Jim Bramham is preaching to the Campfire on Episode 179

Advocacy and education are what ORMHOF inductee Jim Bramham, brings to the table. Leading the fight for years in preserving public lands, Jim does the hard part, a walking encyclopedia of OHV knowledge and land use, we are pleased to introduce him to more than California. Congratulations to Jim Bramham, a 2018 inductee into ORMHOF; Jim is why we say; legends live at ORMHOF.org.  Be sure to tune in on your favorite podcast app.

6:51 – my neighbor bought a Jeep and I spent hours in his garage asking questions

11:29 – “You’re not going to college; you’re coming to work here.”                                

15:34 – to this day, I’ve never seen anything that would do snow like that Travelall. 

20:19 – you can’t ruin what you want to play with

26:32 – it really hurt to see somebody so dedicated to a place…have to accept that it was just going to go away

38:36 – the fact that a law enforcement presence exists, helps not just with OHV management, but with the management of all potential problems in the forest

43:15 – it’s the campfire circle that’s going to push this information to the public

49:40 – that’s going to be the push, to eliminate the randomness

55:44 – the Senate is the War Zone over land use, it always will be

Special thanks to ORMHOF.org for support and sponsorship of this podcast.

Be sure to listen on your favorite podcast app.

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• 10:41 (Cont.) Jim Bramham is preaching to the Campfire on Episode 179

Transcript

[00:00:01.080] - Jim Bramham

Welcome To Conversations with Big Rich. This is an interview style podcast. Those interviewed are all involved in the offroad industry. Being involved, like all of my guests are, is a lifestyle, not just a job. I talk to past, present, and future Legends, as well as business owners, employees, media, and land-use warriors, men and women who have found their way into this exciting and addictive lifestyle we call Offroad. We discuss their personal history, struggles, successes, and reboots. We dive into what drives them to stay active in Offroad. We all hope to shed some light on how to find a path into this world that we live and love and call Offroad. This episode of Conversations with Big Rich is brought to you by the Offroad Motorports Hall of Fame. The mission of the Hall of Fame is to educate and inspire present and future generations of the Offroad community by celebrating the achievements of those who came before. We invite you to help fulfill the mission of the Offroad Motorports Hall of Fame. Join, partner, or donate today. Legends live @ormhof.org.

[00:01:14.010] - Big Rich Klein

On today's episode of Conversations with Big Rich, I am pleased to say that I have Jim Bramham.

[00:01:21.330] - Big Rich Klein

He's a 2018 Ormhof inductee. Jim is known as a walking encyclopedia and historian supreme of institutional OHV knowledge. Jim has been an advocate for the OHV and public land use for over three decades. He has worn many hats with Cal Four-Wheel Drive, including President, board member, and natural resource consultant. He was also named as a commissioner as part of the California Off-Highway Vehicle Recreation Commission. Man, that's a lot of stuff to do in the public service. Jim, thank you so much for coming on board with us today.

[00:01:58.950] - Jim Bramham

I'm really glad to be with you.

[00:02:01.450] - Big Rich Klein

Let's jump right in. Where were you born and raised?

[00:02:06.800] - Jim Bramham

I was born in Sacramento, California, 1952, and lived there throughout my youth.

[00:02:13.940] - Big Rich Klein

What student were you? Were you a good student or indifferent or did you love school?

[00:02:24.610] - Jim Bramham

I wasn't the best student student, but I was always interested in something, not necessarily what they were teaching in school, but learning was always extremely important to me. I spent a lot of time exploring and hanging out at different places where I could visualize experiences and so on. So at school I did reasonably well, but I wasn't the absolute straight A student, but student of how things get done, I guess, as much as anything.

[00:02:58.500] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. Did you participate in outside activities like scouts or anything like that?

[00:03:06.230] - Jim Bramham

I was extremely active in scouting. I became an Eagle Scout at 13, which is pretty unheard of, but led the contingency to the National Jamboree in 1969 in Idaho as their senior patrol leader. That was a really exciting experience. It was the period of time when we were landing on the moon. The Scouts got to watch the moon landing from Farragut State Park, Idaho, on what was the first giant screen projection I'd ever seen. So it was a really unique experience, and out of that came some leadership understanding that has lasted a lifetime.

[00:03:47.420] - Big Rich Klein

That's one of the things that I took away from Scouts as well. I got my eagle as well at a young age, just at that 13 to 14 age, and same thing. The leadership, scouts can really bring that out in people. I thought that at that time it was really important in my life.

[00:04:10.550] - Jim Bramham

I was also blessed with attending film on Scout Ranch and the National Junior Leader Instructor Training that they do there, and the combination of that and leadership within my crew, leadership within the district, leadership to a national event and so on, all of those things contributed to an understanding of how to lead.

[00:04:31.150] - Big Rich Klein

Yes, absolutely. You took that quite far. Anything else? Did you invest in any other groups or organizations like that when you were growing up?

[00:04:45.320] - Jim Bramham

I did some YMCA things, did some sports events there. Never actually participated... Well, I did start football until I got my leg broken in high school, and that ended that ambition. And so as far as actual participation in high school sports, a lot of intermural stuff and playing at the park, but not actually on teams because I had so much to do with scouting at that point.

[00:05:24.020] - Big Rich Klein

What did you do besides scouting for recreation? I know that people will say, Well, it sounds like you were an overachiever in scouting. Maybe that wasn't recreation, but there's a lot involved in scouting that I would call recreation. As a family, did you go camping as well?

[00:05:41.440] - Jim Bramham

I was blessed with a family that just were educated, and education oriented, and we traveled extensively. So I saw a lot of California by the time I got out of high school. Let's see, most of the nation, we traveled across country, and every day we were stopping at some place of historical significance or manufacturing significance, plus just the road trip, the time in the car, the discussions with my parents. And so did a lot of that until I got into high school. And my father wanted to really look more heavily into local California history and ended up buying a scout vehicle that he wanted to explore mostly gold country in. I spent most of my basic high school years running around with him, doing all kinds of places in the gold country, Nevada County, Sierra County, and so on.

[00:06:44.560] - Big Rich Klein

That was your foray, your introduction to Off Road then?

[00:06:51.020] - Jim Bramham

My very first introduction, well, besides going camping with my family at places like Emerald Bay and Ballistate Park and so on, and watching the little state, some parks, Jeeps driving around and just standing there drooling over them. It was my next door neighbor that was, when I was in the third grade, bought a Surplus Jeep to go hunting with. Again, I just saw... That was my observant side. I just was there in his garage the entire time watching him get this vehicle prepared and asking questions about what this was and what that was and how did that work. And even at that young age, picking up the entire mechanical-ness and how the vehicle operated. So then my first my first Jeep ride was in that Jeep.

