State Parks | The Barefoot Spirit

Ireland’s Killarney National Park is a Nature Lover’s Paradise

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Sat, 21 Jun 2014 18:30:15 +0000

We’ve always been hikers and love to discover the true natural environment wherever we travel. We can’t wait get away from the cities and man-made “improvements” and venture off into the real world – on foot!

Perhaps that is why we have always been conservationists at heart and why we have a special love for groups that are trying to save what’s left of the natural world. When we built the Barefoot brand, we chose to support conservation groups nationally and internationally from the Surfrider Foundation to the Sierra Club, from the League to Save Tahoe to the Mono Lake Committee, and from state park foundations to local conservation groups. So, when we were asked to keynote the 2014 World Conference on Entrepreneurship in Ireland, we decided to stay and enjoy some touring and hiking in Ireland’s natural landscape.

In the late 1890s, Michael’s Irish grandmother left her native County Kerry in Ireland for America, never to return. She always told him that if he was ever in Ireland to go straight to County Kerry in South West Ireland. She raved about its peaceful natural beauty. So we ventured down to Kerry after the conference and visited Dingle on the West Coast (a real gem) and then off to Killarney National Park in the Killarney Lake District in the center of the County.

With Ireland’s highest mountains, it is a wonderland of unsurpassed beauty. About 20,000 years ago huge glaciers carved out pristine valleys and left a chain of beautiful lakes. Here and there along the shore you’ll spot a Viking fortress or a 15^th century castle. But beyond the few evidences of our history is a timeless beauty. We saw mountainsides covered with wild purple-blossomed rhododendrons, powerful waterfalls cascading down granite cliffs covered with ferns, and the oldest remaining oak forests in Europe.

The park is big enough (28,000 acres) that you can easily leave behind the abstract, man-made world that we live in. Here is a place where the magic of nature still exists. Today we took the 7-mile hike through the Gap of Dunloe. The trail head is at the end of the highest lake reachable by boat (a beautiful two-hour ride across three of the main lakes). As we began our ascent, we saw the glacial basin expanding out below us with its sparkling blue lakes dotting a carpet of dense green forests. The air is brisk and clean with the fragrance of the ever-present wild flowers. The sky is forever changing from clouds to bright blue with beams of golden sunlight lighting up different sections of the rock faces, meadows, and lakes.

You almost have to pinch yourself to make sure you are not dreaming. But you’re not… this is the real world, not the cities where we spend most of our time. Living in a man-made world it’s easy to forget that places like this actually exist. That’s why we make it a point to go out and discover them as often as we can. We want to remind ourselves why we are committed to preserving our global natural heritage.

Its places like Killarney National Park in Ireland that can make a believer out of the most cynical urbanite and give young people reasons to say what we heard a young Asian tourist exclaim on the trail, “I’m glad I chose to do this today! It makes me happy!” We hope you all have a chance to visit one of our many natural heritage spots this summer and discover what it can do for you!

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Are You Willing to Volunteer or Donate to Keep Your Park Open?

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Sat, 31 Aug 2013 02:43:28 +0000

Three years ago, California had a proposition on the ballot to raise funds to rescue the state parks from a fiscal crisis. The idea was simple: $18 added to the annual vehicle registration fee would raise $500 million per year for the state’s 48 parks. It was overwhelmingly defeated. The arguments for its defeat ranged from, “The state should run them for less” to, “The vehicle license fee was no way to do it.” But the size of the defeat sent an ominous message: the parks are not that important to the majority.

Most of the folks who live near the parks, or use the parks on a regular basis, or whose business is affected by the parks, supported the proposition. Still, we lost.

Regardless of the reasons for the defeat of the Parks Initiative, it became clear that the State could not sustain the maintenance and entitlements associated with the parks management. Many State Parks were put on a closure list because funds were not available to properly maintain them.

It was a hard pill to swallow that California’s voters would spend more on lattes in a month than the $18 per auto registration that it would take to keep the parks open for a year. But with the willing participation of the regular users, neighbors, adjacent businesses, and non-profits, the parks slated to close were kept open. How? With donations of time, money, labor and materials.

Two such state parks are in Sonoma County, north of San Francisco. They are the Armstrong Redwoods Park on the Russian River and adjacent Austin Creek State Reserve. These, and several other Russian River and Sonoma Coast State Parks, are being kept open by a true leader in this volunteer effort. The Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods is a pioneering non-profit with roots going back to 1985, dedicated to supporting these parks. Today they have over 550 volunteers who help manage the Sonoma Coast State Parks, which includes Armstrong Redwoods Park and Austin Creek State Reserve.

