Forever Green
By Bill Sontag
Feature Writer
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“I am extremely pleased with them, and we have nothing but admiration for what they can do. Lake Amistad Resort & Marina operates a highly respected Environmental Management System in our community,” said Superintendent Alan Cox, Amistad National Recreation Area. Cox’s 58,000-acre watery domain includes 850 miles of shoreline and billions of gallons of clear, clean water in an unlikely desert limestone bowl. For visitors, fish, other wildlife, and downstream users, keeping the lake clean is always on Cox’s mind.
Access to Lake Amistad is limited, chiefly because most of the 1.8 million visitors who pass through the park are not boaters. National Park Service policy encourages business accommodations that cater to those who can afford to pay for services that enhance access. Here, the longstanding concessioner is Lake Amistad Resort & Marina, where tourists and recreationists may rent a houseboat, fishing boat, deck cruiser or ski boat from two spotless marinas in protected coves.
Lake Amistad Resort & Marina is one of 65 leisure time accommodations (marinas, lodging, retail stores, and wildland tours) catering to visitors in or near national parks, national forests and recreation areas scattered from coast-to-coast in the United States, all managed by Forever Resorts, a Scottsdale, Ariz.-based company. And they, every one, live by some of the strictest environmental standards to be found in this country.
Forever Resorts owner Rex Maughan is also chairman and CEO of Forever Living Products, Scottsdale, Ariz., and he remains the driving force behind his companies’ penchant for environmental quality. Maughan, a graduate of the W.P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University, was inducted last year into the school’s Alumni Hall of Fame. W.P. Carey Online called him a “billionaire entrepreneur with operations in 125 countries, a host of philanthropic projects worldwide, and frequent flyer miles to match . . . ”
The homage continued, “Maughan grew up on a ranch in Soda Springs, Idaho, surrounded by a tight-knit Mormon family. His life revolved around plant and harvest cycles, horseback riding, and friends … During the lean times he recalled layering cardboard over the holes in his boot soles ‘so the alfalfa stems didn’t poke through.’” The remainder of Maughan’s remarkable, self-made-man biographical sketch can be seen at http://knowledge.wpcarey.asu.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1522.
With Forever Living Products’ retail sales of natural health and cosmetic aides soaring to $2.1 billion last year, Maughan’s lifelong commitment to caring for the environment is well-funded, but it also increases his companies’ profit margins in the bargain. The company focuses on manufacture and distribution of aloe vera-based products, with raw material harvested from 7,500 acres of the mucilaginous plant in South Texas, Mexico and the Dominican Republic.
Prostate health vitamins, herb diet supplements, aloe-jojoba shampoos, aloe vera-based aftershaves, deodorants, styling gels, tooth gel, and women’s perfume, among hundreds of other products, are mere examples, all viewed at www.foreverliving.com. It is a multi-level distributorship that has been criticized as such. Still, the company’s Web site declares, “Approximately 9 million distributors enjoy the support, tools and guidance to live healthier and wealthier lives.”
Forever Resorts, true to the name, is a hospitality industry portfolio of accommodations with a growing reputation for quality service and sustainable “green” management, much of which is never noticed by customers, but parts of which actually involve visitors through education and participation. The stable of Forever Resorts’ American locations was launched in 1981, when Maughan bought Callville Bay Resort & Marina at Lake Meade National Recreation Area, and Cottonwood Cove Resort & Marina at Lake Mohave, Nevada. Now, in addition to the 65 locations in this country, there are 20 additional properties in Europe and Africa. Details are at http://foreverresorts.com/forevercorp/aboutus.cfm.htm.
Luxury houseboats, manufactured by the Forever Houseboats Division of the company in Indiana and Arizona, are rented at 23 marinas in the United States. At the Diablo East launch area, eight miles north of Del Rio on Lake Amistad, Forever Resorts maintains and constantly improves an inventory of 14 houseboats ranging in length from 50 feet long to 65, and the lake’s first 70-footer “Millennium” is scheduled to arrive in the next few weeks. Lake Amistad Resort & Marina also rents four fishing boats, three deck cruisers, and a waterski boat, and operates a small retail store full of nautical gear, snacks, fishing tackle, lake fashions, and souvenirs.
But the real story is the environmental framework of operations evident throughout the facilities, on the boats, and in the attitudes of every employee in the office, at the store and on the docks. Forever Resorts and the husband-wife team managing Lake Amistad Resort & Marina, general manager Larry Lively and office manager Susan Lively, have created and nourished a culture of caring in just about every aspect of their service to the public. And, as with their parent company, the results always meet and usually exceed requirements of the National Park Service and other governing agencies.
