Waterville native receives National Park Service's Midwest Region Harry Yount Award

by Kelli Boylen
freelance writer

Robert “Bob” Palmer of rural Monona, son of Norbert and Nola Palmer of Waukon, has been honored by receiving the National Park Service’s Midwest Region Harry Yount Award for 2011. The award, established by the National Park Service (NPS) in 1994, is in honor of Harry Yount, the first gamekeeper in Yellowstone National Park and considered by the NPS to be the father of the ranger service, as well as the first national park ranger.
Given annually, it is presented to an employee whose “overall impact, record of accomplishments and excellence in traditional ranger duties has created an appreciation for the park ranger profession,” according to the NPS. This award is given both nationally and regionally. Palmer was one of eight people in the nation to receive this year’s award.
Palmer began his NPS career as a Youth Conservation Corps student worker in 1984 at Effigy Mounds National Monument, and began working there as a park ranger in 1987 until 1991, returning in 1999 until July 2011.
During his career, he has also served as a U.S. Park Ranger in Northern Virginia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, North Carolina, Washington D.C., Montana and Philadelphia, as well as being assigned to numerous Homeland Security details.
As well as parks in the U.S., Palmer also spent four years working for the New Zealand government as a ranger in the Hutt Valley and on the Kapiti Coast. Since July, Palmer has been the Chief Ranger at Herbert Hoover National Historic Site in West Branch.
“The great thing about being a park ranger is the diversity of experiences that one can have while ensuring that the parks are protected and that visitors appreciate the incredibly rich and diverse resources of this country,” said Palmer. “I’ve been so lucky! As a Park Ranger I’ve hung on the end of a rope and rescued injured climbers, fought wild land fires, investigated, caught and arrested poachers, worked as a diver in the Caribbean and lead guided hikes for adults and schoolchildren in some of the most special places on earth.”
He adds, “And I get paid to do it!”
“Palmer is a trained law enforcement officer and cultural resource specialist who has consistently demonstrated a strong commitment to the protection of park resources while insuring a positive visitor experience,” says Jim Nepstad, Superintendent of Effigy Mounds National Monument.
While the Harry Yount Award recognizes Palmer’s commitment to protecting the resources at Effigy Mounds, it was his significant work outside the park that distinguished him amongst his peers, most notably through his contributions to three nationally significant programs: the National Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) Program, the Indian Arts and Crafts Board (IACB) and the NPS ProRanger Philadelphia Program.
From 2005 through 2011, Palmer served, in addition to his duties at Effigy Mounds, as investigator and special agent for the National NAGPRA Program, and the Office of the Secretary of the Interior’s Indian Arts and Crafts Board. From November 2009 to March 2010, Palmer was requested by the NPS to detail to Temple University in Philadelphia, PA as the first NPS ProRanger Philadelphia Program Manager - a NPS law enforcement ranger recruitment, training and employment program. In this role, he worked closely with several National Park areas and Temple University staff in developing the program. Palmer recruited and selected students for the inaugural intake that will be the nation’s next generation of NPS law enforcement park rangers.
While at Effigy Mounds, and in fulfilling the educator component of his park ranger position, Palmer authored several papers on cultural resource protection and was an invited guest speaker at several venues around the United States, the most notable being at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City, where he spoke at a conference on War and Peace: Art and Cultural Heritage Law in the 21st Century, and a World Bank conference in Washington, D.C. sponsored by the International Council on Monuments and Sites.
Palmer also played a major role in reviving a training course for Assistant U.S. Attorneys on the enforcement of federal cultural heritage resource laws. Through Palmer’s work as logistical coordinator, agenda planner and instructor, the renewed course has now been conducted annually since 2009.
In collaboration with the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Advocacy Center, Palmer also developed and produced training videos for U.S. Attorneys and tribal agencies on both NAGPRA and the Indian Arts & Crafts Act, the last of which is being shown in edited form at the 2011 White House Tribal Leaders Conference in Washington, D.C. in December. In 2009, Palmer also published his first book, a narrative about Allamakee County native Ellison Orr entitled, “The Reminiscences of a Pioneer Boy: The Boyhood Experiences of Ellison Orr (1857 – 1951)”.
When asked what he is most proud of in terms of his career, Palmer noted that it hasn’t been the exciting or sometimes adrenaline pumping elements of the job, but rather he takes the most pride in some of the more low-key and distressed tasks. “Working as a NAGPRA and IACB investigator has brought me the most personal and professional satisfaction,” he says.