Bonnie will celebrate her birthday on August 31^st by speaking at a special fundraiser for the Stewards. High on a coastal mountain behind the world-class Armstrong Redwood Grove, 50 guests will enjoy a catered sunset dinner and listen to Native American flute music performed by a direct descendant of Yosemite’s Chief Tenaya. She will talk about how Barefoot Wine used Worthy Cause Marketing to support many conservation groups including the Stewards and how today we travel the country encouraging students, start-ups, and large corporations to promote this kind of community involvement. All proceeds will go to the preservation of Austin Creek State Reserve. It’s a present she is proud to give on her birthday!

We believe the future of parks is the opposite of “detached entitlement.” We believe it is “engaged ownership.” How can you help the local non-profits that are keeping your park open? After all, it is yours!

Engaged ownership is the guiding principle behind the People Powered Parks movement. Grass roots organizations like the Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods are providing the essential infrastructure to make volunteerism practical, sustainable, and effective. Let’s work together to save our parks and give us all a wonderful birthday present, year after year!

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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Return on Involvement – The new ROI

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 21:29:02 +0000

Investors look for a return on their investment. They want to know when they will see a profit, and the turn-around time is usually the key factor in their decision to fund a project. The sooner the return, the more likely they are to invest.

But we can invest something besides money that can show great returns. It’s involvement. When we get involved, we devote mindshare, labor, and commitment. We become promoters for the cause.

In California, we got a real scare last year when many of our State Parks were on a closure list due to lack of funding. A proposition that would have kept the parks open – costing each voter less than the cost of a latte a month – failed! The message was clear: There just wasn’t a majority of Californians who cared if the parks closed because they didn’t use them anyway. But the minority of people who did use the parks did something amazing to try to keep them open. They got involved.

Sure, there are arguments on both sides as to what went wrong with the parks. Some say the government mismanaged them and held up the discovery of over $50 million that was not accounted for as evidence. Others point out that the parks have over $2 billion in deferred maintenance and the undisclosed funds are just a drop in the bucket. The fact is that parks all over the country are in danger of closing if the people who use and benefit from them don’t step up and save them. Our tax dollars just aren’t enough.

The ultimate solution is a change in the park users’ and park beneficiaries’ paradigm, from detached entitlement to engaged ownership. We in Sonoma County term this the People Powered Parks movement. It’s the latest example of ROI, or Return On Involvement. In a little over a year, thousands of volunteers and many non-profits have saved the parks on the California State Parks closure list. Four of the five State Parks now run by non-profit organizations are in Sonoma County.

But involvement doesn’t stop there. These volunteer organizations are still stinging from the recent defeat at the polls of the park tax, and its implications. If the 10-year-olds of today don’t develop a love of the land and environment, and appreciate the benefits of nature, they won’t hold them in high priority.

When we were kids, we had parents who took us on camping trips, hikes and outings where we developed a deep appreciation for nature. Too many of today’s kids, especially in the inner city and at the lower economic levels, live in households where both parents work just to make ends meet. The parents may feel they simply don’t have the time to make nature an important part of their kids’ lives. These same kids will be voting in just 10 years. Will they vote to preserve and improve the environment? What about saving open space, or cleaning up the water and the air, matters that many of us have worked on so diligently?

The volunteers, non-profits, and progressive recreational institutions are making an investment beyond managing the parks. They’re investing in the future. By getting involved in programs to get these kids out into nature at an early age, they know that those same kids will return their appreciation for nature at the ballot box in the not too distant future. So contribute what you can to support your community. Get involved with your own People Powered Parks and you will enjoy a great ROI.

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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SSU State Parks Workshop – Private Event

Michael Houlihan & Bonnie Harvey — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 20:57:00 +0000

We will be joining the Sonoma State University State Parks Project team to learn about their recent research findings. This invitation-only workshop will present their findings of research completed in summer 2012 intended to support a larger discussion of strategic ways forward for the five Sonoma County State Parks in jeopardy of closing, and other parks surviving with partial closures. The SSU State Parks Project was launched in June 2012 by Sonoma State University to support the five Sonoma County State Parks threatened with closure as they transition to new management. For more information about their efforts to save State Parks, go here.

Who We Are

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

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