Could an office of outdoor recreation boost Missouri?

This story first appeared in the Outdoors newsletter. Click here to learn more and sign up.

Farming is a big deal in Missouri. It accounted for $6.1 billion in gross domestic product in the state in 2023, according to federal data. 

You know what’s a bigger deal, by that measure? Outdoor recreation. It produced $9.9 billion in GDP. That industry includes everything from boating, fishing, hunting, and ATVing to climbing, camping, hiking, and cycling. Yet unlike agriculture, it doesn’t have a government department in Jefferson City to promote and protect it.  

Twenty-four states do indeed have an official outdoor rec office—and some people in the Show Me State are pondering whether Missouri should be the 25th. 

River City Outdoors, the St. Louis-based nonprofit, is not officially pursuing the idea, says deputy director Brad Kovach, but RCO devoted a session to the possibility at its recent Gateway Outdoors Summit. “It was a way to help educate people and motivate other stakeholders in that room to get involved,” Kovach says. “We think this is something that could definitely benefit the state.” 

The Republicans who control the capital evince little hunger to expand government. Neighboring states, however, have launched offices that didn’t do so—and still reaped a benefit.

Consider Tennessee. It created its office in August and now has 23 staffers, all of whom were either reassigned from other state agencies or hired after vacancies elsewhere were moved into the new unit. Says its director, Brian Clifford, “We didn’t ask for any new funding; we didn’t ask for any new people. And for a conservative government, that was music to their ears.” Instead, the state combined capabilities in one place to be more efficient. One of the office’s big initiatives is Tennessee Blueways, a network of water trails. Clifford says his group works directly on the ground with river communities to build access points, restore waterways, erect signage, and create branding, but it also coordinates various public and private actors. “Otherwise,” he says, “everyone would be doing their own thing, focused on their singular mission, and it either creates duplicative work or you’re stepping on toes.” 

That notion is echoed by Katherine Andrews, director of the Arkansas Office of Outdoor Recreation. “I’ve heard it likened to a symphony: Lots of instruments are being played but you need a maestro to help everyone play in sync, otherwise it would be a massive cluster of terrible noise.” Her position was created by the governor; her charge was to build the office from scratch by meeting with an advisory board and pursuing a strategic plan. Designating a single person to pull threads together and mobilize projects is one way to get started, Andrews says: “You don’t have to do it big right from the start.” Andrews now boasts a hefty list of things that she says her office has accomplished that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. These include streamlining outdoor grants and investments; facilitating recreation master plans across Arkansas; and assisting outdoor-rec companies to relocate to her state. 

During the Gateway Outdoors Summit session about how Missouri might set up its own office, Chris Perkins, vice president of programs at Outdoor Recreation Roundtable in Washington, D.C., suggested some next steps: 

• Build a bipartisan coalition
• Decide on the mission to be accomplished
• Find allies inside government
• Choose a path (legislation vs. executive order vs. budget process)
• Ask for help from already-existing state offices

Sometimes, Perkins pointed out, what really moves the needle with elected officials is high-profile enthusiasm; for example, a few weeks after Carhartt tweeted its endorsement of an office in Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer created one. 

In that sense, the views of Missouri’s governor-elect Mike Kehoe could prove pivotal here. Asked about them this week, his spokesperson, Gabby Picard, neither backed the idea nor took it off the table, stating: “Governor-Elect Kehoe has been a longtime supporter of promoting outdoor recreation and its impact on Missourians and the state’s economy. The outdoor recreation industry touches multiple departments across state government, and he will continue to look at ways to emphasize the importance of sustaining and growing the industry as governor.”

A month after the summit, any movement in Missouri is still nascent, but Kovach says he agrees with Perkins: Banding together would be the first step. “It can’t be done by just one person or group,” he says, “so our having a session on it at the summit was our way of saying, Hey guys, we need to get together to create this coalition.” 

Such a coalition is unlikely to agree on everything. Certainly, ATV riders will have a perspective that differs from that of hikers and mountain bikers. Clifford in Tennessee acknowledges the inherent conflicts in any outdoor-rec coalition but says that forcing different constituencies to talk can and does bear fruit. “You’d be surprised how often those people don’t even come to the table to have a discussion,” he says, “and when they do, they realize there’s a way for everyone to benefit.” 

In any event, Andrews suggests that given the sheer size of the industry even without dedicated government support, there’s reason to believe it has room to grow. “Big pharma, oil and gas—all these big sectors have had economic impact studies and lobbyists and mobilization for decades,” she says. “We’re just getting started.”