The old website:

“I hold myself as an energizer,” says Rademan, who is a popular public speaker in addition to being the public affairs and leadership specialist under contract with the city of Park City.

Read the full article here – Utah Business Magazine – Spotlight (PDF)

PRESS RELEASE: June 18, 2009

• Myles Rademan, Co-Director, Leadership Park City, (435) 901-8778, myles@parkcity.org
• Lisa Cilva Ward, Co-Director, Leadership Park City, (435) 645-7206, lisa@wardcomm.com

Leadership Park City has been honored with the 2009 Best of State medal. In a black-tie award ceremony held at the Salt Palace at the end of May, Leadership Park City received the prestigious acknowledgement in the category of Community Development, Education/Advocacy Organization.

The Best of State Awards recognize outstanding individuals, organizations and businesses in the state of Utah, with the focus of highlighting entities that inspire excellence in our communities and serve to better the quality of life in Utah.
Leadership Park City is a community-based program now in its 15th year. It was created to identify, encourage and train new or emerging community-based leaders; people who would dedicate themselves to accomplishing worthwhile community goals with a sense of vision, purpose, excitement and common good.
From over 100 applicants annually, 30 students are selected to participate in this national award-winning program, which includes lectures, group discussions, field trips and experiential “hands on” learning.
There are over 400 alumni of the Leadership Park City program from virtually every segment of the community. The program has served as a model and launching point for community activism. Graduates include Park City’s current mayor, several current elected City Council and County Council members, and planning commissioners. Program alumni either lead or sit on boards for virtually every commission, work group, committee, service group and non-profit organization in the region.
Leadership Park City is co-directed by Lisa Cilva Ward and Myles Rademan, who together have mentored over 400 program graduates in leadership, volunteerism, and civic engagement. Co-director Ward has a background in organizational communication, leadership and group facilitation. She has co-directed the Leadership Park City program for nine years, after previously serving as director of the Jump In! youth leadership program for eight years. In addition, her background includes over 20 years in communications consulting, writing and editing. She is president of Ward Communications, a communications consulting firm. She is the recipient of the Distinguished Leadership Award (2000) and the prestigious Preceptor Award (2009) from the international Community Leadership Association.
Co-director Rademan is the founder of the Leadership Park City program. With a background in law and urban planning as well as his experience as a Fulbright Scholar, Kellogg National Fellow, and Salzburg Fellow, his professional experience has included service as Community Development Director and Planning Director for resort communities in the Intermountain West. In his most recent role as Director of Public Affairs and Communications for Park City, and in his private consulting practice, Rademan and Associates, he focuses on the sociology and psychology of communities, addressing future trends and the leadership needed to ensure success in uncertain times. Rademan has also been honored with the prestigious Preceptor Award (2001) from the international Community Leadership Association.

He bills himself as a reality therapist. No, I’m not joking. Part teacher, part scientist, part entertainer — and full-time social agitator — Myles Rademan’s approach to mountain town management is a little bit akin to Freud’s approach to human psychology.

Ask a lot of questions. Probe behind the mask of convention. And don’t be afraid to say unpopular things.

OK. So I’m exaggerating a little. So psychology is a bigger subject than mountain town life. So sue me. What I’m trying to say is that this Rademan guy has been probing the psychic closet of mountain communities for a long time now. And we should all be listening a little closer to what he has to say.

Consider the recent Travel Symposium in Vail where the much-hyped keynote speaker exhorted the resort-business crowd to “over-promise and over-deliver” (once again). Rademan, who was participating in an experts’ panel following the speech, raised the one question on everybody’s mind: “So who is going to do all this over-delivering for you?” They say he got the biggest applause of the week…

“To me, it’s straightforward,” says the veteran planner. “The social contract that once defined life in mountain towns doesn’t exist anymore. And everybody knows it. In fact, what was once a pretty egalitarian lifestyle has all but disappeared today. The workers have been disenfranchised and the gulf between rich and poor is getting bigger. We still have great towns. And we still get scenery dividends for living there. But much of the work today is being done by migrant workers. So what does that mean for the future?”

Turns out that was a rhetorical question “Reality sucks,” he says. “But it’s the only thing we have to work with. Anytime there is life, there will be winners and losers. Life isn’t fair — get used to it.” He stops speaking. Picks his next words carefully. “As a community grows and changes, some people adapt and thrive and some miss their turn — and become bitter. It’s a very common occurrence in resort towns. Particularly now, when bigger and better players are attracted to the game. But that doesn’t mean we just throw up our arms and give up on the issue.”

