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| IN MEMORIAM | ||
He gave us what we want most
from everyman John
W. Hanna, Ph.D. (1941–2007)When one thinks of people in our lives who have the characteristics to make this a better world, John W. Hanna has been and will remain a name on many of our lists. John Hanna, age 65, a pioneer and pivotal leader for the interpretation profession for over 40 years, died unexpectedly on March 24, 2007 while on a camping vacation with his wife, Nancy, in southeast Utah. To the benefit of the interpretation profession, John’s kind spirit and big heart also came with a keen mind that combined to create one of most significant forces in our profession. John accomplishments related to NAI included Fellow, National Officer, researcher, publications author, National Conference Chair, Regional Director, and National Award winner. A full list of his many contributions to the field requires two full pages, so a short list of highlights is offered below. He also served the profession as a college professor at three universities and as a leader of two consulting companies with projects all over the world. But these impressive lists of professional check marks will not be how he is remembered by most. We will remember John as our big hearted teacher, mentor and college professor who opened up a whole new world of interpretation careers to many of us who are now helping lead the educational and professional endeavors for our profession. He will be remembered as the interpretation planning, design, and fabrication consultant with a caring spirit who continually surprised us by offering that extra step that led to our success. As John’s clients, we came away from a project having learned new lessons that would be used for a professional lifetime. John was not only a founder of NAI but was one of many voices on who said, “You know, these two organizations (WIA and AIN) have so many good people, what can we do to get these two organizations merged!” Always the humble spirit, John quietly donated a stone sculpture sign that served as a welcoming image for the NAI headquarters in Ft. Collins, Colorado from 1996 to 2004. He helped start and complete so many good things without any need for personal recognition. John’s friends and family want to honor his Joy of Life by asking that memorial contributions be made in his name to two organizations that represent how John’s big heart and caring spirit wanted the youthful to succeed with education, and connection to nature. NAI Legacy Trust Fund (Scholarship Fund) P.O. Box 2246, Fort Collins, CO 80522 www.interpnet.com, 888-900-8283 Project Patch Youth Ranch P.O. Box 450, Garden Valley, ID 83622 www.projectpatch.org Profile Born in Council Grove, Kansas, in 1941, John lived and worked throughout the U.S. and Canada. John was a founder and co-owner of Inside Outside Interpretation, a planning & design firm providing services for parks, nature centers and cultural sites since 1983. He completed projects in 49 states in the U.S., plus four foreign countries. He was also a partner of Inside Outside Photography. John served his country in the Air Force. He received his BS in Outdoor Recreation & Forestry at Colorado State University, and his MS and Ph.D. in Recreational Resource Management at Texas A & M University. He taught interpretation and outdoor recreation at Texas A & M, as well as Ohio State and Lakehead University in Canada. John had a passion for nature and the outdoors, enjoying photography, camping, hiking, mountain biking and fishing. He enjoyed sharing his love of the natural world with his family and many students throughout the years. He is survived by his wife, Nancy Hanna of Garden Valley, who was also his best friend and business partner; sons Devon Hanna and Trent Hanna, and granddaughter Symphony Hanna from Texas; a step-daughter Natalie Walton, and granddaughter Aubrey Hamilton from Kansas. |
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| I learned of John Hanna's passing inadvertently, through stumbling upon this page while surfing the NAI website. John was my major advisor at Texas A&M University as I was en route toward earning my Ph.D. More than that, he was a cherished friend. One of my favorite memories of John was a trip in his Mooney single-engine airplane as we flew grids in south Texas, monitoring the movement of radio-banded prairie chickens. I enjoyed sharing the flying duties and the lighthearted conversation, but was glad to relinquish the yoke to John for a landing at our tiny home runway in Bryan as the sun was setting. He was quite a pilot. Although we were in communication for a few years after I left College Station, we lost touch shortly after John went to Thunder Bay. As I write this I am filled with the awareness of how important it is to tell those who are important to you how much you love them. Do it while they are still around. It looks like I continue to learn things from John even after his death. Death is an end to life in the same sense that awakening is an end to slumber. "Johnny, we hardly knew ye." Ed Kesgen |
