July 2013 - Parks & Recreation - 20

Member to Member
chine must " be easy and robust enough
to use with a trained, but not necessarily
sophisticated, operator. " The logical follow-up question is: Who will be the operator? A 16-year-old on summer break
from school? How many people will
you need on a " mowing crew " if the
mowers won't need operators?
Cashless Society - I remember
when accepting credit cards was
cutting-edge, and even then it took serious consultation with finance personnel
to allow it. How many agencies now accept PayPal? How many accept a payment via mobile phone? Could mobile
payment technology such as Square or
Google Mobile Wallet help an agency?
Is it possible to purchase an iPad for a
few hundred bucks, invest in a card reader, hook it to your agency's account and
provide POS payments at outlying facilities? Runners, bikers, even walkers may
not carry cash or credit cards, but they
almost always carry a cellphone. How
many years away are we from when a
mom registers her daughter for a dance
class by waving her smartphone over a
QR code next to the program description, and immediately funds are deposited in the department's account at the
same time the instantaneous registration takes place? The point is, how do
you make the recreation experience as
convenient as possible, and even more
to the point, what will be the payment
norm in the next decade?
Energy - Whether you agree or
disagree with fracking, it's a viable
industry that is here to stay. Historically, natural gas has been 10 times cheaper than crude oil. Currently, it's 35 times
cheaper. The price of a natural gas
BTU has dropped 45 percent in the past
year. If your agency is looking to build
a new facility, natural gas has become
the no-brainer decision for inexpensive
heat. But what about the department
fleet? Are you looking at compressed

Parks & Recreation

natural gas (CNG) or other alternate
fuels for new vehicles or to retrofit those
already in service? Do you think crude
oil prices will be higher or lower in 10
years? What kind of fuel do you think
that the GPS mowing equipment described above will use? According to
the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the average cost of diesel fuel
has increased from $2.46 per gallon in
2009 to $3.97 per gallon in 2012. Waste
Management says that 80 percent of
the trucks it purchases in the next five
years will run on natural gas. Richard
Branson of Virgin Group predicts that
in 50 years, commuter commercial air
traffic will use battery-powered planes
for short flights. Dana Lonn of Toro
states that battery-powered mowers
don't have the run time yet to be practical. However, he says, " no one uses
corded power tools anymore; everyone
has gone to lithium battery-powered
cordless tools. " Improvements in battery technology for power tools eventually will be used in larger applications.
Demographics - Both the Census
Bureau and the United Nations predict the U.S. population will exceed
400 million by 2050, and 20 percent
- approximately 80 million - will
be older than age 65, up from only
13 percent now. Already, the Census
Bureau estimates that more than half
of U.S. children under a year of age
belong to a minority group. By 2050,
the white non-Hispanic percentage
of the population will drop from 64
to 46 percent, while Hispanics will
grow from 16 to 30 percent. What
will athletic and recreation programming be like when almost one-third
of the population will be of Hispanic
heritage? Regardless, it's a fact that
our country will be significantly older
and less white in 2050 than it is now.
Health - We already know that
obesity is increasing in this country.

| J U LY 2 0 1 3 | W W W. N R PA . O R G

According to the CDC, one of every
three youths or adolescents is obese.
Three of the top ten, and two of the
top three, current leading causes of
death in the U.S. are related to obesity (heart disease, stroke and diabetes).
Now extrapolate that to the year 2050
with an obese population. If we don't
do something, our country will be fatter and more prone to heart-related diseases. What plans are being made by
your agency?
The flip-side of the " America is getting fatter " coin is that " America is
staying active longer. " At least 80 million Americans will be more than 65
years old (the term " senior " is almost
meaningless anymore), but they will be
increasingly active. Those 65-year olds
will be doing what my father did at
50. The continuous improvement and
commonality of replacement of hips,
knees and prostheses will allow significant activity well into a person's 80s.
How will that affect the stereotypical
" senior center " that uses card games
and potluck suppers as the programmatic backbone?
There are no right or wrong answers to these questions. In many cases, there are no answers at all, at least
yet. The younger professionals who
will be in top leadership positions 20
and 30 years from now will be facing
these and many more changes and
trends that we can't even imagine
now. One of the great things about
parks and recreation is its ability to
adapt, adjust and succeed. It will be
exciting to see what happens next!
Brad Chambers is founder and principal of
The Kelly Group, a consulting organization.
He currently serves as Past Chair of the
Supervisors Management School, sponsored
by North Carolina State University, the
Oglebay National Training Center and NRPA,
where he instructs " Confronting Change in
the 21st Century " (cdrbkc@hotmail.com).

July 2013 - Parks & Recreation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of July 2013 - Parks & Recreation