RIVER VALLEY and OZARK AREA — Meaningful work, that's what's important to Miles Johnson.
When he talks about his 31 years working the Arkansas River valley for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, he has a lot to say about why he likes his job. The list is full of things that can be seen, touched - things that alter the landscape, give a place value and change the way people use resources, treasure them. Many of these things took Johnson's whole career to develop - like the trees he's planted up and down the Arkansas River shoreline - and many will be around long after he's gone.
Why are these things so important to Johnson?
"It would have to stem out of my faith, my Christian faith," he said. "It's a service to put other people first and to think of other peoples' needs and do something meaningful, not frivolous. I've seen some great people in my time, and maybe they weren't viewed as socialites, but they made a great impact through their work. That's important to me. It's important to me and that I pass those values on to my sons and also the young people I work with."
Johnson is resource manager for the Corps' Russellville Project Office. His responsibilities extend along the Arkansas River from Murray Lock and Dam in Little Rock to the Oklahoma state line. It's a job with several facets.He heads the recreation management branch of the office, which covers about 36 parks and manages about 15,000 acres for wildlife management projects. He leads an agriculture and grazing lease program, which puts unused Corps property to farming use until more productive uses can be implemented at the sites.
By partnering with Ducks Unlimited and the ArkansasGame and Fish Commission, his office manages several tracts of bottomland hardwood as waterfowl rest areas. Then there are levees to inspect and maintain and miles of Lake Dardanelle shoreline to mow and keep looking nice. His team is in charge of boating permits, docks and general recreation/visitor assistance.
Johnson was recognized for his work with a 2009 Legend Award from the American Recreation Coalition, which picks one person per year to recognize from each major federal land management agency (like the Corps, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, Forest Service, etc.). Johnson was flown to Washington, D.C., in July to accept the award.
Johnson will admit to being awestruck at being singled out, and if pressed hard enough, he'll even admit that the award is a bigger deal than he likes to make it out to be. What he won't concede to is any recognition that excludes his staff.
"One of the key aspects of any success we've had at Russellville is the staff that works here," Johnson said. "I don't do all this stuff by myself. As the supervisor, manager of the program, my goal is to provide the resources team members need to go out and do all of these things. I've got some highly motivated people who work here, and I'm proud of them."
Johnson, who is 54, moved from Oxford, Ohio, to Russellville in 1974 to pursue a Bachelor of Science in wildlife management at Arkansas Tech University. He interned with the Corps during college and has pretty much worked for them since. His got his first full-time Corps job in 1979, working at Toad Suck Park in Conway.
He planted the trees at Toad Suck Park, the ones that are so big and old now and help give the place its inviting feel. Johnson can see touches of his work throughout the Arkansas River valley. He saw Bona Dea Park transformed in the '80s from a bare dirt, vacant lot and go on to grow into a park that Russellville residents call their own. And more recently, he was gratified to take part in a project to designate several long-term RV camping sites at Maumelle Park in partnership with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. After 15 years of searching for a solution to the problem, family members and patients undergoing treatment at UAMS can now camp at the park on a long-term basis.
One of his favorite projects has been a hardwood reforestation effort along Lake Dardanelle, providing habitat for years of future wildlife.
Johnson is proud that Dardanelle Dam doesn't cost taxpayers a dime because of the hydroelectric power it produces, recreation fees and the agriculture lease program. He's proud the Corps dams in Arkansas and the lakes they've produced have gone on to stimulate the economy and become a way of life for many Arkansans.
Johnson said he didn't really think about the Corps' importance until he went to a meeting in Washington, D.C., earlier in his career and met people from all over the nationwho work for the agency. Then it dawned on him. He thought about how many industries and jobs depended on the Corps' navigational projects. Even the recreational statistics wowed him. He said 10 percent of the U.S. population goes through Corps' parks every year. The Corps is the No. 1 provider of water recreation.
That's a lot of people to affect, and he's glad the Corps approaches its projects with the seriousness that it does.
"We're very conscious of our responsibility to be good stewards of the public's money," Johnson said. "It takes a team to deliver a product. Period.From my staff, straight up to the people in Washington, all of us really have to be on the same page so we can deliver good products."
Johnson has also participated in Corps projects like the teams that deploy and help clean up after disasters like hurricanes. In 1994, he spent six months through the Corps as a government representative guiding Iraqis through a 124-building construction project for their army. He said it was one of the most gratifying things he's done in his life.
His major task was to teach people used to building with rubble how to build buildingsthat would last, with sound, quality construction principles. He remembers tearing down some buildings three times to have the crews start over and try again. He started with 60 workers and ended with 2,000. In the beginning, the men shied away from him "like a gaggle of geese" and feared his tests of their workmanship.
"By the end of the half-year over there, I'd be going by the same area, with those same teams, and they'd be waving, 'Come over here; look at my work,'" Johnson said. "It was just a tremendous success."
Johnson remembers schooling young engineers who had never gotten a chance to practice their skills. He remembers giving candy to a little girl and being moved by her response of gratitude and kindness well beyond her years.
"That's indicative of the people I worked with over there," Johnson said. "They just wanted an opportunity. We were giving them an opportunity at life."
These days, Johnson said he's started to feel a little more like a mentor, and that's a role he's OK with. He was a Boy Scout as a young man - it was actually what inspired him to study wildlife management and pursue an outdoors-oriented career - and he's been a Scout leader since 1988. He enjoys seeing young people go through the program, go on to have careers and lives of their own and then return to the Scouts to give back. He also works with the youth at First Baptist Church in Dover.
Retirement is still a ways off, he said, but whatever he decides to dedicate his time to after the Corps, it won't really be that different. There will still be that emphasis on meaningful work.
"When you like what you do, why let it go?" Johnson said. "When I do quit, it'll be to go do something that will make a difference." - awidner@ arkansasonline.commatter of factBirth Day: Oct. 23, 1955 Occupation: Resource manager out of the Russellville Project Office, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers - responsible for Arkansas River projects from Murray Lock and Dam in Little Rock to the Oklahoma state line Family includes: Wife, Linda, of 34 years; three sons, two daughters-in-law, with one more coming soon; one granddaughter, with more hopefully coming soon Hobbies: I enjoy being outside, messing around in the yard, doing some landscaping. We've also recently started RV camping in some of the Corps parks, which has turned out to be pretty fun Most people don't know I'm: Actually pretty shy. I enjoy my time by myself. I'm not afraid of being alone with a good book I cannot live without: A good, understandable copy of the Bible. I generally read it daily to get the day started off well When I was young I wanted: To get a job making $15,000 a year. You could raise a family on that back then. So I thought if I could do that, I would be OK What makes me mad: I get impatient with people who talk too much. I'm a to-the-point kind of guy The people I admire most: Are not superficial or worried about appearances My favorite memory is: With each of my sons coming up through Boy Scouts. They were four and three years apart, so with each one I got to be their Scout leader individually. I have great memories of being on fantastic trips in the woods with them My goals for the future: To continue in activities that I enjoy that make a contribution
River Valley Ozark, Pages 144, 145 on 09/20/2009