He smiles — if just a bit sadly. “I’m a social observer. And yes, I see trends out there that worry me. But I also understand that we have to establish functional economies in these towns. My gift is that I can speak. I’ve woven my observations into stories where I can talk about some of these trends and issues.” He laughs. “But I certainly don’t advocate for a return to a past that may or may not have happened…”

Rademan is one of those eccentric people who still believe in small-d democracy. “I just look at the root of the word ‘community’. Common + Unity. I believe that local self-determination has a really big role to play in this. But that means actively embracing everybody in the community — not just the rich or the powerful or the old-timers or the great skiers or the whatevers. It means everyone. That’s where the real story lies.”

And so the reality therapy continues…

A frequent speaker at resort conventions and town-planning seminars across North America — as well as a Fulbright scholar and a Kellogg National Leadership Fellow — Rademan brings a unique tough-love-meets-cheerleader spiciness to his presentations. “A lot of the towns I consult for are like outpatients,” admits Rademan, with only a hint of a smile. “Seriously — as an outsider, I can hold up a mirror to them and say: ‘This is what your problems look like.’ And when I get their attention with a little humour, I can then say: ‘Here are a few examples of what other towns are doing about it…’”

Then comes a long moment of silence. “Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of examples of mountain towns that are managing change all that well right now,” he eventually says. And shrugs. “But at least, some of them are getting some of the things right…”

Rademan gets it. Or at least, it sounds to me like he gets it. With over 35 years of experience in mountain-town planning — first in Crested Butte, Colorado and then in Park City, Utah — Rademan represents a perspective that values, as he puts it, “working more on the human side of things than on the bricks-and mortar thing.

“One of my biggest roles has been to nurture the web of personal relationships that make up mountain communities,” he says. “I’m constantly railing against the urge to build more ‘stuff’ in resort towns.” He sighs. “At some point, we all have to realize it’s the people that count… not the stuff.”

He continues: “I was lucky to be part of a group of long-haired kids who ‘took over’ the town of Crested Butte in the early 1970s. It was a fabulous experience. People forget just how depressed that place was before the hippies arrived. We organized the town again. We put Crested Butte on its modern footing.”

It’s clear that his years in southwestern Colorado mean a lot to Rademan. “I was never a skier before that,” he tells me. “Wasn’t part of my life. Zero. I grew up in Philadelphia. I didn’t even have friends who were skiers.” And then he laughs. “I remember the only ski trip I did when I was a kid was to the Catskill Mountains. I hated it. It was so cold…”

Life certainly moves in wild and wonderful ways. Shortly after graduating from New York University in 1970 (with both a law degree and a masters in urban planning), Rademan was recruited to work on former President Johnson’s ‘war on poverty’— “we’re always fighting something in America,” he says only half-sardonically — and joined the Colorado Rural Legal Services. “But I never ended up working there,” he says. “Instead, the city of Denver decided I should become a planner in a predominantly Chicano neighbourhood.” He pauses for just a beat. “I didn’t even know what a Chicano was back then…”

But that didn’t stop Rademan. In time he became a fierce advocate for his new neighbourhood — so much so that the city of Denver couldn’t wait for his grant to expire so they could get rid of the guy. Meanwhile he was hanging out with a gang of young Colorado lawyers who were living the Rocky Mountain lifestyle. “A friend of ours had ‘discovered’ Crested Butte a few years back and bought a big ranch up there,” he explains. “So that’s where we’d go skiing…”

A former coal-mining town, Crested Butte was little more than a huddle of dilapidated high-mountain shacks when the first wave of skiers arrived there in 1969. But the powder was light and the local scenery was gorgeous. Soon, CB was being settled by a new tribe of long-haired skier types; by 1972, they’d voted themselves into municipal office. Then they realized they didn’t know the first thing about governing…

“I remember meeting the town mayor, Bill Crank, on one of our first trips,” says Rademan. And laughs. “We were both young, both of us had long hair and beards. And he said to me: ‘I don’t know the first thing about running a town. And I hear you do. If you can figure out a way to write yourself a grant, then you can move here and become our town planner.’ So that’s what I did. I got a $6,000 grant — split it three ways — and we ended up staying there for 15 years.”

That’s also where Rademan got his crash course in skiing (no pun intended). “I had friends on the ski patrol,” he remembers. “And they told me: ‘the only way to properly learn to ski is to follow us.’ What did I know? I was just this urban kid from Phillie. So I did.” He stops for a moment. Shakes his head in mock despair. “They all had nicknames for each other. One was Sergeant Swift. Another was Captain Courageous.” A long pause. “I became known as Corporal Punishment.” Ta-dum-pump.