[00:07:41.250] - Big Rich Klein

Very nice. And while in school, did you participate in any of the auto mechanics or any shop classes?

[00:07:51.140] - Jim Bramham

I was heavily in the machine shop. I really enjoyed the machine shop teacher, a gentleman named George Bartholomew, and had an opportunity to take automotive, but felt I was picking that up from other experiences that I wanted to pursue the machinist side of it and just enjoyed the daylights and learned so much in that class. So I actually became the Coke shop steward or whatever it was for my senior year, and helped instruct a lot of younger students in the application of machine work and foundry work in that shop.

[00:08:28.560] - Big Rich Klein

So at that age, had you decided what you wanted to do for a career?

[00:08:33.940] - Jim Bramham

I was dedicated to the idea I was going to go into forestry, and that also came out of scouting and their programs in forestry, natural sciences and so on. And so that was the direction that I wanted to take my life at that point was into a degree in forestry.

[00:08:55.850] - Big Rich Klein

And did you pursue that after high school?

[00:08:58.380] - Jim Bramham

I did. I went to Northern Arizona University, and majored in forestry for several years, and just could see that at that particular point in time, which was the early '70s, the Forest Service was changing and the job possibilities were much less than they were. And I had some friends that were in the industrial education side of the college and went over and started taking some industrial education classes and finished with an industrial education, and that would be the idea of teaching shop classes. And so I put all that applicable skills together, including automotive, there in college to be able to do that.

[00:09:45.640] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. And when you said that the outdoor studies, the natural side of that was not where you thought it was going, did you mean it was becoming a little too granola?

[00:10:00.240] - Jim Bramham

The Forest Service was changing in those days. The early environmental laws were coming, and the Forest Service didn't have any money, and they still don't have enough money. But they were definitely changing the way they were... You could see that the future was going to be a change in the overall management from the original Forest Service mandates to create timber, create water supplies, ensure recreation, ensure wildlife management, and certainly the production of beef and cattle, excuse me, beef and sheep. But you could see that those things were going to change. And it just didn't seem like the fit that I had hoped. It was actually interesting that of the 60 people that started with me as freshman, only two of them graduated from the forestry school.

[00:10:59.830] - Big Rich Klein

So really - Very interesting.

[00:11:01.730] - Jim Bramham

You could see the change. I mean, there are other people that transferred in, and so they had halfway decent forestry graduation class, but it just wasn't what people had thought it was going to be, let's just put it that way.

[00:11:16.500] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Okay. And then so you got into the industrial arts and looking to teach, and did you end up going into that profession and becoming a teacher?

[00:11:29.130] - Jim Bramham

Well, let's see. And you get out and you realize how little teachers make, and you look at what you can do with your hands and you're like, Let's see, I could easily make more money. And I probably should have taught. If I back up to George Barthes and the machine shop thing, his final for the seniors was to go down. He had a friend that ran the Caltrans yard and machine deal that's on Broadway and 34th Street in Sacramento, where they put together all the Caltrans vehicles, the specialty vehicles, and so on, put snow plows on, build trailers, do all the specialty equipment stuff. And the final was to go in there and take the employment test because George was about trying to train people to get employment to go on with their lives. And so I went there, took the employment test along with all the rest of the class, and did so well in it that the guy that was there said, You're not going to college. You're coming to work here. I've always wondered what would have happened had I taken that suggestion. I would have been some state worker forever and have been retired and have a nice big old pile of California retirement money.

[00:12:45.130] - Jim Bramham

But I didn't follow that. But George had trained me well enough that I excelled at that. They actually just put you out in the shop and gave you blueprints and told you to create what it was was on the full blueprints. I absolutely have no problem making that happen.

[00:13:03.560] - Big Rich Klein

And so that's what you ended up following?

[00:13:06.310] - Jim Bramham

No, I ended up buying a service station in the Sacramento area. I did that. I had a small shop that went along with that that was in the downtown of Elk Grove, back when Elk Grove, California was you had to drive into Elk Grove from Highway 99. Now it's just huge and overrun and so on. So I did that for several years, and it was a time of extremely high gas prices and shortages and all of those things. But we were able to conquer those in my mechanical skills won the day with the folks there, and I had plenty of business in that in our own.

[00:13:52.520] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. Let's step back just a little bit. But what was the first vehicle that you drove? That you drove? Let's say, not that you first drove, because that was probably the scout or something, but maybe- No. No? Okay. Let's go ahead and talk about that then.

[00:14:14.870] - Jim Bramham

I grew up across the street from a Saccharone City fireman who was just a prolific hunter and would go to Idaho every year with loads of load up two ton of Chevrolet pickup of horses and go off to for a while. I'd go to Idaho and hunt for a week and come back and lay out deer and Elk across his front yard.

[00:14:35.550] - Big Rich Klein

Much to the chagrin of most of his neighbors?

[00:14:39.330] - Jim Bramham

They were waiting for the Elk Salami one or the other, I'm not sure, because that was some delicious salami. Anyway, he had a place where he kept his horses and bought his horses. He had that old Chevrolet truck out there, and I went out with him, and I was probably 12 years old, and he said, Well, you want to drive that around, Jimmy? I was like, Okay. That was my first actual driving experience. I was driving that Chevrolet around out in the fields and bouncing around. He laughing at me because it could hardly steer the damn thing I was so big. But it was fun. I had a good time. But first vehicle I drove, my parents had an old Pontiac that my sister was driving at the time, and I ended up being able to drive that. But my first vehicle that I bought when I was still in high school was a 1960 International Harvester four wheel drive Travelall.

[00:15:33.850] - Big Rich Klein

There you go.

[00:15:34.940] - Jim Bramham

And to this day, I've never seen anything that would do snow like that Travelall. It just absolutely would make snow disappear. It just was amazing. And living in Fleistaff made it even better, because there was a lot of snow to push around in Fleistaff in the wintertime. Right.

[00:15:52.300] - Big Rich Klein

And when you graduated from college, did you still have that travel all?

