Cleveland Justis: A Robust Partnership

Cleveland Justis admires the beauty of national parks and explains why they need to be protected.

Lately, national parks have been in the news a lot. There are so many reasons to love national parks and they are central to our life in the Bay Area.

In my professional life, I’m a management consultant, and I have taught social entrepreneurship at UC Berkeley and I direct the executive leadership program at UC Davis. The Bay Area has taught me to blur the traditional boundaries between for-profit business, nonprofits and the government. When they come together effectively, magic happens.

From a business and leadership perspective, I became passionate to understand the inner workings of how many of our beloved natural spaces and the organizations that support them work. At the core of the answer is that government, business and nonprofits learned to work together creatively.

Think of the miracle that is the Presidio – an economically self-sustaining national park. Alcatraz is another great example. A former prison on a stunning piece of land, now the island is the Bay Area’s number one tourist destination. The national parks generate over $55 billion annually in economic impact.

We owe so much to the remarkable individuals who know how to combine the best of government, business and nonprofits.
So…as I head back into the university classroom, I hope to help my students learn the skills to work beyond the often rigid categories of profit, regulation and charity.

The richness of the Bay Area’s mosaic has taught me this and I hope that you and my students will be inspired to take the many lessons of our stunning national park mosaic into your professional and personal lives. With a Perspective, I’m Cleveland Justis.

Cleveland Justis is a management consultant, an adjunct professor and is the co-author of “Don’t Lead Alone: Think Like a System, Act Like a Network, Lead Like a Movement.” He lives in San Rafael.