Ex-Park Systems Chief William Penn Mott Dies

William Penn Mott, a conservationist and professional parks manager who became director of both the California and National Park systems, has died in Orinda, east of Berkeley, it was learned Tuesday.

Mott, who first joined the National Park Service as a landscape architect in 1933, was ill with pneumonia when he died Monday at the age of 82, Richard Trudeau, a longtime friend and colleague, told the Associated Press.

Mott spent nearly all his life with parks, at the local, state and national level.

Most recently he had been a special assistant to the National Park Service in planning the transition of the 6th U.S. Army Base Presidio in San Francisco to a national park.

He also was studying the future use of Yosemite National Park, which had been a concern of his since 1987 when he clashed with his boss, then Interior Secretary Donald P. Hodel, over the management of federal parks.

Mott’s devotion to park preservation put him at odds with the man he served at both the state and federal positions, former Gov. and President Reagan.

He moved into the state job shortly after Reagan allowed that “once you’ve seen one redwood you’ve seen them all” and then clashed repeatedly with Hodel, who wanted expanded commercial use of the nation’s park system and generally favored unlimited public use of the parks.

Mott, who was widely praised by environmentalists when he was named state parks chief in 1967 and national director in 1985, “was a man of infinite vision,” Trudeau said. “He was probably the best park person in the country.”

“He always kept looking forward, kept looking ahead,” Trudeau said. “Even at 82, he was far ahead of everybody in thinking big things.”

During his tenure as director of the state park system from 1967 to 1975, Mott gained the confidence of Reagan and the Legislature and doubled the acreage of the parks. He also pioneered the hiring of women as park rangers. As director of the national system from 1985 to 1990, he worked with congressmen to find new parkland in their home states. As a result, 12 new national parks were created.

Mott also was former president of the California State Parks Foundation, a private group he founded in 1975, and general manager of the East Bay Zoological Society in Oakland.

A widower, his survivors include two sons.