GDG- Latschar Interview Pt 1

[Les Fowler]

Message: 3
Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 14:20:03 EST
From: GEODEUTSCH at aol.com
Subject: Re: GDG- Latschar Interview
To: gettysburg at arthes.com
Message-ID: <c6b.25e6e6cb.34db6263 at aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"

Thank you for posting Part II of Dr. Latschar's interview. I agree it  was 
very informative.
 
Although I tried to look up Part I in the Times, I only could find today's  
(2/6) GAO story. Does anyone know a link to the first part or can it be posted  
here at GDG?
 
Thanks,
George Deutsch


George,
Here it is with my compliments. Apologize for the formatting, that's 
just the way it came through.
Regards,
Les


*TOP BATTLEFIELD STEWARD:
/Park Superintendent Dr. John A. Latschar attempts to set the record 
straight on contentious issues that have dogged his Gettysburg career/
**BY SCOT PITZER *- /Times staff writer/

*(Part 1 of 2)*

Gettysburg National Military Park Superintendent Dr. John A. Latschar, 
during a three-hour interview Wednesday afternoon at his park office, 
discussed the status of ongoing battlefield projects, talked about his 
future in Gettysburg, addressed street rumors, and gave his views on 
several controversial topics, including the park’s relationship with the 
Association of Licensed Battlefield Guides.

Following are his answers to questions posed by the /Times/:

*———*

*Is this your retirement job?*

*“Being a superintendent for the Park Service is one of the best jobs in 
the world. I couldn’t imagine anywhere I’d rather work. I’ve turned down 
high-level jobs in Philadelphia and Washington to stay here. My commute 
to work takes maybe two-and-a-half minutes. I get to live my work, and 
I’m right here at the battlefield. There’s no problem in being reminded 
every single day what I ought to be doing. Why would I want to work in 
an office in Philadelphia?”*

**Have you set a retirement date?**

*“I’m not a career planner, so I’m not saying never. But I am 60 years 
old. My current intention is to retire, whenever that happens, right 
here. I’m going to stick around for as long as I’m having fun, and I’m 
having fun right now. Seriously, we are able to make — and I say we 
collectively, because none of this is me alone — we’ve been able to make 
significant improvements, I think, to the battlefield itself and for our 
visitors. We’re just dawning on the start of excitement for downtown 
Gettysburg. We’ve got a lot of projects still on the plate. Not only do 
I want to see the museum and visitor center open, I want to see them 
functioning properly.”*

**After 13 years here — and the criticism — you’re still having fun?**

*“In short, yes. I look forward to going to work almost every day. My 
daddy told me a long time ago that anyone who looks forward to going to 
work more days a week than not was a lucky son of a gun, and I think 
that’s true.”*

**The visitor center and museum project was originally estimated to cost 
$43 million, but has ballooned to $125 million. What happened?**

*“One of the things that we have not successfully conveyed to the public 
is the difference between the cost of the building and the cost of the 
project. As we laid out with the GAO (Government Accountability Office), 
for example, in our Park Service estimates, we estimated so much for 
land acquisition, so much for design, and so much for building 
construction. We didn’t estimate the costs that were specific to the 
Gettysburg Foundation. For example, we didn’t estimate what the cost of 
fund-raising would be, or the Foundation’s administrative costs. We 
didn’t realize then, but one thing we understand now, is that if you’re 
going to go out and do major funding, those donors are going to require 
that you have a reserve and an endowment, because they don’t want to see 
their money going toward a project that they’re not sure is going to be 
there 20 years from now when they want to bring their grand-kids. So the 
Foundation added endowment costs and fund-raising costs, which was $20 
million of the difference between the first jump, from $43 to $95 
million. The rest of the jump was primarily a result of the engineering 
and architectural estimates, because they didn’t need to be estimated 
originally, nor was there a need.”*

**Has the scope of the project changed*?*

*“Let me use this language very carefully — the scope of the project has 
not changed at all. If you go back to 1998, the terminology and the 
scope of the project that was published in our General Management Plan 
has not changed. If you go back there, it says we’re going to have a 
theater, a Cyclorama program, a book store, a museum, curatorial storage 
and a food area.”*