[00:15:59.330] - Jim Bramham

No, by that time I'd had my Jeep. I sold the travel all and bought my Jeep in January of '72, and decided I'll always have missed that travel. I'll always have went back and visited it once and couldn't make a deal to buy it back. That was that. But it was an absolutely fun vehicle to have for high school and college and the mechanics that I learned from that and the understanding of four wheel drive and the application of driving one was just phenomenal.

[00:16:33.660] - Big Rich Klein

And your Jeep, was it a five or a seven?

[00:16:37.770] - Jim Bramham

It was a five. It still is a five. I still have it. Last year I did Jeepers Jamboree because that marked the 50th year since my father and I first drove through Rubicon on Jeepers Jamboree, and it was the same Jeep, same driver 50 years later. So I've had that Jeep since 1972.

[00:17:03.710] - Big Rich Klein

Very good.

[00:17:05.280] - Jim Bramham

That was a good deal. So anyway, that Jeep came out of Riverside, California. The Hill and Gully Riders Jeep club down there turned into the Riverside Rough Riders, and I knew one of the students I went to college with was in that club, and this thing was top of the line for its day at V6, or an Overdrive, pause attractions, both ends. It was a quite well set up Jeep, and it had absolutely no problem doing a run of gun when we got back up here to Northern California.

[00:17:40.640] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. And with your gas station and shop skills and surviving the oil embagos and all those, God, I remember those days, odd and even license plates- Absolutely. -to get fuel. And if you ran out on the wrong day. You were stuck. I remember those days.

[00:18:05.600] - Jim Bramham

Yep.

[00:18:06.660] - Big Rich Klein

So how long did you have your own business like that?

[00:18:14.870] - Jim Bramham

Well, the evils of divorce struck into those plans, and I moved back to Flagstaff, Arizona, and so ended that stay in Elk Grove and went down and took a job at another station in Flagstaff looking trying to figure out what I was going to do there in Arizona again. And one of my old college roommates was there, and he was driving oil tank truck out of Flagstaff around Western part of the United States. I had always had a thing for trucks because of their mechanicalness and the adventure side of the deal and start running with him and ended up in that business. So drove and drove there, drove for some other people, came back to Sacramento for a while, taught school at Western Truck School in Western at West Sacramento. So I did actually put my teaching skills to some level to teach truck driving and then ended up being an owner operator and running around the world and chasing trucks. By the time 1983 came around, decided I needed to get out of the trucks because I now had married my children and their mother. And so it was time to do something that got me home and stay home more often.

[00:19:45.950] - Jim Bramham

Went in the office and stirred a telephone for almost 20 years in the trucking business, organizing trucking, transportation, and so on. So trucking has been the most established part of my life.

[00:20:02.320] - Big Rich Klein

Kind of the mainstay.

[00:20:04.810] - Jim Bramham

Yes.

[00:20:07.420] - Big Rich Klein

How did your advocacy into land use get started?

[00:20:19.010] - Jim Bramham

Well, I took that forestry thing and always had a side for the idea that we needed to be responsible users of public land. It just was something that came out of scouting, came out of just common sense to me that you can't ruin what you want to play with. I started doing Rubicon. We're just huge sand fanatic-like site. 1964, I took my very first dune ride at the Oregon Dunes in a cut-down pickup truck with a 348 Chevrolet in it, and just hooked on sand, and I've been hooked ever since. And so did a lot of that. Did a lot of sand, did a lot of Pismo, a lot of sand, mountain, Rubicon, Barret Lake, all the places that you can think of. And finally went, Somebody needs to talk for this. And I was at Capital City, American City, Ramble, I'm sorry, out on Fulton Avenue. And talking to a guy there about a part I needed for a Jeep. And turned out that the President of California Wheel was there, guy named Pete Horvath. And we started in a discussion about what should happen and how this works. And Pete invited me to come up to Sierra Trek for the first time and met Ed Dunkley and met some people that have been advocacy in for years.

[00:21:52.240] - Jim Bramham

I had been to a Cal4 Wheel convention in the 70s and knew of the organization, and I knew of it because of the club affiliation when I bought my Jeep. But as far as actually being involved in it or doing anything didn't really start till the early 80s.

[00:22:08.250] - Big Rich Klein

Were you in a four wheel drive club?

[00:22:11.160] - Jim Bramham

Never have been in a four wheel drive club. I was associated with the association itself. Okay, great. I've been invited to be in many clubs, but Shirley and I have never... She now has a women out wheeling club that is fun, and we do some of that. But as far as actually participating in a Sacramento Chiefers or Capital City Mountain Goats or something like that, no, we never did that. Participated in a lot of their runs but didn't join the club. Okay.

[00:22:41.650] - Big Rich Klein

And so then you got hooked on the organization side.

[00:22:45.030] - Jim Bramham

After Sierra. I got hooked on the organization side. Started doing small functions at the Sierra Trek, worked my way up through the raffle committee and found out the main committee of that and worked into the chairmanship. And that parlayed itself into presidency of the association, which, of course, parlayed itself into being on the OHV Commission. So it just took that and just moved it forward.

[00:23:12.020] - Big Rich Klein

And those years of working your way up in Cal Four Wheel, what were some of the most memorable moments before you became a board member or president?

[00:23:29.620] - Jim Bramham

Well, one of the things that I always laugh about is that I was never on the board of directors until I got elected president. I did not serve in the political side of the association. It was always service work of some sort at an event, or if they were doing a project of some sort, we would attend that, some of the club runs and so on. But one of my strongest advocacy first stepping out moments was it on the Barrett Lake Trail, and I was with one of the clubs, and we went in, came out of Barrett, and I watched one of the club members do something ignorant in a watershed. And I was like, Man, you cannot do that. That's just not something you can do. So I went up to the guy and said, Look, you just can't do that. There's a trail here. You got to stay on it. And I said, We need to do, and as a matter of fact, we need to go back there and obliterate what you did because that's not going to look well. He's like, Why would we do that? I said, Well, we got to do that.

[00:24:36.890] - Jim Bramham

And so some of the other club members were like, Wow, and I wasn't in the club. Years later, I've had people tell me this. That was just amazing that you stood up for that as somebody. It was just important to me that we didn't leave something there that the Forest Service could use against us or that it was against the resource. It was just something that just struck me as wrong, and I was able to make a difference at that point. I think from there, I was able to speak out more about the idea of the proper use of public lands.

[00:25:13.690] - Big Rich Klein

Right. And is that when you really put that hat on? Was from that moment on?

