NASPD Attendees Get Glimpse of What Alabama Has to Offer

Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources

While the Alabama Gulf Coast continues trying to reason with hurricane season, that tropical weather aspect of living on the Gulf Coast was a point of fascination during the recent National Association of State Parks Directors (NASPD) Conference at The Lodge at Gulf State Park.

Almost every state in the U.S. was represented at the conference, where directors got to know each other better and exchanged ideas on how to improve state parks around the nation. Louisiana State Parks’ Brandon Burris had to deal with the effects of Hurricane Francine and arrived later in the conference.

Fortunately for Alabama, only the outer bands of Francine reached the Alabama coast, but it gave the conference attendees a glimpse of what coastal residents deal with on an annual basis.

“Of course, we couldn’t plan for this, but one of the most interesting things we heard was that people from the Midwest were excited to actually see what it’s like to be in a tropical system but not be in danger,” said Greg Lein, who will end a 12-year tenure as the Director of Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources’ (ADCNR) Alabama State Parks Division at the end of the month. “They got to see the Gulf of Mexico a little frothy with big waves and got to hear the wind blow. That never occurred to me that people would be interested in that.

“I remember one of the guests – I think it was the director from Idaho – leaned over to me at one point during the meeting, and she said, ‘Are we okay here? Should we be concerned about this storm?’ I said, ‘You’re in the safest place on the Gulf of Mexico right now. You don’t need to worry about a thing.’ She said, ‘Well that’s good news. I think I’m just going to experience it and soak it in.’ That just comes with the territory of living on the Gulf Coast.”

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