All Forever Resorts properties—including the headquarters offices in Arizona—are certified to the standards of the Geneva, Switzerland-based International Standards Organization (ISO) for compliance with a daunting list of operational expectations fashioned to maintain environmental quality. Sustainable design, waste reduction, recycling, smart products, and energy saving are just a few criteria, viewable at http://www.praxiom.com/iso-14001-2004.htm. Forever Resorts was honored in 2007 for its exemplary stewardship with one of only two Honorable Mention awards in the “Partners” category in the DOI Environmental Achievement Awards. More information on the awards is available at http://www.doi.gov:80/greening/awards/env2007N.html.
The company’s safety director, Jim Grant, serves as a roving ambassador, technical expert, and cheerleader on behalf of the Forever Earth philosophy and best practices of Forever Resorts. Grant retired from the Marine Corps in 1990 where he was a logistics specialist. “I’m a management systems auditor, and work on things like this for other companies, too,” Grant said. “When Rex [Maughan] made the decision we were going to get involved with environmental stewardship, it was because he’s always been involved with it, but in 2002, he made the decision for us to implement these management systems to further our efforts and to create a structure to improve how we do things.”
Grant works with all Forever Resorts properties—as well as with other organization leaders who want to get on board with environmental caretaking—to develop individualized Environmental Management Systems (eMS) that ensure continuing compliance with ISO 14001. To comply with or exceed the 2004 edition of the standard, organizations must have developed a system replete with targets, practices, procedures, objectives, training, communications, measurement procedures, and documentation of results. For Forever Resorts, the standardized eMS orchestrated with Grant keeps the peace with ISO.
“What eMS is, is nothing more than a set of tools to help conform to ISO 14001, and it puts us in a position to manage all the activities and operations,” said Grant. “Our emphasis is to take a look at every single aspect of your operation and identify everything you do, for example, in housekeeping [interior and exterior], fuel sales, waste left behind by the visitor, used oil from generators, and items we put on the boats to save energy. For example, we use inverters that run the boat from solar panels for refrigeration instead of using fuel from the generators. It’s good for the environment and good for the visitor because they can learn from and participate in what we’re trying to achieve.”
Susan Lively explained that marina employees adhere to the Lake Amistad Resort & Marina eMS every day, but the company holds an annual workshop to assess success. “And we always set the next year’s targets at least a little bit higher then, too,” said Lively, smiling proudly. “We use the eMS to track our electricity usage, fuels, potable water, items we’ve purchased, and things that are recycled.”
In addition, the marina assiduously maintains sets of Materials Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) on all chemicals and materials requiring environmental compliance and employee protection. “Before any material comes on our property, we convene a steering committee to review the MSDS sheets and discuss what they tell us to do if there’s any kind of spill, for example,” said Lively. The Livelys maintain collections of all site-appropriate MSDS sheets at each of eight locations on the marina property.
Fuel safety begins at a double-wall 2,000-gallon tank, feeding triple-wall hoses, interrupted by a shutoff valve above the shore, before the hose reaches marina docks. “If something happens to disconnect or rupture that hose, it will shut down fuel delivery from the tank, and I’d bet you wouldn’t find more than a teaspoon that escaped,” Larry Lively said. Lively is immensely proud of the cleanliness of his harbor and the facilities that rest in it. “I have invited anyone who wants to come here, to visit our facilities and try to find any pollution. And I’ve told them, ‘If you do, I’ll quit, pack up and go back to Oklahoma and you can deal with the next person.’” But Lively’s had no takers on the bet, and has no plans to leave.
If a catastrophic fuel or chemical spill did occur, Lively is prepared with a work barge standing by with a floating containment boom that could span the length of a football field, and he has 600 more feet immediately available. Last year, Lively learned about a product called Micro-Blaze that totally absorbs oil or fuels on dry surfaces or wet. “It’s microorganisms that eat only hydrocarbons; it’s dormant, but when you spray it on oil, it wakes up, eats it and goes dormant again, and there’s nothing left behind,” said Lively. He found a producer in Houston, and has picked up supplies of Micro-Blaze for docks, boats, maintenance areas and storage buildings.
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Forever Resorts CEO responds and expounds
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Lively is well aware that boat engines and motors have historically been associated with lost oil and fuels during operation, but 91 percent of his fleet now use fuel-injected, 150 horsepower, Evinrude engines. “Only two don’t have the fuel-injection,” Lively said, “but they are brand new engines in top running condition.” The motors in use now are two-stroke engines, and – with the fuel-injection – need no changes of oil or filters entering a waste stream.
Additional fuel-savings on some of the Forever Resorts houseboats comes from solar energy collected through roof-mounted panels. “What they’ll do,” said Lively, “is to keep batteries filled, so for some uses the boat’s generators can be turned off. For example, you don’t need the generator to keep the refrigerator cold, the solar panels will do that.” Lively said the company probably will not retrofit other boats with solar panels, but all new boats coming to his fleet will be so equipped.
Last summer, Lively completed replacement of all the marina’s docks walkways and boat slips, eliminating constantly deteriorating wood decking and eroding cakes of Styrofoam. The new structures are framed and decked with galvanized steel, afloat on Styrofoam encased in black, water-tight polypropylene boxes. “Even if one of them sprung a little leak, the Styrofoam would still be contained,” Lively said.