[00:25:22.920] - Jim Bramham

Yeah, I think so. Being the Association President and being immersed in so many of the land use, this was, of course, the period of time when Diane Feinstein was trying to pass her desert legislation. So there's a lot of talk about the Southern California in the desert and how best to become politically active in that. I went from a kid in Sacramento to shaking hands with Senator Feinstein. I mean, it was an amazing transition in my life and trying to advocate for the responsible legislation. So it was just a different growth in that period of time.

[00:26:06.020] - Big Rich Klein

Right. And what would you say, since we're talking on that line, what would you say was the biggest win that... Well, first let's talk about what you think might have been the biggest loss that you worked on, that just no matter what happened, you couldn't swing it our way. Okay.

[00:26:32.270] - Jim Bramham

Small location, loss that we knew we were going to lose, but fought it diligently hard, and sadly, it turned out the way that you could just read the room that it was going to do that was Black Sands Beach up on the North Coast. Just a small, almost insignificant location of recreation on the Coast, but it was still heavily used there at the shelter cove. Highly important to the locals there because they used it as a fishing access way of being able to take our vehicles down onto the beach and drive that six miles up the beach and fish and so on. But the powers that be said that just isn't going to happen any longer. And so that really stung and had some good friends that were strong in that fight, and it really hurt them and soured them. And I think more than anything, it just really hurt to see somebody who was so dedicated to a place and used it so much and was responsible for it and advocated for it to just have to accept the idea that no matter how reasonable and how much time you put into that, it was just going to go away.

[00:27:50.130] - Jim Bramham

That really hurt.

[00:27:52.490] - Big Rich Klein

And on the opposite side of the spectrum, what do you feel was the biggest win?

[00:27:59.680] - Jim Bramham

Man. The east side of the Rubicon was a huge win, making sure that we still had access to the east side of the Rubicon, which there was huge efforts to close in the '90s.

[00:28:16.180] - Big Rich Klein

That's the Tahoe exit.

[00:28:17.880] - Jim Bramham

Tahoe exit. The Lake to Save Lake Tahoe wanted to close that entirely and make seasonal closures on it, neither which came to fruition. Some of the big sand winds, the Glamis sand dunes win.

[00:28:34.180] - Big Rich Klein

Being able to keep any of that, because didn't they want to close all of that area that's considered the Imperial Sand Dunes?

[00:28:40.520] - Jim Bramham

At one point that was the goal, and the suit was closed at all, and we were able to get that relooked at into a much smaller area, and then we were finally able to win that on a, You have to do it right. And they did a new recreation management plan there that excluded the areas that had been closed under the court order, so open 40,000 more acres. The half of Johnson Valley was a big win. That's again, one of those things you knew you were going to lose. But that one at least there was some understanding on the other side that we had a viable argument. And so the decision to split Johnson Valley and then go to the shared use area, all of those in a larger scale of things coming up against the Marine Corps and national security and still coming away with a way to continue off-highway vehicle recreation and something the size of the events that are, and of course, king of the being the largest, the events of being held down there, those were huge wins.

[00:29:51.540] - Big Rich Klein

And that was a... Looking at those three, okay, just those three to begin with, the East Rubicon, Glamas, and JV, the economic impact for the communities surrounding those areas, it was substantial, and the government wanted to close them off. Of course, they have their reasons. I may not agree with them, but at least, like Glamas, has actually turned out pretty well for Bureau of Land Management, and I would imagine the amount of money that is brought in from the activities in that area.

[00:30:37.610] - Jim Bramham

Well, there's a group down there called Desert Gateway Communities that is very supportive of that area because of that exact reason. I mean, you take Yuma, Arizona, and all of the Coachilla Valley from basically Palm Springs South and into Brawley and El Centro and coming across from San Diego. Glamas is a place that has huge visitorship populations. You take San Diego, you take the inland Empire, even Las Vegas, and then you take the entire Arizona, Phoenix, and Tucson area, all come into that area, all within basically a four hour drive. Everybody needs fuel, everybody needs food, everybody needs everybody needs. And so, yes, it's just huge economic indicators from that activity.

[00:31:29.040] - Big Rich Klein

Right. And and that's what helped save it.

[00:31:32.580] - Jim Bramham

Right. And in another battle that I was highly involved in, it was Oceano back in the 90s. We had Wilhelm from Corva, another inductee in the Hall of Fame. And I started at that point, Friends of Pismo, because the name hadn't been changed to Oceano at that time. But the county and the Coast of Commission both arguing that it should go away and should close and so on. Well, it was the North County that saved that because the board of supervisor member that was from the North County, up by a Tascadero and Paso Robles area, was, yeah, whatever, it sits down on the beach, it's South County. It's not that important until we went up there and talked to all the business owners up there and said, Hey, how would you like to not have all that Friday night traffic and Sunday leaving traffic from the beach coming through here and buying fuel and and driving through your drive through restaurants and all of this. And they're like, They're not going to close. That is no way. Well, they are if you don't get in here and talk to your supervisors. And two days later, we got a call up in Sacramento that says, You guys need to cut out talking to all those people up in the North County.

[00:32:48.660] - Jim Bramham

They're wearing out the supervisor. I'm like, Well.

[00:32:51.270] - Big Rich Klein

Perfect.

[00:32:52.600] - Jim Bramham

Perfect. And it was absolutely won on North County economics versus south county economics. And not that the south county economics shoot the people in South County down to Royer-Grande, Pismo Beach, Grover Beach, all those places were making huge money off of it, and still are off of Oceano as a recreation destination. They didn't want to lose it, but they couldn't convince their particular board member of that.

[00:33:21.950] - Big Rich Klein

That it was necessary?

[00:33:23.970] - Jim Bramham

Yeah. Necessary, right.

[00:33:26.330] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, so you became President, then a board member?

[00:33:31.260] - Jim Bramham

Well, you automatically are a board member when you're President.

[00:33:33.660] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, I see. Okay, that's how that rolls over. All right. Right. And then you became a natural resource consultant?

[00:33:41.050] - Jim Bramham

Actually, that was later. I went from the presidency, went from Sierra Trek chairman to presidency, and from the August of Sierra Trek to the February convention I became President. Did my two years as President. You stay on the board as the past President and the person who followed me was President for four years, so I was four years as past President. But during that period of time, I also got appointed to the OHV Commission. So it was just a boom, boom, boom, boom, just right into that. The only year I quote, head off was '95 as I went out of my presidency, and before I was appointed to the Commission in early '96.

[00:34:27.160] - Big Rich Klein

And how did the how does that appointment transpire?

