Haynes Boone Partner Randall Brown will serve as the vice chair of the Grand Canyon Conservancy’s (GCC) Board of Directors starting Jan. 1, 2024, following 20 years of membership and philanthropic support of with the GCC.
Brown has served on the Conservancy’s board since 2020 and will take on more leadership of projects in the park regarding climate change, historic building restoration and preservation, youth education, trail maintenance and improving park safety and relationships with the 11 indigenous tribes that call the 277-mile-long Grand Canyon home.
Federal officials and the GCC are working together to repair relationships with the tribes and bring them home. A cornerstone of that effort is the transformation of the Desert View Watchtower into an Inter-tribal Cultural Heritage Site, the first in the National Park Service. The site is an attempt to address the historic inequities Native Americans face through new pathways for cultural and economic opportunities.
“The Grand Canyon is not just a mesmerizing landscape. It is a living cultural site for the tribes who have called it home since time immemorial and is something we can’t truly understand,” Brown emphasized. “The Conservancy is committed to working alongside tribal partners to ensure their stories are told, their traditions are honored and their connection to the canyon is preserved.”
Along with improving the cultural legacy at the park, Brown says the Conservancy worked with the park to retrofit approximately 5,000 light fixtures to achieve International Dark Sky status. Recently, GCC approved funding for a bridge for safe access to Ribbon Falls, a sacred Zuni site. It also purchased two new ambulances, launched a LiDAR mapping project and bought a shade structure at the recently renamed Havasupai Gardens.
“The canyon is vast and constantly eroding, and last year was extremely rough on the trails especially at the North Rim,” Brown said. “We want to ensure we preserve not only the unseen spiritual aspects of the canyon but also its awe-inspiring beauty.”
Brown's leadership reinforces Haynes Boone's commitment to environmental responsibility and meaningful community engagement.
About Haynes Boone
Founded in 1970, Haynes and Boone, LLP provides a full spectrum of legal services across multiple sectors, including energy, financial services, private equity and technology. The firm’s nearly 700 lawyers practice in 19 offices in California, Colorado, Illinois, New York, North Carolina, Texas, Virginia and Washington, D.C., as well as London, Mexico City and Shanghai. Haynes Boone was recognized in the 2022 BTI Consulting Group’s A-Team report, which identified firms commended by in-house counsel for superior client service, and it was ranked 21st in The American Lawyer’s 2023 Diversity Scorecard, which evaluated 228 participating firms by the diversity of their attorney populations. For more information, visit haynesboone.com.