As the NAGPRA investigator, Palmer conducted the first, and to date the only, investigations of allegations made against museums for failure to comply with NAGPRA requirements. Between 2005 and 2010, Palmer investigated more than160 allegations made against museums nationwide for failing to comply with the Act.
“Not many people realize that American museums hold the remains of somewhere around 500,000 American Indians as well as millions of grave items. Those are really big numbers, the remains of half a million people. That’s almost the population of Milwaukee being stored in museum collections. My job was to investigate museums that were alleged to be outside the law, and to try to bring them into compliance. It’s a pretty incredible feeling when you’re the government official who gets to attempt to right something that may have been wrong for a hundred years or more.”
When asked about working as an investigator for the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, Palmer was equally mindful. “While doing NAGPRA investigations was in large part dealing with the past, the Indian Arts and Crafts work was dealing with the here and now, and for some of these people, now is all they have,” he says. Under the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, it is illegal for individuals or corporations to fraudulently misrepresent arts and crafts as being Indian made when in fact the items are not made by an Indian.
Nepstad says, “Palmer pioneered a training module for FLETC (Federal Law Enforcement Training Center) on the Indian Arts and Crafts Act. Each basic academy student now learns of the illegal trade of counterfeit Indian arts and crafts, and the tragic affect this trade has on Indian artisans in Indian Country.”
Palmer indicated that his IACB work has taken him to some of the poorest and most depressed parts of the country, and that he has come to understand, both economically and socially, the importance of Indian arts and crafts to Indian people and the Indian Country economy. Working as a Special Agent with the IACB, Palmer investigated and worked with the FBI and U.S. Attorneys in prosecuting violators of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act.
He conducted the first, and to date the only, federal civil enforcement investigation action under the Act, as well as conducting several criminal investigations in various jurisdictions around the United States. “In many, many cases that I’ve seen, the making of arts and crafts is the only source of income for entire families. When someone’s design is illegally copied and counterfeited, the social and economic results can be unbelievably tragic,” he says.
“But when you are successful, you feel like you are making what may be a tiny difference in the scope of the world at large, but a world of difference in the lives of those individuals,” he added. “Both with NAGPRA and the IACB, I was just doing my job and trying to make a difference. And by no means was it always enjoyable, fun or easy, but for the people involved you like to think that you made a positive difference.”
While at Effigy Mounds, “Palmer was in what is known as a subject-to-furlough position,” said Nepstad. “He was essentially guaranteed six months of employment as a protection ranger here at the park, and during the off-seasons he was generally laid off for all practical purposes. There are many, many rangers in the NPS who are in similar positions, but I had never encountered one who was so driven to find meaningful alternatives during his furloughs.”
Nepstad continues, “While on recurring annual furloughs from Effigy Mounds, Palmer not only found ways to keep himself gainfully employed during those times, but he often found ways to get himself temporarily promoted. It’s impossible not to admire that kind of initiative.”
Nepstad spearheaded the nomination of Palmer for the award, collaborating with Jill Hawk, Superintendent of Morristown National Historical Park, Meridith Stanton, Director of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, and Sherry Hutt, Program Manager of the National NAGPRA Program.
“I’m still very new to Effigy Mounds, having arrived here only ten months ago. I didn’t anticipate nominating anyone for a national-level award so early in my tenure here,” Nepstad said, “but it was an easy decision in Bob’s case. He has made genuine contributions of national value in a number of different programs. I’m not aware of anyone else in the National Park Service quite like him.”
“You know, the most exciting part about this whole thing for me was being nominated, and to think that several people whom I greatly respect and admire took the time to do this is really humbling,” says Palmer. “On a personal level it means a great deal simply because, first of all, a career in the NPS is a full family commitment. I’ve spent a tremendous amount of time away from home over the years, and none of these assignments would have been possible without the commitment of my wife. This is as much to her credit as it is to mine. Also, my parents can breathe a bit easier and know their son turned out okay up to this point.”
He adds, “Lastly, and hopefully someday down the road, my boys will look back and know their dad tried to make a difference, and at least at one point in time, several people thought enough about what he did to nominate him for something as prestigious and meaningful to a park ranger as the Harry Yount Award.”
Academically, Palmer attended Waterville Elementary School and graduated from Waukon High School in 1984. He holds a BA in Anthropology from Luther College, an MA in Archaeology from the University of Auckland (New Zealand), and an MS in Criminal Justice from the University of Wisconsin.
“Northeast Iowa should be proud to claim someone like Bob Palmer as a native son,” says Nepstad. “He has obviously inherited the strong work ethic and drive to do what is right that are hallmarks of this region, and it’s nice to see him being recognized for those traits.”