[00:34:32.870] - Jim Bramham

So we're just going to make it somewhat simple. A third of the board is appointed by the governor, the third of the board is appointed by the Senate, third of the board is pointed by the assembly. And so it requires an appointment from one of the political entities. Those ratios have changed through litigation through the years, so there are now more people for the governor than there are from the other deals. And so it's an application process. It's having somebody in Sacramento basically lobbying for your existence. And being on the right side of whatever politics it is that's making the appointment.

[00:35:18.370] - Big Rich Klein

Right. And not to dwell too deep into the politics then, I would imagine under this current administration that OHV is not considered high on his list?

[00:35:32.170] - Jim Bramham

Well, actually, if you go back, Jerry Brown, who is considered to be one of the more environmental folks, was actually the guy who signed the legislation for most of the state vehicle recreation areas, and was not an outward supporter of OHV recreation, but recognized that it had to be part of the recreation mix. And he wanted it done, well managed, and put in perspective to other recreation, supported the idea that it was partnerships on federal lands. And so we were one of the few places where state money is granted to the feds. That's a backward deal. So it's California money that's given to the feds to manage the Forest Service and BLM lands. And he was very supportive of that process. And he handed that off to Newsom with that, This is important. You don't have to support it, support it and make it all good. But it has been at least at the knowledge front, not necessarily the support front, but they understand how important it is because if the OHV program went away, you would reinstall some form of anarchy or chaos into the... Much more than what they describe as anarchy and chaos right now.

[00:36:59.180] - Jim Bramham

And would expand dramatically without the enforcement dollars and the management dollars that are tributed by the OHV Fund.

[00:37:07.120] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Because my understanding, or the way I see it, is that the feds, and it doesn't matter what department, they always say, We don't have enough money. We cannot afford to keep these lands open, meaning that they can't patrol it. Their whole idea is to gate it, shut it down. Then what I've noticed, at least up in the El Dorado and the areas around where I live here in Placeville, is that when they do that, that's when things happen behind those gates that nobody sees, and nefarious actions happened out there, where before marijuana was legalized, that's where the growers would be found. Right. Because nobody was going to wander across them. They closed the gate. So as long as you get around the gates, the off-roaders aren't going to be there. There's no reason for Forest Service or BLM to go past those gates because it's been shut. There's not going to be off-roaders out there, and they could get away with things, and with the state providing that money so that law enforcement is out there, even though we may not always agree with the stance of law enforcement in certain areas, that at least it kept the area open.

[00:38:36.020] - Jim Bramham

And they have proven time and time again that any time there is a law enforcement presence, all things heal themselves or all things are less of a problem. I mean, yes, you have an OHV paid for ranger or county sheriff or whatever on the trail in the area. It's not only OHV that has an awareness that there's law enforcement there. It's also, like you say, the dope grower, the long term camper that wants to just trash the forest, the wood cutter that's cutting the wrong tree, whatever that is, just the fact that there is a presence there, helps the forest not just with OHV management, but with the management of all potential problems on our forest.

[00:39:28.050] - Big Rich Klein

Right. I remember on the Rubicon, when we had the problem with the white flowers, and they shut down the little slews and all that, what I decided to do was to start what I call the trail patrol. I would go up there and sit it past the kiosk at the gatekeeper, basically, and remind people that if they do not take care of the trail, we're going to lose it. This was before sheriff presence or anything like that. I even had the sheriff's department up here tell me at a first meeting that I put together down in Carmichael, and we had like 46 people, 47 people show up. They said, We understand what you're trying to do, and we applaud it. It was not organized with any part of anything. It was just me going out there and saying, I understand that at one time I was probably part of the problem. Because I liked the party, and so did my friends. But we realized at that point that we were going to lose it if we didn't take care of it. Absolutely. It was an educational process, and I volunteered myself to be the one to start that education process.

[00:41:02.170] - Big Rich Klein

And then it became part of Friends of the Rubicon, and then it just expanded from there. And I stepped away when it became organized, you might say, beyond what more the vigilante. I don't want to say it was vigilanteism, but it was. And once it became more than that, then I stepped away because I felt I'd done what I needed to do. But things like that needed to be done, and people, at least there, it wasn't being done. I mean, there was clubs that would go in and do cleanups and take care of their own area that they used, but there was nothing that-.

[00:41:42.240] - Jim Bramham

Organized and supported.

[00:41:43.850] - Big Rich Klein

Right. And it wasn't always supported either. Some of my friends thought I was totally being a jackwad, and I probably was, but it was needed at the time.

[00:41:56.740] - Jim Bramham

That same effort at the Glamor Stones, we had just a no man's land on earth in that, especially for advocacy, Corva did some, the Cal for Wheel did some, American Motorcycle Association did some. But at the end of the day, there really was not a strong advocacy there, nor a strong message board of telling people what's appropriate and how giving them expectations of their visits to public land. And that's what to spawn the American Sand Association was just a few people, both users and industry, that realized that if those dunes close, they're not going to have a recreation nor a place to sell products that are sand oriented. And so they helped create that American Sand Association. And one of the things, and I still serve on that board of directors as well, but one of the things that the American Sand Association did was what were called info meetings, which are very much like what you're talking about here, where we would go over to Phoenix or Tucson or over to L. A. Or San Diego and usually team up with a buggy shop or a buggy builder or something and just ask them to invite people to their shop one night and we would...

[00:43:15.050] - Jim Bramham

As a board we'd show up and or part of a board we'd show up and we get the BLM to come with us and explain what the rules were and what their expectations were to enter public land. I remember one night one of the county officials said, Man, you only have like 60 people in a room here. I said, That's 60 campfires. I said, That's not 60 people. That's 60 campfires. If you ever go to the dunes and realize that everybody camps in a circle of two to 50 vehicles, it's the campfire circle that's going to push this information into the public. They were like, Well, you really think that that's going to get to the public? I said, They had enough interest to come to this meeting and find out what the true facts were. They're going to go back and recite those around the campfire. It made so much difference in such a short period of time. I saw that county guy half a year later, and I said, What do you think? He goes, I'm just absolutely amazed because I never realized that that was the culture. He said, I just thought it was going to be 60 guys might make a small dent in 100,000 visitors.

[00:44:16.230] - Jim Bramham

He says, It has made a huge dent, you can actually see the difference in the way people are recreating, and the respect and so on. So it's all about just trying to do small things that have significant impacts.