Though he loved the activity-filled lifestyle of Crested Butte, Rademan was known first and foremost as an office guy. “I was the grant writer,” he says. “I ‘did’ planning. I was the paper pusher.” Another big smile. “Even my clunker was dubbed ‘the bureaucrat’…”

Still, when the time came to leave his idyllic valley behind and move on to bigger projects in 1986, Myles knew he’d be leaving part of his heart behind. “Being offered the job of planning director for Park City was a big step for me,” he explains. “And the timing was right for our family. But it was a tough leave-taking nonetheless.”

Was it the right move? No question, says Rademan. “I’ve had the opportunity to help grow this place for 20 years. I was part of an Olympic prep-and-Games cycle. And you know what? I like the community that Park City is becoming now.”
And his skiing? “I’m no more hardcore than I’ve ever been,” he says. And laughs. “A big outing for me is making it up to Deer Valley around 11, getting a couple of runs in, then having a nice lunch and lounging in the sun a while. To me, that’s a great ski day…”

Next week: Myles Rademan’s Ten Olympic Lessons

After 20 years of work, including the hectic runup to the 2002 Winter Olympics, Park City Public Affairs Director Myles Rademan has decided to cut back on his hours at City Hall. Though he will still be involved with city matters on a contract basis he is hoping to spend more time consulting and traveling.

It is a good thing that he is not leaving all of his duties at once. The position he created over the years would be impossible to fill with one candidate.

From his arrival in 1987, through countless community visioning sessions, Rademan has been dreaming up fresh perspectives
for old problems. His inventive solution to the trash-strewn empty lots on Main Street before they became hot properties was a
prime example.

Read the rest of the article here – The Park Record – Today’s Editorial (PDF)

“If you don’t know your own story, how can you expect newcomers to get involved in your community?”
– Myles Rademan

When Myles Rademan accepted the job of director of planning for Park City back in 1986, he had no idea what the next few years would bring. “Up to that point,” recounts the gregarious 63 year old, “my experience with mountain towns was fairly limited. I had spent the last 15 years as a planner in Crested Butte, true, but working there was a unique situation.”

He laughs. “Geography was our defining point there. Attitude and a desire to do things differently was what motivated us. But pure survival played a big role. It was such a small, isolated place that you really had to work together if you wanted anything to happen.”

While Aspen — only a day’s mountain bike away across the pass — was the place for sophisticated grown-ups, Crested Butte was for rebellious youngsters. “It was a community-minded, egalitarian kind of a town,” explains Rademan. A smile flits across his features. “This was a place where the trappings of wealth were definitely not popular. Where ‘natural’ and ‘self-propelled’ and ‘environmentally-responsible’ became part of the lexicon long before it did in other places. I guess you could say CB was the anti-Aspen.” A long pause. “For my wife and I, it was like finding a lost civilization…”

But then, before skiing arrived, Crested Butte was a lost civilization. A remote, hard-scrabbling coal-mining town, the original community consisted mostly of Serbians and Croatians who’d been recruited to work the coal seams hidden deep in the local hills. And when those dried up in the mid-1950s, the town had very little to fall back on.

“Great wealth was never made in Crested Butte,” says Rademan. “The people who settled there originally were very poor. When I’d ask some of the old-timers what life was like during the Great Depression, they’d look at me blankly. Conditions were already so tough there that the Depression had very little impact on their lives…”

Lest you think Rademan is just another nostalgia-laden baby-boomer looking back at old times and waxing romantic, think again. “I look back on my time in Crested Butte and realize that much of my biggest fights were symbolic,” he says. And then he laughs, long and loud and completely free of guilt. “One of my biggest battles, ironically enough, was over a grant I got to pave the town’s mains streets — you know, get the sidewalks done and plant some grass and get some street lights and stuff.” He pauses. “People accused me of all sorts of things. I wasn’t being realistic. I was betraying the community. It was a huge fight; it completely divided the town…”

Another big smile. “I remember I managed to find some used street lamps out of a dump in Burbank, California. And you know what? Now people assume the lamp posts were part of the original town.”

He says he wasn’t all that surprised by the furor, however. “Like pioneers in the old days, early adapters have a highly developed sense of ownership and pride in the places they ‘discover’. After all, you’ve distinguished yourself as an explorer — and you want to protect what you’ve found. It’s entirely natural to resist change.” He stops speaking. Frowns. “But change will happen — especially in beautiful places that attract wealthy patrons. It’s how you manage that change — how you make it fit your story — that distinguishes a great community from a merely good one.”

