Joseph J Truncer

Joseph James Truncer
Cornelius Amory Pugsley State Medal Award, 1969
Joseph J. Truncer (1907-2000) received the Pugsley Medal in 1969 for "his great success and accomplishments in building the state of New Jersey's System of Historic Sites, Structures, Beaches and Parks to one of the finest in the Nation." He was born in Williamstown, New Jersey. As a youth he read two books that his father owned which were written by Gifford Pinchot and these aroused his interest in forestry. By the time, he was a freshman in high school, he had decided to pursue a career either in engineering or forestry. Thus, after completing high school in Haddonfield, New Jersey, he went to Syracuse University graduating with a B.S. in forestry in 1929. While he was a student, he worked with a surveying crew and eventually passed the examination qualifying him as a licensed surveyor. It was a knowledge base that he was to use throughout his career. It led to his first job when he returned to New Jersey to work as a land surveyor in the state Bureau of Forests.
After two years in this position, he became superintendent of Parvin State Park in South Jersey in 1932. Truncer remained in that position until 1947. He was appointed superintendent immediately after land for the park had been acquired and it was Truncer's task to transform it into a park. With the onset of the Depression came the CCC camps, and these expedited Truncer's development work. Indeed, one of the highlights of his career was the enthusiastic approval that Conrad Wirth (who was in a leadership role with the CCC at that time) conferred while on an inspection tour of the Parvin camp. A writer from the Medford Leas Life briefly reviewed the chronology of the early days of Parvin State Park:
About the same time, President Roosevelt started work programs for the unemployed during the Depression. One of these was a Civilian Conservation Corps Project, administered by the National Park Service, which was built on land at Parvin State Park. Primarily for under-privileged boys, it accommodated about 200. When the U.S. entered WW II, these young men went off to fight and the camp was occupied by German prisoners of war who helped raise food for the war effort. At war's end, they went home and the camp filled with Japanese American detainees who were being resettled. Joe Truncer worked closely with each change.
In 1947, Truncer was transferred to the Trenton office of the Department of Conservation as assistant director of state parks and forestry. He was promoted to principal forester in 1953 and held that position until 1962. During this period the state gained title to approximately 100,000 acres of land, known as the Wharton Tract in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Truncer served as general manager and engineer and supervised the land survey from 1953-1955 which was at that time one of the largest land surveys east of the Mississippi River. The Wharton tract was the crucial core area of the Pine Barrens from which the subsequent expansion of conservation protection was expanded to approximately one million acres. Truncer became especially passionate about a place in the tract called Batsto, which had been a former revolutionary war village. He worked diligently to restore Batsto to its original condition and open this historic site to the public.
He also was chair of a committee of ten state agencies charged by Congress with planning future use of the tract. The tract and the committee's vision for subsequent extensive conservation protection of the Pine Barrens, did not fit any of the existing classifications of land protection in the National Park Service's repertoire, so the committee suggested a new model focused on an unprecedented level of state and federal cooperation for protecting the Pine Barrens and it was accepted.
In 1964 Truncer became chief of the Bureau of Parks and Recreation, and in 1966 was appointed director of Parks, Forestry and Recreation remaining in this position until his retirement in 1974. He played a leading role in the Green Acres Committee which was the state's pioneering and highly acclaimed parks and open space program.
As a member of both the National Recreation Association and the American Institute of Park Executives, Truncer was a member of the merger committee that resulted in the creation of the National Recreation and Park Association and he was president of the National Association of State Park Directors in 1972 and 1973.
Truncer was described in his Pugsley citation as, "an active, aggressive and excellent administrator, who has gained wide respect from professional park and conservation people throughout the nation. Wherever he went, his cheerful whistle preceded him. He had a wonderful endearing spirit, a patient and gentle nature, and an unfaltering belief in the goodness of mankind."

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