[00:44:30.960] - Big Rich Klein

Right. But it's those people that are pushing the, I hate to use the word agenda, because sometimes it sounds negative, but those at the top, trying to get those at the enthusiast level involved, can be maddening. Does that make sense?

[00:44:57.820] - Jim Bramham

It does absolutely make sense. But the one thing about OHV Recreation is there's a bunch of hardcore people that continue to do it year after year that are now like me, 70 years old, trying to still get out and do something. Every year, there are new people who introduce themselves or somebody introduces them to the sport. And we did a survey. They did a survey recently down at Glammins and found that over 50 % of the camp sites they walked into were people who had not been there more than five years. And so you have not just an opportunity, but a responsibility as an organization and a land management unit to provide, and I keep coming back to this word, expectation. You need to explain to people what the expectation of the use of public land is. They are expected to hold themselves in such a manner. It's like the school rules when you enter the classroom as a kid. You don't jump up, you sharpen your pencils only at recess, whatever that is. You need to tell them and enforce expectations. And you don't need to be cruel about it. You just need to be informative because so many people show up at the dunes or at the Rubicon have absolutely no idea what the expectations of them are on public land.

[00:46:15.380] - Jim Bramham

Right. And scouting and all of these things that instilled some of that hunter safety classes for years. The number of hunters we have now is very small in comparison to what it was when you and I were youth. And so it really has taken a change, and the land management agencies are not as proactive in doing those expectation things. They're all about enforcement rather than expectations.

[00:46:45.210] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Exactly. And where do you think this is all going?

[00:46:54.000] - Jim Bramham

Well, there are going to be massive changes. There's absolutely no doubt that there will be massive changes. There will always be pressure against our sport. We have some huge hurdles that are coming in the next few years. I see this argument over sustainable vehicles and no fossil fuels as being not just an argument for the highways in the trucking industry, and you want to continue to own your 10-year-old car, it's going to become extremely important. I know that I'm out in the OHV world, and I don't know a couple of things, how it's ever going to come to an even understanding. Because if the decision is that nothing can be sold in California that isn't powered by some sustainable or fuel system that is usually not available in many of the places we recreate. I just can't imagine how many charging stations it would take a job on Canyon to charge all the side by sides and electric motorcycles that they want to charge on a Saturday afternoon after your first ride. Are they going to do that out of come up with a system where they can be charged out of motorhome generators? Well, then you can't have a motorhome generator that runs on gasoline or diesel.

[00:48:21.080] - Jim Bramham

So how are you going to do that? I mean, it's just the complexity of these issues. And then there will always be criticism of the fact that we actually recreate on public land and that we have access to public land, those will never stop. There are just people who fundamentally believe, and they have a lot of power, that no one, no human, belongs on public land. And so when you fold that out to, okay, well, maybe a few hikers, maybe once in a while with a permit, maybe you can fly over it in an electric drone, whatever that is, however that works out, those are just going to be fights. The land masses have been fairly well situated. The rules have... The decisions have been made at the federal level, and the planning documents it would take to change a lot of that pretty significant and time-consuming and liticable. So I'm not sure that we'll lose a lot of land. I'm not saying we shouldn't be aware every minute that somebody's trying to take it away. But I think the other ones are going to be the bigger threats, the fuel issues, the inappropriateness of our recreation, the randomness.

[00:49:40.560] - Jim Bramham

This is one of the things that you're just barely beginning to hear is the fact that many of our sports are random. They look at boating as a random sport. You go out, you drive around the lake, or you pull a water skier, or you go fishing, you use fossil fuel to do what? You could buy that in the store, whatever that is. Well, we go out and run around the sand dunes and really don't have a destination other than we might, might want to ride to some place. But basically, it's the thrill of the ride and the beauty of the scenery and so on and so forth. That's just a random activity that you don't need to do any longer. That's going to be the push, is to eliminate the randomness. I think places that have a destination, and I would take top of that list would be the Rubicon, you're going from some place to some place. But the open areas like Johnson Valley and Jobone Station, the Sand Dunes, Dumont, Glamas, Cysmo, I think are going to be even harder to defend against that threat.

[00:50:45.430] - Big Rich Klein

Right, and everybody says, I travel all over the United States, and people in other states, especially back east where there is no public land, all just say, Well, that's just California, and everybody wants to bag on California, whether it's emissions or whatever, especially the push by the green industry here in California. But they don't realize that as California goes, the federal government goes. The feds have basically turned it over and just said, Well, California is instilling all these laws. It's a great process. We're just going to follow what they do. And eventually that's going to come to all the rest of the states, because the federal government is pushing it.

[00:51:37.350] - Jim Bramham

We're either the Test Tub or the Cesspool, one or the other. But at the end of the day, this is the market where all of these ideas are going to get churned out here in California, and they will, absolutely, and have already spread all over the country.

[00:51:51.180] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:51:53.710] - Jim Bramham

You talk about back east. I have friends that are an East Coast four-wheel drive, and their OHV recreation is almost entirely on private land now. Old mine claims, old mining areas, borrow pits for freeways and construction, dam bottoms when the water levels are low because there is no public land. And arguably, that dates to the Sagebrush Rebellion when the Westerners stood up in the early 1980s and said, no more federal oversight of Nevada and Utah and all these states and the United States Supreme Court said, Well, the first colonies back east, they were all separate colonies before they joined the United States. And so they have sovereignty different than you have on the west, because everything in the West, the United States either purchased or took through some process, and then we granted that as the United States back to the citizens of that state. So no, the feds actually do have superiority in those states. State claims. So you're going to have the feds for as long as forever to organize and oversee the West, but in the East, most of those states early on were all about trying to increase the taxation, property taxation, and were very big on getting things sold off in large quantities into acreage that they could tax.

[00:53:26.260] - Jim Bramham

And so there's just so little public land back there. And in that public land, the idea of motorized uses is just scary for them. And there's hardly a forest back east that you can't see across from one side to the other. I mean, it's just not that big. Right. And it's just an entirely different network. And that's why so many people from the east come out here in the west. We'd be driving to Death Valley and just go, Oh, my goodness. God, there's this much land. Let's let's say relatively small, go out to the middle of Nevada and just sit out there for a moment, man. There's just that much land out here in the west. The Easterners just have a completely different perspective of land use.