By 1986, Rademan too was ready for change. And so when Park City came calling, he and his family willingly pulled up roots and moved northwest.

From isolated mountain community deep in the southern mountains of Colorado, Rademan suddenly found himself in an entirely different kind of ski town. Less than a half-hour’s drive from Salt Lake — and facing an incipient boom in population — the municipality of Park City had just gone bankrupt. And they needed some serious planning advice. “It’s in the heart of one of the most conservative regions in all of North America,” he explains. “Yet the desire to develop was huge. And the town’s proximity to Salt Lake exacerbated the development pressures. They definitely needed a road-map for the future…”

Rademan set about his new task with customary zeal. “I’m quite happy with the way things have turned out here,” he says. And laughs. “Now that I’m semi-retired, I’m at the point in my life where I’m not too concerned with being careful about what I say anymore. I just stand up and say it. So you don’t have to worry that I’m just being diplomatic…”

It was in 1996 that Salt Lake City was named official host of the 2002 Winter Games. Like Whistler, Park City would host many of the on-snow events. Now Public Affairs Director, Rademan immediately convinced his municipal cohorts to start researching other host towns to see what they could learn — good and bad. “We took the Games very seriously,” he says. “We traveled to a lot of former Olympic sites, nosed around and asked a ton of questions.” He laughs. “And the biggest thing we discovered? That the Olympic hype is so much bigger than its reality…”

Still, there are a few lessons that he learned from the Games that he’d love to share with us. Among them, are some striking paradoxes; know how to handle these, he says, and you’re golden…

“The Olympics,” he explains, “are the most prestigious sporting event in the world. At the same time, they are the biggest, tackiest carnival event ever devised.” And they are both things simultaneously. “It’s quite interesting, you know. You’re going to have these huge corporate entities coming through your community. Your job — because nobody else is going to do it for you — is to figure out how your town is going to benefit from their passage…”

Perhaps the most important lesson of all, he says, is that: “the host town has to become a fully engaged player. Unless you’re in control of your destiny, you can’t look out for your best interests.” He pauses. “And you can’t be in control of your destiny if you just sit back and watch. During the 2002 Games, Park City became known as ‘party central’. Why? We didn’t wait for others to plan it for us. We did it ourselves. We organized a whole lot of things as a municipality to promote ourselves as the fun place to gather. We had a story. We had a theme. And people were drawn to that.”

Which leads to his next suggestion. “Make the locals part of the party! The Olympics shouldn’t be perceived by local residents as ‘happening to us.’ They need to be included. They need to be full partners in the enterprise. Give locals a role to play — and not just as spectators or Games’ Slaves — but as bona fide participants.” He pauses for a moment. Searches for just the right words. “Olympic organizing committees — no matter what country they come from — aren’t there to serve the local community’s needs. Their job is to get the Games off. It’s the community’s job is to make sure local residents enjoy their Olympic experience. Again, no one else is going to do that for you.”

He goes on. “Locals can make or break the Olympics. After all, this is a big sound stage for a worldwide audience — over 2.5 billion people will tune in sometime during the two-week blitz. Whether it’s dealing with the media or interacting with members of the Olympic family or even how they welcome visitors, the people living in your community will have a HUGE impact on whether or not your Games are deemed a success. Engage your workers. Challenge them. Make sure they realize ‘what’s in it for them’.” He smiles. “If you can succeed at that, then all the rest is easy…”

The following are 10 maxims and 10 lessons culled from Rademan’s 2002 experience:

OLYMPIC MAXIMS
1. To Be Effective Sit at the Table
2. Participate then Regulate
3. Hype Trumps Reality
4. Long Term Clarity Cuts Short Term Fog
5. Desire to Know Far Exceeds the Need To Know
6. The Cast of Characters Constantly Changes
7. The Press Is Not Necessarily Your Friend
8. Sponsors Are Fickle
9. Everyone Has an Angle
10. There Is No Guarantee of Success

OLYMPIC LESSONS
1. Olympics are Simultaneously the Most Prestigious Sporting Event in the World & the Biggest Carnival of Pretension & Hype
2. Telling the Truth Doesn’t Mean People Will Believe It
3. Olympic Experience Grows & Attitudes Change Quickly
4. Commercialization is a Fact of Life But it can be Mitigated
5. Details are Very Important as is Sequencing
6. Things Go Wrong; Fix Them Quickly
7. Olympics are Over Quickly But Planning Takes a Long Time. Be patient and Manage Your Resources Well
8. Under Promise & Over Deliver
9. Post-Olympic Expectations are Generally Unrealistic
10. Capitalize on the Buzz, but Discount the Hype