At the 25th anniversary of PRAC, Walt Cacace revealed that he still had copies of those minutes. The first conference in 1977 was held in San Mateo with about 50 people attending. The guest speaker at the banquet get together was Yosemite Chief Ranger Bill Wendt. There were some people outside of the Bay Area but most were local.

I do remember the discussion over who should qualify to belong to such an organization. We finally discovered that the job in many agencies was so diverse that it should be “any uniformed employee.”

The year was 1976. There were 9 people in attendance at a special meeting called by Raleigh Young and Bill Lawrence to discuss the development of a professional park ranger association for parks in the Bay Area.

Raleigh and park ranger Bill Lawrence had discussed such an organization for several years. The meeting was held in Raleigh’s front yard in Steven’s Creek Park.  See list of founders-->.

The subject at the meeting was supposed to be centered upon the Bay Area, but after the talks began the need was obviously there to get the whole state involved. A few months prior to this meeting, West Valley College had begun an in-service training program for rangers in California. There were 60 participants at the training from all over California. At coffee breaks informal discussions had taken place that there was no organization in California that represented park rangers on a state level.

The California Park and Recreation Society and the National Park and Recreation Association had little to offer an “on the ground,” field level park employee. The organizations were mostly recreation and urban park people and all were supervisors. Park Rangers from regional, county, and federal agencies like the Corps of Engineers, had no professional voice in the state and training for rangers was almost non-existent. Raleigh and Bill’s meeting was timely.

The state park rangers were invited because they were active in the California State Park Rangers Association (CSPRA) and we needed their guidance on where to start. PRAC also had to have a template to get started. Ron McCall provided CSPRA’s Constitution and Bylaws as an administrative guideline, which gave us a great start. PRAC’s Constitution based on the CSPRA model was developed at later meetings.

At the end of the meeting in Raleigh’s yard, officers were “elected” by the group. They were the following:

• Acting President, Jerry Lawrence, City of Palo Alto

• Acting Vice-President and Conference Chair, Tom Smith, West Valley College

• Acting Secretary, Walter Cacace, Santa Cruz Water District.

Leadership

Honorary Members

PRAC was conceived and organized in 1976 by these nine park professionals:

Walt Cacace,

City of Santa Cruz

Bob Garcia,

Mid-Peninsula Regional Open Space District

Dave LaClergue,

National Park Service

Bill Lawrence,

San Mateo County Parks

Ron McCall,

California State Parks

John Nelson,

California State Parks

Tom "Smitty" Smith,

West Valley College

Rich Wilkins,

San Mateo County Parks

Raleigh Young,

Santa Clara County Parks