What do a lightning storm, a white suit jacket, and a barbecue competition that ran out of food have in common? They all showed up at Burlington River Days 2026 — and they all left Chris with something worth talking about.

This week's episode is a little different. Fresh off three days on the riverfront (and one very memorable Saturday night with a multi-platinum rock band, a delay, and skies that opened up right on cue), Chris shares three leadership lessons straight from the after-action review — one he got right, one that's got him questioning conventional wisdom, and one he's still learning the hard way.

Three Leadership Lessons:

• Don't fret over what you can't control. For an entire week leading up to an outdoor festival, Chris didn't open his weather app once. That was a choice — and it paid off. When a storm rolled in Saturday night and delayed the headlining act, the plan they'd built did its job. The lesson: know what you can't control, build your contingencies, trust your people, and don't let uncertainty eat your mental bandwidth.
• "Be yourself" — but maybe not always. Chris developed a full-blown character for Burlington River Days' social media: white suit jacket, Panama Jack hat, irreverent viral videos. It generated hundreds of thousands of impressions and was completely unlike who he is the other 51 weeks of the year. So what does that mean for the authenticity we're all told to lead with? Chris doesn't have a clean answer yet — but he's asking the question, and he's inviting you into the conversation.
• Set clear expectations. Work backwards from the end goal. The barbecue ran out of food in ten minutes. The beer lines were long. The common thread? The committee knew what they were doing and why — but they never got explicit about the visitor experience they were trying to create. What should someone feel walking away from this event? What stories should they tell Monday morning? Without that clarity defined upfront, communication downstream gets fuzzy. Chris has preached this one before. He still dropped the ball. He's owning it.

Key Takeaways:

• Worry is a tax on mental bandwidth — and it doesn't change the outcome
• There may be a meaningful difference between inauthenticity and context-specific performance
• Working backwards from the customer's experience, not just your organization's goals, changes how you communicate with your whole team
• Overcommunication isn't about more meetings — it's about getting alignment on the end state and repeating it until it sticks

Chris wants to hear from you. Got thoughts on the "be yourself" question? Reach out at chris@parksandrestoration.com, use the contact form at parksandrestoration.com, or find him on the Burlington River Days Facebook page.

What if a robin-sized bird just flew 1,700 miles in 48 hours — and Iowa was a critical stop along the way?

That's not a hypothetical. It happened. And we only know because of the Motus Wildlife Tracking Network.

In this episode, Chris sits down with Anna Buckardt Thomas, avian ecologist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Diversity Program, to dig into one of the coolest conservation science stories happening right now. Anna initiated the Motus network in Iowa, growing it from eight stations in 2021 to more than 40 — and the data coming out of it is rewriting what we thought we knew about bird migration.

Motus is a continent-spanning, collaborative radio telemetry system operated by Birds Canada. Researchers across the hemisphere tag wildlife on a shared frequency, and a network of receiver stations picks up those signals and feeds them into an open-source database. The result: for the first time, we can follow the individual journey of a Lesser Yellowlegs from Colombia to the Arctic and back, or watch a Wood Thrush return to the exact same Iowa woodlot two years running.

Key takeaways:

• What the Motus system is and why it's a game-changer for understanding small birds and bats that can't carry GPS units.
• Why Iowa matters at a continental scale: nearly a billion birds fly through the state each fall migration season.
• The Lesser Yellowlegs that traveled 1,700 miles in 48 hours — clocked at 100 mph between an Iowa station and the Mississippi River.
• A Tree Swallow that stopped over near Waubonsie State Park for 30 days fueling up before continuing south.
• Iowa's Wood Thrush tagging project: 14 of 15 tagged birds returned to the same exact Iowa territory the following spring.
• How Anna pitched the program internally by anchoring the ask to data that already showed Iowa's migratory importance.
• The education opportunity for parks and nature centers — and how Des Moines County Conservation is getting its own station at Big Hollow Recreation Area.
• What to do with all of this: plant native species, tell the stories, and give people concrete actions.

We often talk on this show about leading with vision and building on existing organizational strengths. Anna's approach to growing the Iowa Motus network is a masterclass in exactly that — she didn't start from scratch, she started with a billion data points on a radar map and said, we need to understand what's happening here. The rest built itself.

Explore the data yourself: motus.org — click on Explore Data, find Iowa stations, and go down the wormhole. You've been warned.

Connect with Anna: Search "Anna Buckardt Thomas Iowa DNR" to find her contact info on the DNR website.

About Parks & Restoration

Parks & Restoration is the show for parks and natural resource professionals who want to be better leaders for their organizations, communities, and the lands and waters they steward. Every other Tuesday, Chris Lee shares practical strategies — grounded in ecology and culture-building — to help you become the leader your team needs.

Join the Next Level Leadership community at parksandrestoration.com for bi-weekly insights, free tools, and invites to exclusive meetups.

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What if your local conservation foundation didn't just sell raffle tickets at a banquet — what if it headlined a three-day riverfront festival that drew 12,000 people and netted over $20,000 for conservation?

That's exactly what happened in Burlington, Iowa. And it started with a half-baked idea about boat races on the Mississippi.

In this episode, Chris sits down with Chris Gram, Executive Director of the Greater Burlington Convention and Visitors Bureau, to tell the origin story of Burlington River Days — a three-day riverfront festival featuring live concerts, a barbecue competition, a boat parade, River Days Olympics, and a boat giveaway — all organized in six months by a committee of six people with no event experience, no security staff, and a VIP fence held together with zip ties and conduit welded by a financial advisor.

But more than a great story, this episode is a masterclass in what happens when you assemble the right people, refuse to say "can't," and let your local foundation be more than a pass-through for tax-deductible donations. It's also a direct follow-up to Episode 91 with Hannah Inman — and proof that the "don't be afraid" ethos applies just as much in Burlington as it does in Des Moines.

Key topics:

• The catalysts behind Burlington River Days and how it came together in six months
• Why "don't tell me what I can't do" is a leadership philosophy, not just a personality trait
• How to build a committee of people who default to "how do we make this work?"
• The role of tourism partners, local nonprofits, and community foundations in making big ideas real
• Why public agency leaders need a nimble nonprofit partner to take entrepreneurial risks
• How embracing your critics with humor can become one of your best marketing moves

Resources mentioned:

• Burlington River Days
• Partners for Conservation Foundation
• Greater Burlington Convention and Visitors Bureau
• Burlington Riverfront Entertainment
• Episode 91: Mindset Shifts That Grow Nonprofits into Fundraising Powerhouses with Hannah Inman

About Parks and Restoration Podcast

The Parks and Restoration Podcast is for parks and conservation professionals who want to become better leaders, because better leadership creates better ecosystems, stronger teams, and more meaningful impact. Learn more at: ParksandRestoration.com