Secretary Salazar Announces
Office of Youth in Natural Resources
June 8, 2009
Music/Announcer: This is a podcast from the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar was joined by Senior Whitehouse Adviser Valerie Jarrett and several hundred school children taking part in a youth fishing event on the National M all on Monday where he signed a secretarial order establishing an office of Youth in Natural Resources at the Department of the Interior. Here are the secretary’s remarks followed by the remarks of Senior Whitehouse Adviser Valerie Jarrett.
Secretary Ken Salazar: Let me say at the outset that President Obama is a person who understands the importance of young people perhaps like nobody else has in the America’s history. Everybody gives a lot of rhetoric in engaging young people in the civic affairs of our world. I think in 2008, and what we’re seeing today is an engagedness among our young people and those who have not participated in the past coming to be a reality because of President Obama’s leadership and his vision. We know as we move forward with economic recovery for our country that making sure that we have a focus on our young people is also very much a part of that economic recovery
Young people today are unemployed at very high rates. Last summer there were three million young people who are unemployed, and the unemployment rates run the highest among Hispanic and African-American and other Minority Groups. African-American youth employment is as of today 24.8%, that’s 1 out of 4 young people African-American who are not employed. Hispanic youth employment runs at about 16%.
And within my own department over which I have responsibility the Department of Interior for the United States of America. It ought to be a stark reminder to all in this country that all not is right when you look at some of the statistics women are underrepresented in the sciences less than one-third of our Wildlife Biologist today are women. Less than one-third and less than 20% of those who work in the water science as hydrologist and geologist in the Department of Interior are female that’s less than 20%. We are going to change that in the days and years ahead under the leadership of President Obama.
[Applause]
When President Roosevelt created the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression, he said that, “More important than the material gains will be the moral and spiritual value of such work.” Today we stand on the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt in building a new chapter of legacy for America under the leadership of President Obama. In this entry we will introduce young Americans from all backgrounds to the beauty of our national parks or refuges and all of our landscapes all across America. Today on average, a young person will spend six hours a day in front of a computer and a TV, and yet they will spend less than four minutes a day in the outdoors. We are going to make a change in that in the years ahead.
[Applause]
Let me say that as we move forward with our effort, what we want to do here is to make sure that we have a coordinated effort on behalf of the Department of Interior working with our sister agencies across the government. And so today I am honored to introduce what will be the 21st Century Youth Conservation Corp. I’m going to sign an order in just a quick second here that - what this order essentially does is it says that for the Department of Interior that we will be working together across the 73,000 men and women who work in this department to make sure that we are being inclusive of all young people and exposing them to some of the opportunities that we have in the great outdoors. This summer alone we will have 15,000 young people from all walks of life who will be part of the work of the department.
This program hopefully will grow in the years ahead. In the 2010 budget, President Obama has decided that we are going to move forward with an additional $50 million to teach young people how to fish and hunt and how to experience the great outdoors. And I’m confident with his leadership and his vision and with our efforts within the Department of Interior that we will be touching the lives of hundreds of thousands of young people. So before I introduce Valerie Jarrett what I’m going to do is sign this Executive Secretarial Order that basically will put the Office of Youth and Natural Resources in place in the Department of Interior and that office will be run by Bob Statton, who is the only person of color to ever be the Chief of the National Park Service in the entire history of the United States of America. And one of his charges will be to make sure that we are reaching out to young people in a unprecedented way in the days and years ahead so with that I have signed the order and we will move forward with that.
I want to say I have some of my staff Betsy Hildebrand and others who went to the Whitehouse for a meeting on women and girls and it’s an interagency council which is headed up by Valerie Jarrett. We are so excited about what she is doing because what we are doing is making sure right out of President Obama’s Whitehouse there are efforts to engage young, women, and girls in our efforts is going to be something that’s going to be spotlighted and is going to be highlighted. It’s going to be of an important priority for all of us, and as we move forward with this initiative, it’s going to be successful because we’re going to have Valerie Jarrett the Senior Adviser and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs in Public Liaison be a leader in this effort. Valerie has a distinguished career in business and government.
She has served as a co-chair of the Obama-Biden Transition Team. She was a Senior Adviser to the Presidential Campaign. She’s been an executive in the private sector, and she has a whole host of roles that are very important. One of those roles thats very important is that she is going to do for President Obama what we all want to happen for this country and that’s to ensure that our daughters and our granddaughters have opportunities that were denied to their mothers and to their grandmothers. And so it is my honor to introduce Valerie Jarrett the Senior Adviser to President Obama.
Valerie Jarrett: Thank you Secretary Salazar and good afternoon everybody. Hey kids, how are you guys doing back there? Yeah, you’re getting a little hot, aren’t you? So I’m going to be brief but first of all I want to congratulate Secretary Salazar. He mentioned that we’ve known each other for long, long he was very diplomatic. We’ve known each other I was thinking about it when we he was talking, 30 years can you guys believe that?
Long before many of you were born and I have had an opportunity to watch his career developed over the years and we are just so proud to have him a part of the Obama Administration. He has a track record of success. He has track record of engagement. He has a track record of public service and so that’s what makes him an exemplary cabinet member, and please give a round of applause to the secretary.
[Applause]
So I have told the president right before I popped over here that I was coming over to see you guys that you’ve been fishing this morning and he said, “Man, I wish I would have gone fishing with the kids.” I think part of my message to you I’m here wearing my hat as adviser to the president but also specifically chair of council for women and girls and what we want to do is - what the president has been doing since as long as I have known him which is almost as long as I have known the secretary. And that is to really try to get people engaged not just in our country but spark their intellectual curiosity and make learning cool again. So I have one question for you guys, is learning cool? Is it cool?
Did you tell me you learned one thing this morning you did learn you know? Yes? Of course you did. And that’s the goal we want to get people interested.
There are so many opportunities out for professions that pertain to the Department of Interior. Many of our government departments but this one particularly and we want you to get you excited when you’re young. We want you to learn things through this experience that will stay with you and they will attract you to public service and to protecting our environment and to enriching our country.
So congratulations to all of you who are participating in this program. Congratulations to the secretary for having had the initiative to take what he did in Colorado and here broaden it to a national program. Thank you all for being out here today and the heat to the adults who are in the audience. Thank you for supporting the kids. This is what it’s really all about.
We’re going to make it cool again but not today. Today we’re going to make it hot but then we’re going to make it cool again to learn. Thank you very much.
[Applause]
Announcer: This has been a podcast from the U.S. Department of the Interior.
[Ending Music]