuals who are empowered to carry out that vision. Leaders must ensure that the actions of those with whom they work, both internally and externally, are consistent with the goals, strategies, practices and values of the organization." Jarvi's leadership style is highly collaborative and responsive to conditions within his working environment; sensitive to what motivates others; and focused on gaining understanding and buy-in from all parties. He believes that empowering those around him assists significantly in increasing their job satisfaction and engaging their brainpower for the improvement of the whole.
His formal leadership positions in the parks and recreation field have included being president of the California Parks and Recreation Society, and president of the National Recreation and Park Association. However, it is through a myriad of less visible, more mundane local, regional, state and national committees, task forces and schools in which he has provided leadership that much of the considerable influence he has exerted on the park and recreation profession has occurred.
His peers regard Jarvi as a visionary. He is a forceful presence and is characterized by those who work alongside him regularly as an aggressive administrator. He has a strong vision of what the future of his agency and the parks and recreation field should look like, and works tirelessly towards realizing that vision. Jarvi inspires people. There is a restless energy and a sense of commitment that is contagious. People who are exposed to him find it difficult to resist responding to the enthusiasm and drive which he exudes. He is articulate, thoughtful and good at selling ideas. He is solution oriented, bringing substantial creativity, vision and focus to an issue; and he expects the same high standards from those around him that he demands of himself.

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