“I traveled to so many amazing national parks, hiked, took photos, and got to call it work,” said Bill Valliere (MS-NRP ’94) a research specialist for the past 23 years in the Park Studies Laboratory of the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources (RSENR) at the University of Vermont (UVM). Bill worked closely with Professor Bob Manning, who retired in 2016, on countless collaborative research projects for the U.S. National Park Service. “It has been a thrill to be part of a group known nationally and internationally for work impacting the sustainable management of our national parks.” 

In July 2017, Bill leaves the Rubenstein School to share his research program management experience as a research specialist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ Department of Community Development and Applied Economics (CDAE). He will manage research projects for Professor Jane Kolodinsky in the Center for Rural Studies in UVM’s Morrill Hall. 

Recreation Management and the Park Studies Lab

A native of Connecticut with a B.A. in psychology from Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna University, Bill worked in the UVM Department of Psychiatry in the early 1990s. He and his wife Julie took a summer course called The American Wilderness. The course opened Bill’s eyes to, what was for him, an exciting new area of study — recreation management — and he approached the instructor, Bob Manning, about graduate work. 

Bill’s master’s thesis research with Bob focused on the land ethics of early 20^th century conservationist Aldo Leopold. Bill surveyed hikers in Vermont’s Breadloaf Wilderness on the Green Mountain National Forest to examine the spectrum of environmental attitudes of people who visit natural areas. 

After Bill earned his master’s degree in 1994, Bob hired Bill, who became a valuable part of the growing Park Studies Lab, as collaborative work with the U.S. National Park Service flourished. With each national park project, Bill worked with Bob to plan the scope of work, then with graduate students and undergraduate employees to collect the field data. He helped to analyze the data, wrote reports and papers, and presented the lab’s findings at professional conferences. 

The Parks Studies Lab conducted research on visitor use and carrying capacity in each of dozens of parks commemorated by posters hanging on the walls of the lab. They used a tool developed by Bob and Bill to help decide when there are too many visitors at a site. The tool uses computer enhanced photos to suggest to survey participants how a site would look with a range of visitors and associated environmental impacts. Survey findings analyzed by Bill and park studies graduate students helped Bob and the National Park Service to make informed decisions about how much and what kinds of uses can be accommodated in parks to maximize visitor experience while protecting natural and cultural resources. 

Bill worked at nearly three dozen national parks from Maine to Florida, Hawaii to Alaska, the Smokies to the Rockies, in addition to several national forests, state parks, wildlife refuges, and other natural areas. Close to home, the lab studied trolley transportation at Vermont’s Marsh Billings Rockefeller National Park and visitor use on mountain summits in Vermont and the Northeast. 

“Acadia National Park in Maine has become a second home,” said Bill, who vacationed there with his family in addition to working on multiple projects with the park’s management. “Hawaii Volcanoes National Park stands out as one of the most exciting, and Arches is memorable as my first western national park followed by Yosemite and Glacier, among others. We even consulted on a new national park in Peru,” he added, as he toured the national park posters decorating the lab. 

As time went on, Bill’s role evolved, and he became the lab and project manager, overseeing graduate and undergraduate students. During his tenure, Bill was a valuable resource for nearly 20 graduate students, most who have gone on to leadership positions in the National Park Service, academic institutions, and other organizations. Bill also mentored close to 100 undergraduate work study students and summer interns. 

“I think all of us who worked with Bill Valliere over the decades as part of Bob Manning’s lab will say the same thing: he’s an amazingly generous and supportive researcher and was the glue that bonded us together,” said two-time lab graduate alum Ben Minteer (MS-NRP ’96, PhD-NR ’99) who is now Professor of Environmental Ethics and Conservation in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University. “Bill's also one of the most genuine and gracious people you’ll ever meet. His departure from RSENR to join CDAE definitely marks the end of an era.”  

Bill received a UVM Staff of the Year Award in 2001 and the UVM President’s Our Common Ground Staff Award in 2014. In his nomination letter for the 2014 award, Bob wrote, “Bill has been instrumental in making the Park Studies Laboratory an important component of the Rubenstein School’s program of research, playing an integral role in dozens of research projects, co-authoring a remarkable 18 papers in the scholarly and professional literature, presenting papers at multiple academic and professional conferences each year, and helping to inform management of our iconic national park system. The Park Studies Lab couldn’t have prospered without Bill’s consistent and high-level contributions.” 

Bill also assisted with survey work and compilation of data on the economic impacts of tourism in Vermont for the Vermont Tourism Research Center, started in 1994 by faculty members David Kaufman, Bob Manning, and Walter Kuentzel and currently run by Lisa Chase of UVM Extensioin. Since Bob’s retirement, Bill has worked part of his time with Rubenstein School Professor Breck Bowden and staff member Elissa Schuett on administrative and budgetary duties related to Lake Champlain Sea Grant, the Vermont Water Resources and Lake Studies Center, and the Northeastern States Research Cooperative. 

Community Service and Social Justice

Beyond his duties as a UVM staff member, Bill’s dedicated commitment to community service and social justice helped him earn the 2014 staff award. He is finishing up his three-year term as Rubenstein School representative to UVM Staff Council. He served on the Council’s outreach committee that conducted a biannual staff survey and worked on issues related to staff performance evaluation and merit pay. 

For six years, Bill acted as a facilitator for NR 6 Race and Culture in Natural Resources, a required core course and designated UVM diversity course for undergraduates. Bill helped to run weekly discussion sections and graded written assignments. 

“It’s important as citizens to understand how issues of power and privilege affect what we do,” said Bill. “It’s about creating a society that is just. Students need to recognize there are such things as power and privilege and that we may be on one side or the other.” 

 A member of the Ascension Lutheran Church in South Burlington, Bill is a co-founder of the Good News Garage, a hugely successful program that accepts used vehicles for repair and donation to those in need. “The church did a needs assessment,” said Bill, “and we found at the time, twenty years ago, that people in poverty needed transportation, especially in rural areas of Vermont where little public transportation was available.” 

Bill is the Vermont Congressional District Leader for the ONE Campaign, an advocacy and education organization which focuses on eliminating extreme poverty and preventable disease especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, the most poverty-stricken area of the world. Bill travels to Washington, DC each year to work with Vermont representatives in Congress. His first year, he met his idol Bono of U2 fame who is a co-founder of ONE. 

A musician himself, Bill is a talented singer and guitar, harmonica, bass, and drum player. He leads his own band called the Smokey Newfield Project that plays at venues throughout Vermont and has played “pro bono” at many Rubenstein School events. As a fitting tribute to Bill’s years of service to our parks, his band is doing a Vermont State Park tour and playing at Grand Isle State Park and Button Bay State Park in July.

Bill lives in St. Albans, Vermont with his wife Julie, a lab technician in the Department of Pathology at UVM. Their daughter Rachel (WFB ’14) is a teacher at Ascension Childcare in Shelburne, Vermont where she also does environmental programming for the school.