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John at age 19 at Rocky
Mountain Nat'l Park. He was a student at Colorado State University
at the time. —Photo submitted by Nancy Hanna |
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| My dad is so much of who I am today. I look around my house and so many things are because of his influence in my life. The map of Isle Royale National Park on my wall above my bookcase, my bookcase filled with Tim Cahill, Farley Mowat, Edward Abbey, Tom Robbins, travel books, and adventure books, my grandmother's grand piano (the whole "music thing" skipped a generation, though dad could play a mean "Stout-hearted Men"), my Canon camera sitting on top of the piano, the Native American art on my bedroom walls, the canoe leaning up against the side of the house, my mountain bike in the garage (muddy and with a broken chain) along with all the hand-me-down backpacking equipment, including the old SVEA camp stove (still working) that has such a wonderful sound... I will always remember my dad for his smile, his hugs, his true and honest, powerful love he felt for those around him. His unbounded spirit, adventurousness, and positive attitude are attributes I will continue to strive for myself every day. —Trent Hanna | ||
When personal crisis visited my life, John, as he has done with many others, was quick to respond with a call to say, “Do you want me there? Now?” I said, “No, but maybe soon.” In just a short period of time John called back and said “I am sending you an airplane ticket to join me at the NAI regional conference in Jackson Hole and NO is not an option. I am loading my jeep with two of every sports equipment known to man, and you and I are going to have a “Joi d’vie“ Trip! After we have two great days with the NAI crew in Jackson Hole, we are going to go take a week and travel from Jackson, Wyoming to the house here in Red Feather, Colorado. We are going to downhill ski, crosscountry ski, climb mountains, hike, and mountain bike our way across Wyoming. We will go dancing with the local ladies in every spot we can find, catch every sunset, and appreciate the joy of life as only the blessing of NAI friends and nature can provide.” That was John for so many people. —Tom Christensen |
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| What I admired most about
John is that when life and deadlines would rush along
he made you stop to appreciate the smallest things such as a summer day in the
mountains picking wild blueberries and simply experiencing
the beautiful clear day without regard to time. In essence he seemed to know
how to make time stand still in a particular
small moment so that we could savor it. John was a teacher, advisor, mentor and friend to everyone. He knew how to bring out the best in people and always was there to support. When I forgot who I was and was being too critical of myself, he reminded me of my talents and made me see my best self. And he did it again just after his passing -- as I was trying to decide what direction to take my career (and as I almost started down a wrong path) I found a recommendation letter John wrote ten years ago. It carefully outlined my best qualities and what I should be doing with my life ... a gift from a great interpretive planner -- a step-by-step plan on exactly what I should be doing and how to do it. Thank you once again, John. An example of how John will continue to touch many of our lives in some way. —Mary Ann Webster Mullins |
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| John and I became acquainted on the Board of Directors of the Association of Interpretive Naturalists in the late 1970s. In November of 1980 my office in Giant City State Park burned to the ground, destorying my personal professional library and half my dissertation. A few weeks later several boxes of books arrived by mail, all professional books including a hardbound copy of Intepreting Our Heritage. John had pulled extras from his personal library and got me restarted on my own library. Tilden's book reminds me of his generous spirit each time I see it. When I became Executive Director of NAI in 1995, John shared his home with me for four months in Red Feather Lakes and it was a wonderful way to get back into the Colorado mountains. We both enjoyed the bear that would come up most evenings to raid the bird feeder on the deck. John was a good friend to those who knew him and a great ambassador for interpretation everywhere he worked and traveled. We will miss him. —Tim Merriman | ||