[00:54:11.620] - Big Rich Klein

Very true. Those that support that green industry and the lawyers that are the green industry rely on that Eastern money because those people that are in those big cities that never go beyond the big city to recreate, or maybe once a year they go hiking through the Appalachian Trail or something like that. They visit the national parks that are out there, the state parks. But they donate to those areas because they see what they're being given to see about the West and motorized recreation, and how it's being torn up, where as if you fly over, even low level, fly over even low-level, fly over the areas in the West that are open areas or areas that are federally managed, you don't see the devastation that they portray to those Easterners.

[00:55:17.180] - Jim Bramham

Oh, absolutely. Well, and if you take the entire 13th, the original 13 colonies, you can almost fit them in the state of Montana. Montana has two senators. Those 13 colonies back east have 26. There's only 50 senators. You already have a majority before you start if you look at it that way. Right.

[00:55:36.290] - Big Rich Klein

Very true. I hadn't really broke it down that way in my own mind, but dead on.

[00:55:44.230] - Jim Bramham

Right. Well, East of Mississippi River has, like we said, completely different mindset, but they have way past the majority of senators in the United States. So if you go all the way to the Mississippi River, up and down Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, all of that, that country, and down into the south there a whole lot. But the Southerners have supported the West because they're not really crazy about some of the original activities in the north. The Senate is the war zone. You can pass stuff in the House differently, but the Senate is the war zone over land use. It always will be.

[00:56:24.400] - Big Rich Klein

What's your suggestion for the next generation coming up? The kids that are now just getting their license or have in the last 10 years that most of those offroaders, they were brought up in offroading families. But now we're getting more of them involved. Or how do we get them involved?

[00:56:52.750] - Jim Bramham

Those are huge questions. They're asked every day by organizations like Califal, Whale, East Coast, Southern Four-wheel Drive, Corva, all of these Pacific Northwest. Everybody's asking that question, How do we reach out to the new people coming into the sport and the young people? How can we relate to that? We look like a bunch of old people with rules that they're actually trying to escape. And so how do you get to that point? But if somebody has any amount of interest in that, it is educate yourself just to the bare levels of who's managing the land, who is responsible for what you do, where you can go legally, where you can't go, what you need for equipment and so on, and talk to the land managers. They're not your enemy. Go in and explain to them how much you want to use this area, and how much you enjoy it, and ask where you can help, where you could volunteer, or you can do anything on the ground. Because on the ground activities for the folks managing are just huge, where they're planting trees after a fire. There are groups that are helping with that. The campground maintenance after these big storms this year and this year has broke a bunch of stuff.

[00:58:11.900] - Jim Bramham

There are opportunities always, and volunteer, spend 10% of your time that you would be four-wheeling or riding your motorcycle. Think about using 10% of that as trying to make sure the sport is done legally and sustainably, and act in those ways. It's not that much. Join some organization. I don't care what it is. Join somebody who's advocating for private, for excuse me, public lands, as well as private in many cases, but public lands for public use. Again, obviously, I have my favorites, but all of them are out there, and they're all trying to basically work toward the same emphasis of making sure that there's a responsible management of public land. Very good.

[00:59:05.320] - Big Rich Klein

Let's talk about Ormhoff, the Offroad Motor Sports Hall of Fame. Before you got inducted in 2018, did you understand or know about Ormhoff?

[00:59:23.150] - Jim Bramham

I did, because I had supported several other inductions, and had seen... We'd gone to the induction ceremony a couple of times, and I know personally, I worked with many of the older inductees I mentioned, Dunklee and, of course, people like Chris Collard and Del Albright to Don Amadour, Rick Payway, Steve Morris, Spuler, just a Bouchard. There were just a number of people that I had either had contact with or Jean Chappee was another one that started the OHV program. I had known or worked with or touched, my life had been touched by many people who were in that. And so it was easy for me to be able to recognize the importance of it and so happy that they have done so much to recognize the people in all phases of motorsports that offer of motorsports that have touched other people and produce something for themselves that's highly significant.

[01:00:37.870] - Big Rich Klein

And I understand that this year you've helped somebody get in yourself.

[01:00:47.570] - Jim Bramham

We've advocated for a couple of years for a woman, and well, everybody knows her as Sugar, but her legal name is Helen Fields, just a giant in land advocacy in the East Coast. That's something that we just talked about where the East Coast just has a completely different way of managing lands. But the advocacy remains the same, getting that word out to people, making sure that people understand their importance and the responsibility they have when they recreate, and the responsibility to the land management agency to try to work with them and keep them informed. She was just in an era before cell phones, before any of the current communication things, text messages, email even. She was just there sitting at meetings, sitting out in front of a registration booth, writing personal notes to people left and right, and was the driving force for the creation of the longest lasting offroad event east to the Mississippi River called Gravel Ramla. For us in the west, it looks all not silly by any stretch, but the idea that the competitors there wanted an outlet to use their competitive skills to put machines together to find out who could drive best or build the best equipment, which is what desert racing, rock crawling, whatever competitive sports we have out here in the West are.

[01:02:18.740] - Jim Bramham

Back there, they have a little small area that was a borrow pit for the railroad that she helped get purchase from the railroad, and has become the permanent grounds for that event. And they literally stack up a pile of gravel and people bring unbelievably modified vehicles there to try to climb that. And then they have hill climb, but uphill drags, flat drags, obstacle course, all on a big weekend. And it's just a huge event. It's been going on for 50-plus years, and she was very much part of the creation and management of that for years. So we're really proud to see her get in. It's a hard push when you're talking to somebody who's been gone from us for almost 10 years now, 15 years almost. But the advocacy power that she left behind with myself and Del Albright and many other people around the country. It just touched so many lives that we just felt it was important to finish out that era of advocacy with the Dunkleys and so on. And and just say, look, this is the place.

[01:03:34.180] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. Excellent. And I take it that I'll get a chance to actually meet you there at the induction gala this year?

[01:03:45.280] - Jim Bramham

I would hope. At this moment I'm still on the slate to do the actual podium presentation for Trigger. So I will be there and doing that, and the Fields family will be there, as long as along with a bunch of folks from East Coast and other organizations that she touched through the years. I'm glad to have all of them there as well.

[01:04:09.700] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. Well, Jim, is there anything that you would like to touch bases on that we haven't talked about?

[01:04:18.670] - Jim Bramham

As.

[01:04:20.980] - Big Rich Klein

Far as advocacy or I think we talked about how to get people involved and what out there is to get involved with. Is there anything pressing right now that's on the front burner that we really need to become aware of?