Susan Lively nodded, saying, “We’re all about containment here!” And the evidence is everywhere if casual observers look closely. There are pans under every liquid product on store shelves, beneath each storage bin of cleaning liquids used by houseboat attendants, and absorbent materials at every fuel source, including fuel nozzles cradled in pads whenever fuel is pumped into boat tanks. If a serious containment issue surfaces in any of the Forever Resorts properties, Grant has contractors on 24-hour standby for emergency response. “They’ll coordinate all the local assets to correct the problem and will come on-scene to take over if it’s necessary,” Grant said.
The park superintendent affirms the company’s commitment to reduce waste through containment: “For example, the ‘gray water’ from all the houseboats could legally go into the lake, but they have gone to great efforts to capture it from each boat and pump it into our park sewage treatment facilities. They just installed a $10,000 system at Diablo East to get this done,” said Cox.
The marina furthers a commitment to environmental stewardship by participating in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) National Environmental Performance Track Program. Some 500 agencies and organizations are enrolled in the program that “recognizes and drives environmental excellence by encouraging facilities with strong environmental records to go above and beyond their legal requirements.” More information about the EPA Performance Track Program may be seen at http://www.epa.gov/perftrac/.
“It’s voluntary,” said Grant, “but you have to establish goals and targets, and it’s a very good way to enhance and improve our performance. Lake Amistad Resort & Marina is a member of this, too. The reason we do it is that it’s simply the right thing to do. We should all learn to be caretakers of our environment and the natural and cultural resources in which we operate. We don’t just do this because we operate in a lot of national parks and recreation areas. We operate a lot of private facilities, too.”
At Amistad, Larry Lively hopes to enlarge the scope of services available to park visitors. “This place is a diamond in the rough,” Lively said. “I would like to develop docks for more small boats up at Rough Canyon.” (Rough Canyon Marina is about eight miles north of Diablo East, limiting all Forever Resorts public services to the east end of the reservoir.) “I’d also like to see a few cabins in the Diablo East area. And we’d really like to do some enhancement of basic public services at Box Canyon [ramp and launch area on the north shore of the lake] with small boat rentals, a store and fuel sales.”
Cox concurs with Lively’s view of the future. “Many people told us that having some small cabins for rent at Diablo East would be a great improvement, and, yes, we endorse that. As for Box Canyon, it’s also in the GMP [General Management Plan] that there should be tour boat service from there to Panther Cave and Parida Cave [famed rock art sites, not accessible without a boat]. You just can’t get there on a houseboat from DE because of the distance [37 miles] and prohibitive fuel costs.”
Given the often tense relationships between concessioners and superintendents in some national park areas, Cox was invited by LIVE! to share management frustrations he might have about Lake Amistad Resort & Marina, but he rotated the conversation180 degrees to an azimuth of effusive praise for the meticulous operation of the concessioners here. “It’s not just talk with them. They walk the talk,” Cox asserted, describing actions consistent with Forever Resorts’ sweeping corporate philosophy--“Forever Earth.”
“And we invited them to spend a week with us about a month ago to assist in setting up our own park Environmental Management System. It’s a nationwide program, and Grant can monitor whether the park is working on it. He’ll call and say, ‘Hey guys, you know this is important. You have some targets to hit.’ In short, Forever Resorts goes through extreme expense and trouble to get things done for the environment. The company even promotes and encourages green purchasing from a huge data base to find products that will do exactly what you want them to do, without polluting, in other words, completely environmentally friendly products,” Cox said.
Amistad National Recreation Area’s education specialist, Lisa Evans, touts the company’s further commitment “to give back to the community.” Evans orchestrates intensive environmental education experiences for school children, including classroom presentations. But the children respond beyond their own expectations to “Lessons On the Lake.” The floating, hands-on classroom activities began in 2001, under Evans’s leadership, but with what she considers an amazing generosity from the Livelys and Forever Resorts.
“They’ve never charged us rental for a houseboat for these trips,” Evans said, “and we’ve had about 135 trips out on the lake with these kids.” In the seven years of the program—now lashed up with Shumla School and Seminole Canyon State Park and Historic Site as the KEY Project (Knowledge Enriching Youth)—The National Park Service and Forever Resorts have provided educational opportunities on water quality, geography, hydrology and wildlife to 7,152 fifth-graders from Del Rio, Eagle Pass, Comstock, and Brackettville.
“Most of these kids have never been on the lake that’s right at their back door, and Larry and Susan have been just wonderful to work with. They’ve been with us from the very start,” said Evans.
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Holy Smokes! I didn't
Holy Smokes! I didn't realize that these guys went to all this trouble. I mean I've seen some of the stuff that has been listed here but it's so, well, just unobtrusive. Big kudos to these guys.