| John and I were Ph.D. graduate students and fellow graduates from Texas A&M in the early 70's. We had lots of adventures and great times together, including both us and our wives, Karen and Nancy, living in a great little Rocky Mountain valley in Idaho for the past two years. Knowing him as well as I do, it's still hard to explain to anyone who didn't know him what an amazingly wonderful and kind person he was. Those who did know him, even briefly, understand completely. John had an easy going manner that liked and accepted people, generally regardless of age, sex, occupation,race, etc. etc. That was exhibited with the best smile and sense of caring a person could have. He was very gifted and could do anything he wanted. He chose to teach and encourage others, especially in the natural, environmental realm, having an influence on thousands upon thousands of students, park and museum visitors and friends. We'll miss him hugely, but he'll live on in a thousand ways! —Curt Shirer | ||
| John Hanna...... professor, friend, mentor, boss, pilot, hiking partner—he was all of these and more to me for the past 35 years. In each of these roles John was always a caring, generous role model, and above all else, a gifted teacher. Whatever his role, John's kind soul and keen mind served him, his students, clients, and friends well. I walk very few paths and take very few actions in my profession that are not in some way still influenced by something I learned from John. As major professor for my Ph.D., John was there for me at every turn and most importantly when I stumbled. When my canoe was just about to become more than I could carry as we portaged Isle Royal, John was there and carried it the last quarter of a mile. After the first two days of a hard hike into the Canadian Rockies, I woke the next morning and pulled my boots onto my still swollen feet. Slipping on the backpack, I was pleased that it felt much lighter which I attributed to my newly found strength. As I opened my pack at our lunch stop that day, I discovered that John had transferred ten plus pounds of my supplies to his pack to lighten my load. Over the years I always knew John as one who would quietly help carry others' load without asking for recognition—and always finding meaningful words to make you feel good about what you had accomplished. The world, and certainly my professional and personal world, is a better place because John passed through and left his mark. While the loss of John's physical presence is hard for all of us, his impact and his spirit will remain as long as we hike, climb, interpret, and love life with the same enthusiasm as John Hanna did. —Gary W. Mullins | ||
| TRIBUTE TO HANNA The sudden passing of John W. Hanna last March in Southern Utah still leaves his colleagues saddened, yet grateful for his long-range vision and dedication to the early formation of the National Association for Interpretation. John Hanna is truly the Patriarch of today’s vibrant and successful, national organization, which serves students and journeymen interpreters throughout America and the world. John was an innovator, instigator and practitioner who borrowed his theory of interpretation from the halls of government and refitted it into a newly merging market place. In 1980, John won full voting rights, reduced dues and professional status for all college students registered in AIN and WIA. As a sideline coach and mentor to his graduates, John inspired the consolidation of two distinct, non-profit organizations. John helped structure the nation’s first private, market-driven, networking organization we know, today, as the National Association for Interpretation. John’s innovations breached traditional, government interpretation and promised new standards for professional development within a newly consolidated, national organization founded in 1987 in St. Louis, Missouri. Through consolidation, John Hanna and his expanding, student network stimulated new university programs in interpretation that would create new jobs and advance Interpretation as an end product by it self. I first met John in 1973 at an interpretive conference in California when I was a National Park Service, Interpretive Planner in Denver. John successfully marketed his Texas A&M graduate program there in an open meeting with conference students. The fact that there were fewer than ten professional, Interpreter Planners in all of government service did not discourage John Hanna. With his brilliant strategy, John established a new market place within both private and public sectors of interpretation! John moved his students beyond mere classroom theory into real world experiences, allowing then to participate in professional projects through his consulting company. In actual working experiences, students performed project estimating, marketing, public relations, contracting and actual interpretive planning. As an educator, esteemed businessman, visionary and passionate devotee to his students and to NAI, John W. Hanna’s legacy lives on as a beacon of hope and inspiration for everyone. John was truly a Patriarch of the National Association for Interpretation! Donald S. Follows, NAI Founder and past section Chair, RIHTS HII Founder and Board Member, Alberta, Canada |
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