[01:04:41.760] - Jim Bramham

There are so many small issues. I don't knowwith it. And again, you get that information from the organizations that are following them. Many of them are localized concerns, so it makes it really hard to push those to a statewide or national level. But it's where is that death by a thousand cuts. If they can continue to break away and create small problems in small places, and we need to... And that's where these land advocacy organizations can really step in and help with that process and bring national or statewide awareness to them when it's important or the level of advocacy like that is important. I guess the other thing that I took off from the OEC advocacy straight away basically right in 2000, stayed on the… I created, when I was on the commission, desert advisory group subcommittees for both the Glamas Dunes and the Du Mont Dunes and served on those until the BLM stopped them a couple of years ago, where we had an opportunity to go down and meet on a monthly or bi-monthly basis with the management of those areas and made a huge difference in how the management prescriptions were put forward at both of those locations.

[01:06:11.500] - Jim Bramham

I stayed very involved in Califord wheel and doing a number of things, and that's when I became the NRC for Califord wheel was in those years, but also did an awful lot of on-the-ground work. I worked at the ground truthing projects that took the West Mojave. Wemo Project. We went out and ran every road and we're out in the desert out by Jowbone and Barstow and on out toward Vegas and down toward Lancaster. And did that like one weekend a month for quite some time and really put a lot of time in on the ground. And then I also did the Snippla Project, which is a Southern Nevada project in Clark County where we once again did route inventory or drove every road and route in Clark County outside of Las Vegas proper and got that all mapped in a way that the Feds could make better decisions. And I also ran the program where we were down doing endangered species counts at Glamas. So put together the camp that supported those folks at the BLM and hired to do the actual accounting, the young folks that were actually trudging around in the dunes, counting plants, but they needed a place to stay, food to eat, showers to take, etc, and I managed all of that.

[01:07:38.740] - Jim Bramham

So not only being at those meetings and wearing a tie and going to all of those things that I did earlier in a career, I spent an awful lot of time actually physically on the ground trying to make a difference at that level. And both of those are just huge contributions if anyone can find a way to participate in any of those avenues, is the way to promote advocacy and just the fact that you participate in those ground exercises and service projects and so on is just another form of advocacy. It's helpful. From one guy swinging an ax or cutting with a chainsaw to the person that's leading it. The end result is all positive for the recreation.

[01:08:25.700] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, I think that people, enthusiasts, maybe not all, but some, and I could name a few, think that if you go out and you're helping the land managers, that you're helping to close things down. I think that that's the wrong view to look at it as. I think if you're helping those land management individuals and offices that are in those divisions where you recreate, and you're out there helping, and you're doing the work on the ground with them, whether it's building fences or, like you said, counting plants or whatever it might be, planting trees, that you're showing them that there's people that care. The other thing is, and then it's important to you, if you're hiding the fact that it's important to you, then they don't know, so they want to close. Their idea is if nobody's using it, why have it open? Right.

[01:09:30.550] - Jim Bramham

And.

[01:09:31.790] - Big Rich Klein

Those of you that are listening to this that maybe think, Well, if I go down there and help BLM or help Forest Service, I'm helping them close what is available. But if you're out there, that gives you an opportunity one on one to let them know how you feel. If you never talk to any of those, the boots on the ground, even the guy that's just there has a weekend help or summer intern or something like that, that information that you share or talk about gets back there, and it sets their minds in motion, hopefully in a positive way that these grounds, the lands out there are important to enthusiasts, and that they need to stay open, that public lands need to stay open to the public.

[01:10:29.420] - Jim Bramham

One of the things that always struck me talking to folks who work for the state and the Fed both, is that you talk about their careers. It's always been interesting to me that the guy who's cleaning toilets today, 10 years from now was the recreation officer at some forest or some BLM office, and 20 years later, they become a land manager for an office, excuse me. They remember what happened to them back when they were cleaning toilets, were people respectful, did they clean up after themselves? Did they respect the resource, et cetera, et cetera? It's important that we treat everybody in a similar manner. My admonishment to almost every group that I've ever spoken to is the idea that land management is going to happen. It is going to happen. You have a choice that it happens to you or with you. The difference in the outcome will be remarkable. If you participate and be part of the process and become the fact that it happens with you is going to have a far better result than that if you sit on the sides and let it happen to you. I said that for years, and it just is so important to me to get that out.

[01:11:52.420] - Big Rich Klein

Exactly. And change is going to happen, and whether we like the change or not, we need to be able to help direct it. Mean, 200 years ago, when the West was being explored and settled and everything was starting to happen, there were no fences. There were no roads. The roads were the animal where the animals made their track. Change happens. We have to be part of that change or we're going to get left behind.

[01:12:29.800] - Jim Bramham

I heard a land use person years ago that said that Thomas Jefferson set the rules to open the West, and Richard Nixon set the rules to close it. And I've never been able to argue with that.

[01:12:51.940] - Big Rich Klein

True enough, manifest destiny.

[01:12:54.750] - Jim Bramham

Yep. Versus the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Federal Transportation Act, the Endangered Species Act, whatever act it was that they got put in place that have been the tools of the closing of the West. They were just put in place. Everybody went, Oh, that's cute. Yeah, we're going to save the warm and fuzzy. Well, it's been used for far greater and more clandestine things than that.

[01:13:24.110] - Big Rich Klein

Absolutely. Well, Jim, I want to say thank you so much for having this conversation and it was really a pleasure. You and I have seen you at functions in places, but we've never had a chance to talk. I'll make sure that changes here in September, and that I introduce myself to you and it was really a pleasure to talk with you today.

[01:13:47.910] - Jim Bramham

Well, I enjoyed it and appreciate the opportunity and just so honored to be part of the Hall of Fame and recognize being with so many of the people who made such a difference in the world of our recreation now and and our push in the future. I just am so proud to be part of that process and look forward every year to being at the aduction ceremony and seeing who's next. It's just a great thing.

[01:14:16.100] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. Jim, thank you, and have a great rest of your day.

[01:14:20.710] - Jim Bramham

All right.

[01:14:21.330] - Big Rich Klein

See you later. Okay. Bye-bye. Well, that's another episode of Conversations with Big Rich. I'd like to thank you all for listening. If you could do us a favor and leave us a review on any podcast service that you happen to be listening on, or send us an email or a text message or a Facebook message, and let me know any ideas that you have or if there's anybody that you have that you would think would be a great guest, please forward the contact information to me so that we can try to get them on. And always remember, live life to the fullest. Enjoying life is a must. Follow your dreams and live life with all the guts that you can. Thank you.