Hi! Iʻm Chuck Danilowski, and I am the Custom Project Management Specialist for Hawaiʻi Pacific Parks Association (HPPA). I ensure that any custom-made products that you purchase in our national park visitor center stores or online shop move efficiently through the Creative Services Department from initial design concept to final finished product on park store shelves. Our national park partners, and the stores we run within them, are located in Hawaiʻi and American Samoa.
I recently attended the Public Lands Alliance (PLA) Annual Convention & Trade Show in Daytona Beach, Florida. The Public Lands Alliance is a national organization dedicated to the protection and enjoyment of America’s public lands through its mission to connect, strengthen, and represent the nonprofit organizations that support these treasured places. HPPA is a member of PLA.
It was my first time attending this amazing gathering of like-minded professionals. There were informative and eye-opening educational sessions, a two-day trade show with vendors from across the U.S., a silent auction, and the chance to network with people I had only known through emails or phone calls. It was a time to put faces with names, and to browse product offerings that we may bring into our visitor center park stores to teach, inform, and connect to a lasting memory in someone’s mind of their national park experience.
The theme of the conference was Power of Place: the ways cultural and natural landscapes shape, strengthen, and inspire us. Many session speakers spoke about looking forward while remembering where we came from...but also pushing toward the future in partnership with each other and our shared love of national parks. That was my overwhelming takeaway: Relying on public lands partnerships will see us through any challenge, and can be a way to bring about change in a challenging world and environment.
I also connected with product vendors. Our goal at HPPA is to be innovators in products that connect visitors to our national park partners through a feeling they had, a site they viewed, a trail they walked, a cultural experience they had, or a native species they learned about. As a self-described “hat geek,” I met with one vendor who illustrates stunning panoramic park landscapes and translates them to embroidered hats. I imagine someone noticing that unique hat and potentially being reminded of an amazing sunrise over Sliding Sands Trail at Haleakalā National Park, or the fountaining volcano at Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park.
During the trade show, I met someone who had recently traveled to Hawaiʻi Island in the hopes of seeing Kīlauea Volcano erupt. I couldn't help but be transported with him as he described seeing a summit eruption grow from tiny lava trickles to 1,000-foot fountains, and the awe he felt with the eruption roar so close to him. He hiked trails, birdwatched, and photographed native forest birds (and showed us the pictures!) Whenever I passed him during the rest of the trade show, I saw his face lighting up as he told his story to others. His daughter had taken home an HPPA-designed custom nēnē (Hawaiian goose) plush to commemorate the trip and seeing those wonderful geese in the park, in person.
Attending a conference like this drives home, for me, what all of us at HPPA strive for: to inspire stewardship and connection to our extraordinary national park partners. Our sales proceeds are donated to these parks to help support endangered wildlife programs, school programs, community outreach projects, and much more. The nēnē plush that a family purchases at our visitor center park store helps protect native species, and reminds visitors of their park experience—and of the aloha behind everything we strive to do.
Our curated collection for our national park partners is here.
Learn more about PLA.
Connect to our history.