**Then what, specifically, has changed between 1998 and now?**

*“Two things: the estimated cost when the National Park Service first 
estimated the project in 1998, and the eventual costs. The quality of 
the project is what I like to emphasize. The Cyclorama restoration 
(originally budgeted at $1 million but now $16 million) is my favorite 
example. We stated in the General Management Plan that we needed to 
restore the Cyclorama painting... but we didn’t have a good idea of what 
that was going to entail. Our studies hadn’t been done, and we didn’t 
know that, in order to restore (the painting) to its 1888 appearance, we 
had to add 14 feet of sky. We also had to put a three-dimensional 
diorama back in. What has changed isn’t what we’re going to do, as 
compared to how well we’re going to do it.”*

**Has the actual size of the new Baltimore Pike visitor center, which 
opens in mid-April, grown?**

*“That’s another classic example. When we first put together the 
architectural program in the General Management Plan in 1998... and said 
we needed a theater and so many square feet, and we needed a Cyclorama 
gallery with so many square feet, and so on, we estimated the square 
footage that we thought we’d need. Then you add everything together to 
get to your total, and in the General Management Plan, that was 118,000 
(square feet). What we didn’t have time or the ability to do when we 
were in the planning stage, and we couldn’t do it until the architects 
came on board and actually did the architectural work, is that once you 
put all of that together, then you have to figure out the circulation 
space, so you don’t have bottlenecks. We didn’t know how much we would 
need in circulation space until we got into the actual planning and 
design phase. That, in a nutshell, is why our General Management Plan 
said we’d need a 118,00 square-foot building compared to what we have 
now with a 139,000 square-foot building. We’ve added 20,000 square feet 
in circulation space. Planning traffic flow in a public use building is 
just like any other traffic analysis. You have to know where the people 
are coming from, where they’re going to go, and when they’re going to go 
there, and you always plan for the peak time.” *

**Some people in the public arena have a hard time figuring out, when 
they see the cost projections, why the figure has increased so much.**

*“We’ve certainly done our best to educate them. There were two distinct 
permeations: when we went from $42 million to $95 million, and when we 
went from $95 million to $125 million. The first increase marks the 
difference between the Park Service planning estimates in the General 
Management Plan — and those planning estimates are just on a planning 
level, because obviously, we hadn’t engaged with architects or engineers 
— and the Gettysburg Foundation’s first fund-raising goal of $95 
million. The second giant leap, if you will, was just last year when it 
went from $95 million to $125 million.”*

**Is the goal still $125 million?**

*“Yes, but again, that is total project costs... that’s not building 
costs. When we moved to $125 (million), now, we’re also talking about 
the costs of taking down the old visitor center and Cyclorama buildings, 
and restoring the Cemetery Ridge landscapes. Also, some of that jump was 
the increased fund-raising costs, because we didn’t get the project done 
as quickly as we originally thought. In 2000, we thought we’d open in 
2005. In 2002, we thought we’d reopen in 2006.” *

**There are critics who don’t understand why the fund-raising goal is as 
high as it is.**

*“When people ask these questions, it always takes me a split second to 
recuperate. The news that (the Foundation) was formally raising its goal 
from $95 to $125 million, to me, was unblemished great news. It’s 
longterm. It’s a vision. It’s a goal. I always laugh when people... turn 
that around and ask, how can you justify the Foundation having to raise 
its goal to $125 million when they said before they’d only have to raise 
$95 million, and originally, the Park Service said it would only need 
$43 million? My initial reaction is: where’s the problem? It’s good news 
for everybody. I’m going to be very disappointed if, come 2009, when the 
Foundation has successfully raised $125 million, if they only increase 
their goal to $150 million. Why not go for more?”*

**How did the merger of the Friends of the National Parks at Gettysburg 
with the Gettysburg Foundation affect the fund-raising goal?**

*“Prior to the merger, the Foundation was out there concentrating only 
on raising funds for the museum and visitor center. The Friends were out 
there doing their thing, and they were raising a million dollars a year 
for us for multi-purpose projects. Now you have the Friends — with their 
goals — and make them a part of the Foundation. We forwarded those 
traditional Friends projects, which are worth about a $1 million a year, 
to the Foundation, so naturally, the fund-raising goal is going to get 
higher.”*

**Is the Gettysburg Foundation effective?**

*“They’re outstanding. The Foundation’s commitment throughout the whole 
process is beyond reproach. At least once a month, for the last two 
years, we’ve come to a united decision where we really want to do 
something because it’ll result in better visitor service or a better 
exhibit or a little bit more lasting quality... and almost every single 
time the Foundation has said that they’ll raise the extra money.”*

**The national average for a new visitor center is $5 million, but here 
it’s $105 million. What’s the rationale?**

*“The answer is, of course, because there are no comparable projects. 
You may be referring to the GAO study, done years ago, on National Park 
Service visitor centers, which of course, we participated in. There’s no 
other park in the United States that has a Cyclorama painting, or the 
space requirements for that painting. There are very few of those 
visitor centers that were compared in that GAO study, that have museums. 
Most parks don’t have museums. They have visitor centers but not a 
museum, so with that, those parks are relieved of the responsibility of 
taking care of artifacts. We have a million artifacts. When we talked to 
the GAO about that, we told them there are asterisks over the Gettysburg 
section of that report pointing out that we’re the only one to have a 
Cyclorama and we’re one of the few parks that have a museum. That’s why 
we’re different, and that’s the reason we went into a partnership to 
raise money. I knew back in 1995, when we were just getting permission 
to try to conceive a partnership that there was no way that Gettysburg 
was ever going to get enough Congressionally appropriated funds here, 
and that’s because our needs for the new visitor center and Cyclorama 
were so much greater than other parks. That’s why we wanted a 
partnership from the get-go. There are smaller partnerships all over the 
place. As far as the size and complexity of what we’re doing, right now, 
yeah, we’re the most public partnership in the National Park Service. 
We’re very much in the public eye right now, and that’s because we’re 
Gettysburg.”*

**The GAO visited the battlefield in early December and a second time 
this month. Was it a big deal?**

*“I think it’s a big deal. I think it’s important, because of what they 
do for the Park Service. This is the eleventh GAO investigation that 
I’ve been personally involved in, and that’s counting my experience at 
other parks. They spent two full days with us in December. They came 
back a couple of weeks ago, and spent an hour and a half with us before 
spending some time with the Foundation and then some time with other 
local folks. We think it’s all good, because most of our experiences 
with the GAO have been good. We’re no strangers to them and vice versa. 
When they came back again this month, they asked us for recommendations 
that we would have to prove that our current partnership process enables 
Park Service projects to happen more easily, more efficiently, and more 
effectively.”*

**Why is the GAO looking at the GNMP?**

*“They conduct two types of investigations, and one is what we call 
educational. Congress basically says: ‘Go out there and see what’s going 
on.’ The other type of investigation is when Congress has a feeling of 
suspicion or inappropriateness. We’ve had both types of visits up here. 
The GAO came up here several years ago because there were accusations 
that the Friends of the National Parks at Gettysburg and the GNMP 
Advisory Commission were acting inappropriately. That was an 
investigation, but we were cleared.”*

**Which type of investigation was the GAO conducting here recently?**

*“This is more of an educational examination. RIght now, before 
Congress, there is proposed legislation for the Centennial Challenge, 
and in a nutshell, it’s taking the partnership concept such as we’re 
using here with the Gettysburg Foundation, and making it a nationwide 
initiative. They’re calling it the Centennial Challenge because the 
100th anniversary of the National Park Service is coming up in a couple 
of years. The current administration proposal to Congress is that 
they’re to put up $100 million a year for 10 years, to be matched by the 
private sector — dollar for dollar — to get major park improvement 
projects, just like we’re seeing here, completed in time for the 
Centennial, so we’ll be ready to serve the American public for the next 
100 years. The subcommittee, where this Legislation is being debated, 
asked the GAO to examine how the National Park Service handles donations 
and contributions. The sub-committee told them to make sure to come to 
Gettysburg because — guess what — we’re the most visible park and 
partnership in the nation right now.”*